Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 3/Chapter 1/Section 6

Section VI.

General Remarks on the state of Vernacular Instruction.

It may be useful to bring under one view the principal conclusions deducible from the preceding details which include all the information I have collected respecting the state of education in the common schools of the country.

First.—The languages employed in the communication of vernacular instruction are, of course, chiefly Bengali in the Bengal, and Hindi in the Behar, districts. In Burdwan Bengali, and in South Behar Hindi, are exclusively used; but in Midnapore Ooriya is largely employed as well as Bengali; in the city of Moorshedabad and in the district of Beerbhoom Hindi is used to a very limited extent in addition to Bengali; and in some parts of Tirhoot Trihutiya in addition to Hindi prevails as the language of conversation, of verbal instruction, and of correspondence, but it is never employed as the language of literary composition.

Second.—Vernacular instruction prevails to a greater extent in the Bengal than in the Behar districts visited. Comparing the two districts of each province that have been most thoroughly investigated. South Behar and Tirhoot are found to contain 365 common schools, and Beerbhoom and Burdwan 1,041. In the latter the proportion of scholars in each school is also greater. In Tirhoot the proportion is 6·3 to each school, in South Behar 10·8, in Beerbhoom 15·4, and in Burdwan 20·9.

Third.—Both in Bengal and Behar the business of teaching common schools is chiefly in the hands of the Kayastha or writer caste. In the Bengal districts this hereditary privilege has been largely invaded by other castes both superior and inferior to the Kayastha, but still so as to leave the latter a decided majority in the class of vernacular teachers. In the Behar districts this privilege is enjoyed in nearly its pristine completeness. The following is a comparison of the number of Kayastha teachers with those of other castes

		Total teachers.	Writer-caste.	Other castes.
Moorshedabad	. . .	67	39	28
Beerbhoom	. . .	412	256	156
Burdwan	. . .	639	369	270
South Behar	. . .	285	278	7
Tirhoot	. . .	80	77	3

This is not an idle fact. It is one of the tests that may be applied to judge of the comparative integrity of native institutions and of the comparative condition of the people in different districts. Both the Bengal and Behar districts need an improved system of vernacular instruction; but the former appear to have undergone a social change, partaking of the nature of a moral and intellectual discipline, which removes prejudices still to be met, and provides facilities not yet to be found in the latter.

Fourth.—The reality of this social change in the one class of districts, and its absence in the other, become further apparent by a consideration of the castes by which vernacular instruction is chiefly sought. Hindu society on a large scale may be divided into three grades:—First, Brahmans who are prohibited by the laws of religion from engaging in worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is deemed the fit and indispensable preparation; second, those castes who, though inferior to Brahmans, are deemed worthy of association with them, or to whom the worldly employments requiring vernacular instruction are expressly assigned; and third, those castes who are so inferior as to be deemed unworthy both of association with Brahmans, and of those worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is the preparation. This would exclude the first and third grades from the benefits of such instruction, and in the Behar districts few of them do partake of it, while in the Bengal districts the proportion of both is considerable.

Fifth.—As another point of comparison, it is worthy of note that in each of the Bengal districts a greater or less number of the teachers bestow their instructions gratuitously, and even teachers who are paid instruct many scholars who pay nothing; while in the Behar districts I did not discover any instance in which instruction was given without compensation. The greater poverty of the people in Behar than in Bengal may, in part, explain this fact; but the principal reason probably is that the same religious merit and social consideration are not attached to learning, its possession and diffusion, in the former as in the latter province.

Sixth.—In the preceding details an attempt has been made to describe the various modes in which the teachers of common schools are remunerated, and to ascertain the mean rate payment in each district, reducing all the items to a monthly estimate. The mean rate is—

		Rs.	As.	P.
In the city and district of Moorshedabad	. . .	4	12	9
In the district of Beerbhoom	. . .	3	3	9
In the„ district„ of Burdwan	. . .	3	4	3
In the„ district„ of South Behar	. . .	2	0	10
In the„ district„ of Tirhoot	. . .	1	8	7

The returns on this subject are to be taken with some explanations. It is possible that some sources of regular profit to teachers, in themselves insignificant, but to them not unimportant, may have been overlooked; and occasional profits, such as presents from old scholars, are too fluctuating and uncertain to be known or estimated. Teachers, moreover, often add other occupations to that of giving instruction; and when a teacher does not have recourse to any other employment, his income from teaching is most frequently valued chiefly as his contribution to the means of subsistence possessed by the family to which he belongs, since by itself it would be insufficient for his support. When a teacher is wholly dependent upon his own resources, and those are limited to his income in that capacity, the rate of payment is invariably higher.

