Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 1/Section 12

SECTION XII.

The District of Mymunsing.

Population.—This district is intersected through its whole extent by the Brahmaputra and the innumerable streams flowing into it; and the surface of the country being low and flat it is during the height of the floods nearly submerged. In 1801, the total population was estimated at 1,300,000 persons, and the majority of the inhabitants are stated to be Mahomedans in the proportion of five to two Hindoos.

Schools.—Hamilton states that there are not any regular seminaries in this district for teaching the Mahomedan law, but that there are two or three schools in each pergunnah for instruction in Hindoo learning. The district is divided into nineteen pergunnahs and six tuppas, in all twenty-five local sub-divisions, which will give from 50 to 60 schools of Hindoo learning in the district. The scholars are taught gratuitously, it being deemed disgraceful to receive money for instruction.

Indigenous schools for learning imply the existence of indigenous elementary schools, but I find no mention of them in any authority to which I have referred.

The alleged non-existence of Mahomedan schools in a district in which the proportion of Mahomedans to Hindoos is as five to two is incredible.

I have not been able to discover that any institution of education that owes its origin to European philanthropy exists in this district.