The Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct.-Dec. 1844)/State of Indigenous Education in Bengal and Behar
THE
CALCUTTA REVIEW.
VOL. II.—No. IV.
[Second Edition.]
Art. I.—1. Second Report on the state of Education in Bengal.—District of Rajsahi, 1836. Published by order of Government.
2. Third Report on the state of Education in Bengal and Behar, &c. 1838. By William Adam.[1] Published by order of Government.
Lord William Bentinck was no mere theorist or visionary;—he was pre-eminently a practical man. Neither was he a mere statesman, cold and calculating, who regarded the masses of mankind as so many brute forces, to be moved or checked, separated or combined, by the impulses of a vain-glorious ambition, or the dynamics of an ever-shifting political expediency;—he was in no ordinary degree a philanthropic man. Beneath a somewhat abrupt or even uncouth exterior of mannerism, apparently contracted amid his many rough experiences of human nature in some of its worst and most repulsive forms, there lay concealed a deep vein of ardent benevolence which ever sighed for a profitable outlet, and longed unceasingly for the general amelioration of the species. From the moment of his arrival in India as the Representative of British Majesty and the head of the most powerful empire in Asia, his leading and predominant maxim was, that the vast and glorious realm, temporarily subjected by an over-ruling Providence to his sway, ought to be governed for the good of the Native inhabitants—the indigenous people of the soil—and not for the promotion of class interests or the aggrandisement of foreign rulers. He was, accordingly, by constitutional temperament, cherished predilections, and carefully cultivated habits of life, a Reformer. But, like every wisely practical and philanthropic Reformer, he was singularly cautious, patient, and indefatigable in his inquiries, before the final concoction of any important measure. Hence his seemingly lethargic slowness in forming and maturing plans, his stern and summary decision in adopting them when fully matured, and his indomitable energy and inflexible determination in persevering in them when once adopted.
In corroboration of this statement we may very briefly advert to two or three of the leading acts of his official life:—
On entering on his Indian Government, one of the first subjects which arrested and engaged his attention was the atrocious rite of Sati, or that of burning widows alive. His own benevolent disposition strongly prompted him to seek for the means of its total abolition, while his sagacity led him to perceive, and his honest candour to acknowledge, that the subject was beset with difficulties of a very peculiar difficulties,—difficulties which had their root deep in the most stubborn and intractable of all soils—that of hereditary superstition and religious fanaticism. His first step, therefore, was to institute inquiry and invite information from all, whether Native or European, who were in any way willing or competent to bestow it. The progress of these multiplied inquiries he watched with a tremulous solicitude for the result, which those who knew him not would be loath to credit. Having at last made up his own mind, not merely as to the moral expediency, but as to the legislative practicability and political safety of the measure, he promulgated his celebrated prohibitory decree, amid a tempest of warnings, protests, and denunciations, on the part alike of bigoted natives and still more senselessly bigoted European officials, which might have well made any Ruler of less nerve and resolution of purpose to pause, or even abandon altogether the project in blank despair.
At an early period of his administration, his attention was specially directed towards the terrible fraternity of Thugs, whose fatal presence had for ages been everywhere mysteriously felt, though everywhere shrouded under the disguise of a companionable, hearty, peaceful citizenship;—the Thugs, or those bands of leagued felons, whose very profession is that of rapine and murder, and the bonds of whose confederacy are forged out of inviolable oaths and propitiatory offerings at the shrine of a sanguinary deity. With the keen insight of practical intuition, he perceived that forms of justice, which, in the case of a people civilized in their habits and regardful of truth, were mainly designed to throw the shield of protection over innocence, could only, in the case of such outlaws and desperadoes as the Thugs, serve the purpose of so many breached walls or shattered network for the sure escape of the guilty. His resolution, therefore, was promptly taken. The grand object aimed at, viz., the detection and suppression of the monstrous system of Thuggee, was an extraordinary one, and the means to be employed in compassing that end, if intended to be effective, must be extraordinary too. A Government Commissioner was accordingly appointed, armed with unshackled and all but dictatorial irresponsible powers,—exempt alike from the interposition of ordinary forms of law and the jurisdiction of ordinary Judges and Magistrates. The appointment was not long in justifying the administrative wisdom which suggested it. Sooner than any one dared venture to hazard a conjecture on the subject, was the veil of hitherto impenetrable secrecy completely lifted up, and a system of cold-blooded atrocity revealed in its varied details which filled all Christendom with astonishment and horror. And, under the energetic and persevering efforts of Col. Sleeman and his able assistants, was the axe of retributive justice and ultimate destruction effectually laid at the roots of this worse than Upas tree of Thuggeeism.