Seventh.—The mutual disposition of Hindus and Musalmans towards each other is not an unimportant element of society in this country, and it may be partly estimated by the state of vernacular instruction. In the Beerbhoom and Burdwan districts there are thirteen Musalman teachers of Bengali schools; in the South Behar and Tirhoot districts there is only one Musalman teacher of a Hindi school, and that one is found in South Behar. In the Beerbhoom and Burdwan districts there are 1,001 Musalman scholars in Bengali schools; and in the South Behar and Tirhoot districts 177 Musalman scholars in Hindi schools, of whom five only are found in Tirhoot. The Musalman teachers have Hindu as well as Musalman scholars; and the Hindu and Musalman scholars and the different castes of the former assemble in the same school-house, receive the same instructions from the same teacher, and join in the same plays and pastimes. The exception to this is found in Tirhoot, where there is not one Musalman teacher of a Hindi school and only five Musalman scholars in the schools of that class. As far as I could observe or learn, the feeling between those two divisions of the population is less amicable in this district than in any of the others I have visited.

Eighth.—The distribution of vernacular instruction amongst the different classes of native society, considered as commercial, as agricultural, or as belonging determinately to neither, may be approximately estimated by a reference to some of the preceding details. Commercial accounts only are chiefly acquired by the class of money-lenders and retail-traders, agricultural accounts only by the children of those families whose subsistence is exclusively drawn from the land, and both accounts by those who have no fixed prospects and who expect to gain their livelihood as writers, accountants, &c. The following table shows the number of schools in which each sort of accounts is taught separately, or both together

		Commercial accounts only	Agricultural accounts only.	Commercial and agricultural accounts.
Moorshedabad	. . .	7	14	46
Beerbhoom	. . .	36	47	328
Burdwan	. . .	2	5	609
South Behar	. . .	36	20	229
Tirhoot	. . .	4	8	68

This statement tends to show that vernacular instruction is chiefly sought by the class neither strictly commercial nor strictly agricultural, but it must be considered only an approximation to the truth, for it is evident that scholars who wish to acquire commercial accounts only, or agricultural accounts only, may attend a school in which both accounts are taught. Still if the demand for both accounts was not general, schools in which both are taught would not be so numerous.

Ninth.—Exclusive of native accounts taught in native schools, and Christian instruction communicated in Missionary schools, we have here some means of judging of the extent to which written works are employed in the former and of the nature of those works. The following table exhibits the number of schools in which native written works are, and the number in which they are not, employed:—

			Native schools in which written works are employed.	Native schools in which written works are not employed.
Moorshedabad	. . .	. . .	39	28
Beerbhoom	. . .	. . .	13	398
Burdwan	. . .	. . .	436	190
South Behar	. . .	. . .	2	283
Tirhoot	. . .	. . .	11	69

With regard to the nature of these works, the employment of the Amara Kosha, the Ashta Sabdi, Ashta Dhatu, Subda Subanta, and the verses of Chanakya as school-books in some of the vernacular schools of the Bengal districts indicates a higher grade of instruction than I had previously believed to exist in those schools. With the exception of the verses of Chanakya, the other works mentioned are grammatical, and their use is said to have been at one time general, which would imply that they are the remains of a former superior system of popular instruction preparatory, in the case of those who could follow it up, to the more enlarged course of learned study. The remaining works used in the common schools rank low as compositions, and consist, for the most part, of the praises and exploits of the gods recognized by the established religion of the country.

Most of the topics noticed under this section would admit of extended illustration, but I have preferred merely suggesting them to the reflection of the readers of this report.