The only language taught in the girls’ schools is Bengali. The books read are chiefly religious and the instruction Christian. They are also taught needle-work. The following is the distribution of the scholars into four grades of Bengali instruction:—
| (a) | Girls who read only | . . . | 112 |
| (b) | Girls„ who write on the ground | . . . | 2 |
| (c) | Girls„ who write„ on the palm-leaf | . . . | 57 |
| (d) | Girls„ who write„ on the plantain-leaf | . . . | 4 |
The only other institution in this district to be noticed is an infants’ school situated on the Church Mission premises in the neighbourhood of Burdwan. The children are about 15 in number of both sexes, partly Native Christian children and partly orphans. They are under the care of Miss Jones, lately arrived from England, and well acquainted with the modes of infant instruction in use there. The ear is chiefly taught, and the exercises are pronounced in recitative.
District of South Behar
In this district there is only one institution to be noticed under the present section. At Shahebgunge, the chief town of the district, a school in which English, Persian, and Arabic are taught has been established by Raja Mitrajit Singh of Tikari, and is superintended by his son Mirza Bahadur Khan. Two Maulavis and one English teacher are employed; and as they discharge their respective duties without any connection or communication with each other, I have preferred considering them as at the head of three separate institutions. The Raja has granted the use of a garden-house for the purposes of the school, but one of the Maulavis causes his pupils, six in number, to attend him at his own dwelling-house, and the other meets his, five in number, in one of the apartments of the garden-house. These two schools have already been enumerated amongst the Persian and Arabic schools in Section IX. The only other branch of the institution is the English school which assembles in the principal apartment of the garden-house and is conducted by Mr. Francis, an East Indian, who receives a salary of 40 rupees per month. The number of
