Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/99

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state of education in bengal
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and Roman literature. When all three professors are present, the principal gives none but strictly theological lectures, i.e., on divinity, the critical study of the scriptures, with Hebrew and ecclesiastical history for the more advanced students. But in circumstances such as now exist when the junior professor is under the necessity of proceeding to England on account of his health, the principal further shares with the remaining professor the duty of giving classical and mathematical lectures. A maulavi and a munshi are employed to teach Hindustani; and sometimes, but more rarely, Persian and Arabic, viz., in those cases in which the future intercourse with Mahomedans may unite with the importance of the latter language to the critical knowledge of the Old Testament, to make that study desirable for any particular student. Three pundits are employed to teach Bengalee to the students destined for Bengal and the catechists and missionaries of the stations in the vicinity, as well as to teach Sanscrit to those whose advancement in other knowledge makes it important that they should possess this means of exploring Hindooism in its sources, which is the case with all the aboriginal Native students and also with those destined for the south of India. Means do not exist in the college of teaching the vernacular languages of the hitter classes of students, except by the occasional aid of some older students from Madras. The services of the native teachers are also available by the European professors for the other purposes for which the college was founded. On the subject of the instruction given to the students, the Native teachers report daily to the principal what they have done. The results form equally with the subjects of the European professors’ lectures matter for occasional examination in the college hall at which the visitor often presides.

The scholarships are sixteen in all, viz., four supported by the Incorporated Society, six Middleton scholarships, two Heber foreign theological scholarships, two Church Missionary Society scholarships, one Powers-court scholarship, and one Bombay Heber scholarship. Of the ten first mentioned, eight are now filled, and two are expected to be filled from Ceylon. The six Middleton scholarships are mostly filled by students destined for the south of India. Of the remaining scholarships, four are filled and two are vacant, viz., the Bombay Heber scholarship, the Nominee to which though expected is not yet arrived, and one