Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/372

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state of education in bengal

her caste and became a Christian and two others expressed a wish to follow her example. The school was in consequence nearly broken up so that few except the daughters of native Christian parents remained. The Missionary Bengali school for boys about the same time from a similar cause met with a like fate; and the two schools much reduced in number were formed into one, classing the girls with boys of equal attainments. The boys’ department of the school has partially revived; but the girls’ division contains only the daughters of native Christian parents. They are eleven in number and their average age was 10·9 years. The teacher is a native Christian and he receives two annas for each child per month or Rs. 1-6 in all. The girls are taught to write words and figures, to read the catechism and commit it to memory, and to read the miracles and parables of Christ, together with a little arithmetic and geography. They are also taught to knit, to make bobbin and braid, and to sew.

District of Burdwan

There are three English schools in this district, one at Japat in the Culna thana, the second in the town of Burdwan, both under Missionary control; and the third also in the town of Burdwan but of native origin and under native management. The Missionaries of the Church Society the Rev. Messrs. Alexander and Weitbrecht respectively, established and superintend the two former, and the Baja of Burdwan established and supports the latter.

Each of the Missionary schools has one teacher, one a Musalman and the other an East Indian. The school of the Raja of Burdwan has two teachers, one a Brahman and the other a Kayastha. The following are the monthly salaries of the teachers:

East Indian . . . Rs. 80
Musalman . . . Rs. 20
Kayastha . . . Rs. 14
Brahman . . . Rs. 12

At Japat the place of Christian worship is used as a school-room; and the Missionary school at Burdwan has a very handsome school-room built at a cost of 2,500 Rupees contributed by the Raja of Burdwan and other benevolent persons. The Raja’s own school is conducted in one of the buildings attached to his residence in the town.