Taking a survey of the physical sufferings of a sorely stricken and oppressed people, the Governor-General was led to reflect how largely many of these sufferings must be aggravated by the nostrums, formulisms, and quackeries practised by swarms of native practitioners, or would-be-professors of the Hygeian art. He felt how great a temporal boon would be conferred by the rearing of a superior class of men, released from the medical cabalisms of decrepit Asia, and endowed with the enlightened science of manly Europe. But who, in these present days of realized plans and visible progress, can adequately estimate or comprehend the nature and amount of the difficulties that stood, like so many unscaleable bluff rocks, in the way? The prejudices of the natives were known to be great; and they were studiously magnified and pronounced to be insuperable. The touch of a dead body—though it were that of the nearest and dearest friend—at any time is pollution, involving heavy penalties in the way of ceremonial observances for its removal. But the touch of a dead body, which may have been the tenement of one of another caste, or of an unclean person of no caste at all—why, the very thought of such a thing was sure to lacerate the tenderest feelings of the native mind! But, great as were the real or supposed prejudices of the natives, the prejudices of the learned European Orientalists, relative to this point, were, if possible, still greater, because more elaborately unreasonable. With them it was a foregone conclusion. They had finally made up their minds on the subject. Under the transformative influences of these sunny climes, or the subtilizing effects of an antediluvian logic, or the magical spell of Orient manners, customs, and habits, they at length were reasoned, or seasoned, or magnetized into the thorough persuasion that the difficulties were not only presently insurmountable, but prospectively irremoveable. This, with them, became a practically and determinately settled point—a point as unalterable in its nature as a decree of fabled destiny, or a law of heathenish irreversible necessity. Nor had they their established dogmas with reference only to the matter and the mode of medical instruction; they had also their established dogma with reference to the media of instruction. With them, the Sanskrit and the Arabic—languages to the acquisition of which they had devoted the prime of their strength and the flower of their days—naturally and inevitably had charms—charms of a character altogether peculiar, resistless, and all-absorbing—filling the horizon of their lingual vision, and presenting allurements not to be paralleled in the world besides. Their favourite, and to them conclusive, theory accordingly was, that the improved learning of the West could by no possibility be effectually conveyed to the scholars of the East, except through Sanskrit and Arabic media. And from the high character and reputation of their authors, these became the current, the popular, and the fashionable sentiments and dogmas of the day—wielding an ascendency over public opinion, and exerting a monopolizing despotism over the master spirits alike of the academy and the palace. Hence the supercilious and contemptuous scorn, not unrelieved by occasional grimaces of compassion, at the plans and projects of the amiable and well-meaning but withal credulous and presumptuous enthusiasts, who pleaded for innovation in the matter, manner and media of instruction; and advocated not merely the desirableness but the practicability of change. Hence, too, the voluminous papers, pamphlets, and documents—the masses of learned ethnographic lumber—the whole piles of antiquarian and philological dotages, which were thrown up as ramparts around the Governor-General to hem him in, and shut him up to a forlorn conclusion. Poor Lord William! Had he been the man of little mind—the man of pigmy conceptions and dwarfish aims—the low self-seeking popularity-hunter which his relentless detractors would have us to believe, he must have shrunk back, like a defenceless fugitive from a hundred gun battery in full fire—glad, in the hope of escape, to run the risk of a few broken bones and a somewhat damaged honour. But, happily, Lord William was a man—a real man —a sturdy giant of a man,—a man, who could think for himself, aye, and act for himself,—a man, who could break through all the meshes ingeniously set to entangle him, and over-leap all the barriers assiduously raised to shut him in. Once more was his purpose formed. Under his instructions, a set of about fifty questions was prepared and despatched to all the leading advocates of the old and new systems, which may be compendiously denominated Orientalism and Anglicism. Brief, summary, decisive answers were returned by the latter; while the former sent in whole volumes of profound discussion to overwhelm or carry by main force the judgment of the Governor-General. But he was not to be so overcome. He calmly looked at this side and at that. With his practised, experienced eye, he soon pierced through and through the entire host of inflated pedantries and inveterate prejudices which had been marshalled in battle array against him. And, as with the club of Hercules, he speedily dashed them all away—there to lie in scattered fragments and relics, scarcely able articulately to point to the well nigh forgotten story of their once flourishing reign. The oriental Medical College—with its Sanskrit and Arabic phantasmagoria, and wooden, waxen, and other artificial anatomical substitutes—was torn up by the roots, like an old sapless oak before the blast of the north wind. And, in its stead, fresh with the dews of morning promise and buoyant with the spring of dawning hope, the present Medical College—the virtual canonization of Occidentalism in the calendar of Indian amelioration—started into being, rejoicing to enter on its glorious career of indefinite usefulness.
But Lord William’s attention was not directed merely to the immediate physical sufferings and wants of the people. His soul was deeply moved and affected at the spectacle of their intellectual and moral degradation. He saw that the administration of justice was corrupt, and the system of police one of revolting cruelty and oppression; and he fully acknowledged that these must be reformed. But he also had the perspicacity to see and to acknowledge that all remedial measures whatsoever, in these departments, must prove comparatively abortive without antecedent or concurrent measures for the intellectual and moral elevation of the people themselves. In short, his whole head and heart were eventually bent on the establishment of an improved and comprehensive system of national education. In order, however, to compass this great end, with any intelligible prospect of success, he felt, with his accustomed shrewdness and good sense, that the very first step must be, “to know, with all attainable accuracy, the present state of instruction in native institutions and in native society.” Again, then, was his resolution firmly taken. To accomplish this specific object, he determined that a Government Commissioner of Education should be duly chosen and appointed. And, in order still farther to ensure the services of a really fit agent for the execution of a task of so delicate, arduous, and responsible a nature, he resolved, with characteristic liberality, that the field of selection would not be limited to the existing services of Government, whether covenanted or uncovenanted. The choice ultimately fell on Mr. William Adam, a gentleman possessed of many rare endowments, natural and acquired, as well as of many special qualifications for the onerous task of Educational Commissioner,—who had originally come to this country as a Baptist Missionary, and who, after unhappily lapsing into the Socinian heresy and abandoning his mission, distinguished himself as the editor of a popular Calcutta Journal—the India Gazette.
