These facts are in the highest degree encouraging. In the single town of Hooghly there are as many boys receiving a good English education as the largest number of Sanskrit and Arabic students in any one of the districts reported on by Mr. Adam. In the other four districts, the Oriental students do not exceed the average number of English scholars in those districts, in which our means of instruction have been tolerably organised. At Calcutta, where there are at least 6,000 boys learning English, the preponderance must be overwhelming on the side of European literature. If such be the relative position of Eastern and Western learning in India [1], while the latter is yet in its infancy, how will it be when English education shall have approached its maturity?
Besides the 158 Arabic students, Mr. Adam found 3,496 youths learning Persian in the five districts examined by him. But, although Arabic and Persian literature is strictly Mahommedan,
- ↑ The number of persons who cultivate the learned Eastern languages, is certainly much smaller in the Western provinces than in Bengal or Behar. There may be a few more Arabic scholars in some of the principal towns; but Sanskrit is generally held in no esteem, and is very little attended to. Whole districts might be named in which it would be difficult to find an Arabic or Sanskrit student.