In January 1835, Mr. Adam received his formal appointment from Lord William Bentinck’s Government, being placed by it under the orders of the General Committee of Public Instruction, “to conduct inquiries into the state of native education in Bengal only.” Subsequently, however, authority was received to extend these inquiries into the province of Behar. But where was he to commence his important labours? This was a point which admitted of an easy and speedy determination. When, about forty years ago, Dr. Francis Buchanan Hamilton entered on the statistical investigations which he undertook by the orders of Government, the route to be pursued by him was described in these terms:—“The Governor-General in Council is of opinion that these inquiries should commence in the district of Rangpur, and that from thence you should proceed to the westward through each district on the north side of the Ganges until you reach the western boundary of the Honourable Company’s provinces. You will then proceed towards the south and east until you have examined all the districts on the south side of the great river, and afterwards proceed to Dacca and the other districts towards the eastern frontier.” “In conformity,” says Mr. Adam, “with these instructions, Dr. Buchanan visited and examined the Bengal districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur, and Purniya; and when the route to be followed in the present inquiry came under consideration, it was proposed and sanctioned that the general course prescribed to Dr. Buchanan should be adopted—not retracing any of the ground already trodden by him, but beginning at the point in Bengal at which his labours appear to have been brought to a close. If his investigations had been prolonged, the district of Rajshahi, in pursuance of his instructions, would probably have received his earliest attention, and it has consequently formed the first subject of the present inquiry.”
The route and the starting point being thus determined, how was he to proceed with his investigations? As regarded his general course, was he, for example, to traverse the entire surface of every zillah or district, and personally to inspect and report on the state of education in every separate thana, or police subdivision—every distinct village or settlement in every thana—and every house, hamlet, hut, or building tenanted by a single family or an aggregate of families in every village? Or, was he to restrict his own personal inquiries to a thorough examination of the state of education in one of the thanas or subdivisions of each district which, with such checks, correctives, or qualifications as experience would naturally suggest, might be taken as a fair sample or specimen of the whole—not neglecting, at the same time, to ascertain the state of education generally in the other subdivisions? At first, Mr. Adam contemplated the practicability of the former, or more minute and comprehensive of these methods. But he tells us that, when he actually entered on the work, he found that “an adherence to the instructions he had received would render this impossible, or possible only with such a consumption of time and such a neglect of purposes of practical and immediate utility, as would tend to frustrate the object in view.” His instructions plainly stated, that “the general committee deemed it more important that the information obtained should be complete as far as it went, clear and specific in its details, and depending upon actual observation or undoubted authority, than that he should hurry over a large space in a short time, and be able to give only a crude and imperfect account of the state of education within that space; that, with a view to ulterior measures, it was just as necessary to know the extent of the ignorance that prevailed where education was wholly or almost wholly neglected, as to know the extent of the acquirements made where some attention was paid to it.” The soundness of these views Mr. Adam cordially admitted, but was not long in discovering that “to extend over every subdivision of every district throughout the country, the minute inquiry which they prescribed was not the work of one man or of one life, but of several devoting their whole lives to the duty.” His original purpose was accordingly abandoned; and, without attempting what it would be impossible to accomplish, he resolved to adopt the latter of the methods already indicated. In other words, he resolved to limit the more minute personal inquiries, to be conducted immediately by himself, to a single thana or police subdivision, purposely selected, on the joint recommendation of those natives and Europeans who appeared to be best acquainted with the localities, as that which promised to furnish the fairest average specimen of the educational condition of the whole district.The absolute necessity of such a resolution will farther fully appear, if the territorial extent of the districts and the multitudinousness of the population be distinctly kept in view. It is not unusual, for the sake of popular illustration, to compare our Bengal zillahs to counties in Great Britain, and our thanas to parishes. The analogy may be allowed, if care be taken that it do not mislead, either as to extent or numbers. With two or three overgrown exceptions, counties and parishes in Great Britain are vastly inferior in extent and numbers to zillahs and thanas in Bengal. The latter resemble more the provinces and counties of Ireland—the Departments and Arrondissements of France—the Provinz or Regierungs-bezirk and Kreis of Germany; the Arrondissements and the Kreis being again subdivided respectively into communes and gemeindes, the lowest administrative units in these several kingdoms, somewhat corresponding to parishes in Great Britain and Ireland. Properly speaking, then, we have no such minute and convenient administrative unit as a commune, a gemeinde, or a parish, in Bengal. We have only provinces and counties—departments and arrondissements. Look at the Zillah of Rajshahi, which was fixed on for the commencement of Mr. Adam’s operations. It contains a population of about 1,500,000—a million and a half—that is, a population larger than that of the whole of Scotland at the time of the Reformation, and considerably in excess of that of the entire Principality of Wales even now. The zillah is subdivided into thirteen thanas, of which Nattore, the one selected for Mr. Adam’s more minute personal inquiries, contains a population of 195,296, or nearly two hundred thousand—that is, a population greatly exceeding, with two or three exceptions, the aggregate of every county in Scotland. What, then, shall we say as to the whole of Bengal and Behar, with their twenty-six zillahs and thirty-six millions of people? One man fit to extend his minute personal inquiries into the educational wants and supplies of every single family therein? Impossible.
Mr. Adam’s plan, topographically considered, being settled, how was he next to proceed with the details or individual items of desiderated information? The great object wanted, was exactly to ascertain the nature and amount of existing indigenous instruction—the nature and amount of the means of imparting it—together with the actual distribution of the different kinds and means of instruction among the different tribes and classes of a diversified people, and the different localities of a singularly productive if not richly variegated soil. A task this of easy accomplishment in the eyes of the unreflecting, who never allow themselves to form definite conceptions because they lack the patience or the ability to penetrate into the inner nature or heart of things; satisfied with the vaguenesses of circling mists and clouds and semblances rather than the clear sunshine of heaven and the vividly outlined realities of truth. But a task this of most arduous accomplishment in the estimation of all thinking, meditative, practical men; satisfied only with those enduring substances that shall survive every change of fleeting form, and every variation of perishable accident. Happily Mr. Adam belonged to the latter class, who alone truly benefit their fellows—brightening the world with their discoveries, or enriching it with the mellowed fruits of their well-directed labours. He knew full well that, however single or simple any result may appear when fully realised, diverse and numerous may be the means and the instrumentalities that prepare the way for it. Single and simple in the symmetry of its general design, and the magnificence of its general effect, is the British cathedral of St. Paul’s. But who can reckon up in order the variety of rude materials, and scaffoldings, and locomotive and other physical forces which contributed towards the realisation of so stupendous a fabric? How simple are Kepler’s laws, and how briefly and summarily may they be axiomatically announced? Yet for their evolution under the plastic energy of the most inventive genius, nought less could have sufficed than the wondrously minute and complicated observations of Tycho Brahe, the noble Dane, perseveringly accumulated throughout a period of forty long years, in his astronomical palace of Urania: while the laws of Kepler and the amassed stores of Tycho Brahe were alike essential preparatives for the final generalization of Newton—the grandest and most sublime that has yet adorned the domains of science or rewarded the industry of disciplined intellect. So it is, in their several proportions and degrees, with every other notable result. In the present instance, it may be granted that a numerical statement of the proportion of instructed to uninstructed adults, and of children capable of receiving to children actually receiving instruction, would embody the sum and substance of the principal information sought for. But, in order to secure and guard the accuracy of such a statement, how many collateral, subordinate, and auxiliary details become indispensable? For example, suppose the number of the whole teachable or school-going population alone were required, and suppose the teachable or school-going age were assumed, as Mr. Adam, after full consideration and inquiry, did assume it, to be from 5 to 14 years, it soon became evident to him that “having to deal in this matter for the most part with uninstructed villagers, who, whatever their other virtues, are not remarkable for habits of accuracy and precision, they would be frequently apt to include under this (assumed) age, both adults above and children below it, unless he had stimulated and aided their attention by requiring separate and distinct statements of the number of persons above 14 and below 5.” In order, therefore, to ensure the strict accuracy of the information relative to the number of the juvenile population or children between 14 and 5 years of age, rigid inquiries, for the sake of comparison and correction, were instituted into the numbers of the infant and adult population, or persons below 5 and above 14. In like manner, for similar or other reasons, as well as in order to be enabled to present a full and finished portraiture of the complex subject of education generally, as respects the matter and manner of instruction, the lingual media of its communication, the qualifications and circumstances of the teachers, the facilities and advantages enjoyed by different classes and neighbourhoods, Mr. Adam resolved to inquire into and report on all manner of details, calculated in any way, directly or indirectly, to illumine or illustrate his leading design. He also wisely judged that the particularity and minuteness of the points of research constituted “an important guard against mistake and error on the part of the agents employed, since the multiplication of details is the multiplication of the means of comparison, and thereby of the means of checking oversight, culpable neglect, or intentional misrepresentation.”
With sound and sober views like these, the first object to which he directed his attention was the preparation of the forms in which he desired to embody the information to be collected; and in passing from district to district he continued to improve these, according as experience, reflection, or local circumstances suggested. His own account of the language and contents of these forms is as follows:—
“The language in which the forms were prepared was Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu, and the character respectively Bengali, Nagari, or Persian, determined in part by the prevailing language and character of the district where they were to be used, and in part by the attainments of the class of persons in each district who offered their services to me. In the Bengal districts Bengali was chiefly used, but in the city of Moorshedabad I found it necessary to have recourse partially to the Urdu language and Persian character. In South Behar I deemed it advisable to employ the Hindi language and the Nagari character, and in Tirhoot the Urdu language and the Persian character. I believe that in the latter districts I should have experienced fewer difficulties, if I had adopted both the Persian language and character; for those of my agents who were acquainted with Hindi only, although very steady and industrious, were peculiarly obtuse and unintelligent, and those who understood Persian were continually diverging into the use of that language in their weekly reports of work done, although this was contrary to my express injunctions. “The forms I prepared were adapted to ascertain, first, the state of school-instruction; and second, the state of domestic and adult instruction. For the former purpose a separate form was employed for each description of school—one for Bengali or Hindi schools, another for Sanskrit schools, a third for Persian and Arabic schools, &c.—each embracing, with modifications, the following details, viz. the name of the town or village in which the school was situated; the description of place employed as a school-house; the name, religion, caste, and age of the teacher; the sources and amount of his receipts; the extent of his instructions; the number of his scholars, present and absent; their religion and caste; the age at which each had entered school, his present age, the probable age at which he would leave school, and the progress he had made in the cause of instruction; and, finally, the books, if any, written by the teacher. To ascertain the state of domestic and adult instruction, another form was prepared, including the following particulars, viz., the number of families in each town or village; the name, religion, caste, and principal occupation of the head of each family; the number of persons in each family, male and female, above fourteen years of age; the number, male and female, between fourteen and five; and the number, male and female, before five; the number of families in each town or village giving domestic instruction to the children; and the number of children in each such family receiving domestic instruction; the number of persons of adult age in each family who had received a learned education; the number who, without having received a learned education, knew something more than mere reading and writing, whether Bengali or Hindi accounts, the Persian and the English language, or any two or more of these; the number who could merely read and. write; and the number who could barely decipher or write their own names.”
In order, however, to render the matter more palpable, not merely to the eye of the mind but to the very eye of sense, we print, on the two following pages, the three tabulated forms first employed by Mr. Adam, when he commenced his inquiries in the thana Nattore of the zillah Rajshahi. These forms were afterwards considerably enlarged and improved so as to embrace various other interesting particulars. We therefore add a fourth, exhibiting some of these additional particulars as detailed in the written report:— Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/317 Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/318 Armed with these ruled and tabulated forms, and fortified with perwannahs, or official orders addressed to the Darogha, or head police officer of the thana by the magistrate, requiring him to render every possible assistance, as also with perwannahs from the same authority addressed to Zemindars, Talukdars, &c., requesting similar assistance, Mr. Adam, accompanied by his Pandit, Maulavi, and other assistants, arrived at the thana Nattore. His first purpose, as already stated, was to visit every village in person and to ascertain its exact condition by actual inspection and inquiry in direct communication with the inhabitants. But, behold the effects of terror inspired by tyrannous and confederated oppression!—the shrinking timidity, the craven cowardice, the ever-wakeful instinctive suspicion!—all fearfully symptomatic of the intellectual, moral, and social paralysis that has smitten, benumbed, and utterly unmanned the entire bulk and body of the rural population of Bengal! At the very outset of his kindly-intentioned inquiries, Mr. Adam is unexpectedly arrested in his benevolent career. And why, or how? “The sudden appearance,” says he, “of a European in a village often inspired terror, which it was always difficult and sometimes impossible to subdue. The most influential or the best informed inhabitant was sometimes absent, and it required much labour to enable others to comprehend the object of my visit.” To obviate these inconveniences and thereby facilitate and expedite the inquiry, the first measure adopted was the employment of waqifkars, or agents of intelligence and local experience, whom he sent beforehand into the surrounding villages to explain to the inhabitants the nature and objects of the inquiry, and thus to prepare them for his arrival. This arrangement proved for the most part successful. To ensure still greater despatch in the execution of his task, it next occurred to him that his Pandit and Maulavi, “whom he had hitherto employed merely as assistants under his own eye, and the waqifkars, who had hitherto acted only as avant couriers, might be sent separately to different villages, with the necessary forms, to collect the information required. while he should exercise a general superintendence and control over their movements, and they should at fixed intervals report their proceedings to him.” During the absence of these agents, a regular correspondence was maintained with each person; and when difficulties arose, they were removed by advice or orders communicated by letter or by personal supervision, according to the nature of the case. When the waqifkars returned, their papers were minutely inspected; and if such discrepancies and inconsistencies were discovered as implied negligence, another person was sent to go over the same ground. When the returns made appeared satisfactory, a correct copy of them was made for record, and a full abstract of them prepared in English.
Having finished his inquiries in the thana Nattore, Mr. Adam next moved to the adjoining district of Moorshedabad, in which he fixed on the thana of Daulatbazar, applying to it the most improved mode of investigation to which he had attained in Rajshahi. His subsequent proceedings are thus described by himself:—
“The next district I visited was that of Beerbhoom, and there I adopted a modification of the plan of investigation, which spread the inquiry over a much wider surface in an equal period of time, and with equal security for accuracy of detail. In Rajshahi and Moorshedabad, with the sanction of the General Committee, I had limited my investigations to one Thana in each district; but it now occurred to me, that as I employed agents in that single Thana, under my own superintendence, in collecting information according to prescribed forms, this plan admitted of simultaneous extension to the other Thanas of the same district. Accordingly, having selected one Thana, as before, for special investigation, the results of which would fulfil the instructions I had received from the General Committee, I extended a more limited survey, by means of separate agents, over all the remaining Thanas. The difference was, that in the latter the inquiry was confined to the state of school-instruction; whereas in the selected Thana it embraced also the state of domestic and adult instruction. For the special and more minute investigation of the selected Thana, four, five, and sometimes six agents were employed; and for the more limited survey of the remaining Thanas, one agent to each was found sufficient. The result was highly satisfactory; for it enabled me to pronounce with confidence on the state of school-instruction, not in one Thana only, but throughout all the Thanas of a district. This extended and comprehensive course of investigation has been pursued in Beerbhoom and Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot. In the city of Moorshedabad the plan of investigation was made still more comprehensive; the special and minute inquiry into the state both of school-instruction and domestic and adult instruction having been extended to all the nineteen Thanas included within the city jurisdiction.”
In this manner, the state of native education in seven separate localities, or six districts and one principal city, was fully investigated. The time occupied in the actual business of local inquiry, and irrespective of various intervals devoted to other affairs, amounted to an aggregate period of fifteen or sixteen months. That the multifarious results of this searching inquiry are absolutely without error or defect, Mr. Adam himself does not presume to allege. But, considering the life and vigour which he infused into all his operations, and the unslumbering vigilance with which he superintended them down to the minutest items of detail; considering, too, the nature of his own official appointment, and the full equipment which he possessed of all the official means, appliances, and agencies necessary to render his inquiry at once extensive in its scope, and complete and accurate in its details,—it is not too much to say, that the returns must be regarded as the most perfect of the kind ever yet obtained in India, and, in general, worthy of the most assured and undoubting confidence. It was his earnest desire, as he himself tells us, to contribute “some facts illustrative of the moral and intellectual condition of a branch of the human family; and in the prosecution of this purpose he endeavoured to keep constantly present to his own mind, to the minds of his native assistants, and to the minds of all with whom he came into communication on the subject, the necessity of that rigid and undeviating adherence to accuracy of detail, which can alone give to alleged facts the sacred and salutary character of truth.”
We now proceed to furnish an epitome or abstract of the important information supplied in so authentic and trustworthy a form by Mr. Adam. And, in doing so, we shall find it convenient to adopt his own division of the subject into Elementary Education and Schools of Learning. First, then our business is with—
elementary education.
Public Schools.—Throughout all the zillahs or districts of Bengal and Behar, elementary education is divisible into two sorts, public and private, according as it is communicated in public schools or private families. We shall begin with the public schools, and consider these with reference successively to the following points, viz., the vernacular media of instruction; the school-houses; the teachers, their caste, means of support, qualifications, and age; the pupils or scholars, their class and caste, initiation, and period of attendance; the nature and amount of the instruction communicated; and the system of discipline.
1. The vernacular media of instruction. These are 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, Uriya is largely employed as well as Bengali. In the city of Moorshedabad and 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. And here we must specially note a very remarkable fact elicited by Mr. Adam. It is this,—that the Bengali is “the language of the Musalman as well as of the Hindu population;” and that, though “the Hindustani or Urdu is the current spoken language of the educated Musalmans of Bengal and Behar, it is never employed in the schools as the medium or instrument of written instruction. Bengali school-books are employed by the Hindus of Bengal, and Hindi school-books by the Hindus of Behar; but, although Urdu is more copious and expressive, more cultivated and refined than either, and possesses a richer and more comprehensive literature, Urdu school-books are wholly unknown. It is the language of conversation in the daily intercourse of life and in the business of the world, and it is the language also of oral instruction for the explanation of Persian and Arabic; but it is never taught or learned for its own sake or for what it contains. It is acquired in a written form only indirectly and at second-hand through the medium of the Persian, whose character it has adopted, and from which it has derived almost all its vocables; and it is employed as a written language chiefly in popular poetry and tales and in female correspondence, and often also in the pulpit.” Educated Musalmans, on the other hand, learn to speak and write the Bengali; and even several low castes of Hindus, occupying entire villages in various directions and amounting to several thousand individuals, whose ancestors three or four generations ago emigrated from the western provinces, have found it necessary to combine the use of Bengali with the Hindi, their mother-tongue. It thus appears that in the provinces of Bengal proper, the Bengali may justly be described as the universal language of vernacular instruction.
2. The School-Houses.—The school-house, where there happens to be one, is sometimes built at the expense of the teacher; sometimes at the expense of some comparatively wealthy person whose son attends school; sometimes by general subscription, the teacher contributing a little, the scholars aiding by their labour in bringing material from the jungle, and some benevolent person granting a donation of land, of money, or of materials. Such a house is always thatched; the walls consisting of mud, or of branches and leaves of the palm and sal tree interleaved. And of so humble a description is it, that, in addition to the personal labour of the pupils, it is erected at a cost averaging from rs. 1-4 to 10. But it must be specially noted, that, in the great majority of instances, there is no school-house at all; that is, there are no school-houses built for and exclusively appropriated to these vernacular schools. With some slight additions, taken from other parts of his report, the following is Mr. Adam’s account of the matter:—
“The apartments or buildings in which the scholars assemble would have been erected, and would continue to be applied to other purposes, if there were no schools. Some meet in the Chandi Mandop, which is of the nature of a chapel belonging to some one of the principal families in the village, and in which, besides the performance of religious worship on occasion of the great annual festivals, strangers also are sometimes lodged and entertained, and business transacted; others in the Boithakhana, an open hut principally intended as a place of recreation and of concourse for the consideration of any matters relating to the general interests of the village; others in the private dwelling of the chief supporter of the school; and others have no special place of meeting, unless it be the most vacant and protected spot in the neighbourhood of the master’s abode, such as the corner of a shop—the village temple, more particularly that consecrated to Yama, the judge of the departed, the Minos of Hinduism—an out-house of one of the parents—the portico of a mosque—the verandah of a house, or the shade of a tree. Some schools meet in the open air in the dry seasons of the year; and in the rainy season those boys, whose parents can afford it, erect each for himself a small shed of grass and leaves, open at the sides, and barely adequate at the top to cover one person from the rain. There are usually five or six such sheds, more or less, among all the boys; and those who have no protection, if it rain, must either disperse or remain exposed to the storm. It is evident that the general efficiency and regularity of school business, which are promoted by the adaptation of the school-room to the enjoyment of comfort by the scholars, to full inspection on the part of the teacher, and to easy communication on all sides, must here be in a great measure unknown.”
3. The teachers, their caste, means of support, qualifications, and age.—From time immemorial, the teaching of reading, writing, and accounts has been considered the proper duty of the Kayastha or writer caste, and a Brahman, Vaidya or a Kshetriya, is supposed to degrade himself in such occupation; while, on the other hand, any of the castes inferior to the Kayastha acquire by the same means increased respect. Now, it is true that both in Bengal and Behar the business of teaching common schools is left chiefly in the hands of the Kayasthas or writer caste. But it is true, at the same time, that in the Bengal districts, this hereditary privilege has been very 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; while in the Behar districts this privilege is enjoyed in nearly its pristine completeness. Take the districts of Beerbhoom for an example. There are four Musalman teachers and the remainder are Hindus. The following list exhibits the castes of the latter and the number of each:—
| Kayastha | . . . | 256 |
| Brahman | . . . | 86 |
| Sadgop | . . . | 12 |
| Vaishnava | . . . | 8 |
| Grandhabanik | . . . | 5 |
| Suvarnabanik | . . . | 5 |
| Bhatta | . . . | 4 |
| Baivarta | . . . | 4 |
| Mayra | . . . | 4 |
| Goala | . . . | 3 |
| Vaidya | . . . | 2 |
| Aguri | . . . | 2 |
| Yugi | . . . | 2 |
| Tanti | . . . | 2 |
| Kalu | . . . | 2 |
| Sunris | . . . | 2 |
| Suaranakar | . . . | 2 |
| Rajput | . . . | 1 |
| Napit | . . . | 1 |
| Barayi | . . . | 1 |
| Chhatri | . . . | 1 |
| Dhoba | . . . | 1 |
| Malo | . . . | 1 |
| Chandal | . . . | 1 |
| Moorshedabad, | total teachers | 67; | Writer caste | 39; | Other castes | 28 |
| Beerbhoom | total teachers„ | 412 | Writer caste„ | 256 | Other castes„ | 156 |
| Burdwan | total teachers„ | 639 | Writer caste„ | 369 | Other castes„ | 270 |
| South Behar | total teachers„ | 285 | Writer caste„ | 278 | Other castes„ | 7 |
| Tirhoot | total teachers„ | 80 | Writer caste„ | 77 | Other castes„ | 3 |
In the Bengal districts Mr. Adam ascertained that about twenty in all gave their instructions gratuitously, as they had other and independent means of support; in the Behar districts, not one. In some of the former instances, however, it appeared that, though no fixed payment was received, either in the form of monthly wages or of fees, presents were accepted at the periods of the great annual festivals and other occasions. Very nearly the whole of the teachers therefore earn their livelihood by teaching, being regularly paid for their professional services. Bearing in mind that presents, whether monthly, yearly, or occasionally, consist of rice, fish, salt, oil, vegetables, cooking utensils, tobacco, clothes, &c., the following enumeration will present at once to the eye a tabulated view of the exceedingly varied, or rather grotesquely diversified ways in which the teachers are remunerated. As a specimen, we select the case of Tirhoot. In that district the number of vernacular teachers is eighty, whose pedagogal labours are thus rewarded:—
| 1 | receives | monthly | wages only | Rs. | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| 3 | ditto | ditto | fees only | Rs.„ | 0 | 14 | 0 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | subsistence-money only | Rs.„ | 1 | 4 | 9 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | monthly wages and uncooked food | Rs.„ | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | wages and subsistence-money | Rs.„ | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | ditto | ditto | fees and subsistence-money | Rs.„ | 9 | 2 | 6 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | fees and weekly presents | Rs.„ | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| 9 | ditto | ditto | fees and annual presents | Rs.„ | 9 | 10 | 6 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | weekly presents and annual presents | Rs.„ | 2 | 11 | 9 |
| 2 | ditto | ditto | monthly wages, uncooked food, and subsistence-money | Rs.„ | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| 3 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, and subsistence-money | Rs.„ | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| 4 | ditto | ditto | fees, subsistence-money, and weekly presents | Rs.„ | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | wages, subsistence-money, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 11 | ditto | ditto | fees, subsistence-money, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 30 | 3 | 3 |
| 7 | receive | monthly | fees, weekly presents, and annual presents | Rs. | 4 | 3 | 9 |
| 12 | ditto | ditto | wages, uncooked food, subsistence-money, and weekly presents | Rs.„ | 21 | 10 | 6 |
| 5 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, subsistence-money, and weekly presents | Rs.„ | 8 | 6 | 6 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, subsistence-money, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 0 | 13 | 6 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, weekly presents, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| 1 | ditto | ditto | wages, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| 4 | ditto | ditto | fees, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 7 | 10 | 3 |
| 3 | ditto | ditto | fees, uncooked food, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents | Rs.„ | 4 | 13 | 6 |
Thus eighty teachers receive in all rs. 123-4-3, which averages to each teacher rs. 1-8-7. The mean rate of payment in each district, reducing all the items to a monthly estimate, is as follows:—
| The City and District of | Moorshedabad | Rs. | 4 | 12 | 9 |
| District of | Beerbhoom | Rs.„ | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| District of | Burdwan | Rs.„ | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| District of | South Behar | Rs.„ | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| District of | Tirhoot | Rs.„ | 1 | 8 | 7 |
To all the vernacular teachers of Bengal and Behar, this affords an average monthly professional income of rs. 2-15-7! not above one-half of what is usually given in Calcutta to the lowest menials or domestic servants! It may well excite surprise how, at such a low and disproportionate rate of remuneration, even in this highly favoured clime, any human being, pretending to the character of teacher, can manage to subsist or maintain habits of external common decency. On this subject Mr. Adam subjoins the following 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.”
The details already given abundantly show by what pinched and stinted contributions the class just below the wealthy, and the class just above the indigent, unite to support a school; and it constitutes a proof of the very limited means of those who are anxious to give a Bengali education to their children, and of the sacrifices which they make to accomplish the object. But, for emoluments so lean and so meagre, what qualifications can the teachers be expected to present? If it be an universal law that the price of a commodity may fairly be allowed to determine its intrinsic or relative or conventional value, what can be the value, intrinsically, relatively, or conventionally, of qualifications everywhere estimated and hired at a rate so low as those of the vernacular schoolmaster of Bengal and Behar? Accordingly, it is the fact, that, however low the emoluments in question are, in comparison with those to which competent men might be justly considered entitled, they can scarcely be said to be lower than the paideutic qualifications or marketable commodity of which they may be regarded as the pecuniary equivalent. The following is the result of Mr. Adam’s extended observation on the subject:—
“The teachers consist both of young and middle aged men, for the most part simple minded, but poor and ignorant, and therefore having recourse to an occupation which is suitable both to their expectations and attainments, and on which they reflect as little honour as they derive emolument from it. They do not understand the importance of the task they have undertaken. They do not appear to have made it even a subject of thought. They do not appreciate the great influence which they might exert over the minds of their pupils, and they consequently neglect the highest duties which their situation would impose if they were better acquainted with their powers and obligations. At present they produce chiefly a mechanical effect upon the intellect of their pupils, which is worked upon and chiselled out, and that in a very rough style, but which remains nearly passive in their hands, and is seldom taught or encouraged to put forth its self-acting and self-judging capacities. As to any moral influence of the teachers over the pupils—any attempt to form the sentiments and habits, and to control and guide the passions and emotions—such a notion never enters into their conceptions, and the formation of the moral character of the young is, consequently, wholly left to the influence of the casual associations amidst which they are placed, without any endeavour to modify or direct them. Any measures that may be adopted to improve education in this country will be greatly inadequate if they are not directed to increase the attainments of the teachers, and to elevate and extend their views of the duties belonging to their vocation.”
It may, last of all, be stated, that, the average age of all the teachers throughout Bengal and Behar is 38.
4. The scholars; their class and caste, initiation and period of attendance.—It is at once interesting and important to learn what classes and castes of the Native community aspire to confer the benefits of a scholastic education on their children. Apart from certain wild mountain tribes, which are usually regarded as a remnant of the aborigines of the soil, but which numerically constitute but an infinitesimal fraction of the dense mass of native inhabitants, the vast body or bulk of the people naturally divides itself into the two great classes of Muhammadans and Hindus. And the first question is, which of these two classes furnishes proportionally the largest number of pupils? Or, which of them possesses the larger comparative degree of cultivation?
In order to settle this point, with any degree of satisfaction, it is clear that we must ascertain the relative proportions of the Musalman and Hindu population. And this is the more necessary, as hitherto the most erroneous impressions have prevailed on the subject. Indeed, it may with truth be affirmed, that ignorance of India, its affairs and people, has heretofore been the rule, and accurate or even approximately accurate information, the exception. Of this a singular instance has been irrefragably established by Mr. Adam. Before visiting Rajshahi, he had been led to suppose that it was “a peculiarly Hindu district.” Hamilton, on official authority, states the proportion to be that of two Hindus to one Musalman; and the statement has been transferred, without question, into the various publications of the day. Now Mr. Adam ascertained, with a precision that defies all challenge, that in the selected or model Thana of Nattore, the proportion was exactly reversed—there being actually two Musalmans to one Hindu! In other five thanas he found the proportion of Musalmans to Hindus to be somewhat larger than even in Nattore; while in other four, it was still more in excess of the latter, amounting to not less than three Musalmans to one Hindu. Thus the aggregate average of the entire district or Zillah is that of seven Musalmans to three Hindus, or considerably more than two to one. How an impression so very contrary to the truth could have gained ground among the European functionaries Mr. Adam thus endeavours to explain:—
“The Hindus, with exceptions of course, are the principal zemindars, talookdars, public officers, men of learning, money-lenders, traders, shopkeepers, &c., engaging in the most active pursuits of life, and coming directly and frequently under the notice of the rulers of the country, while the Musalmans, with exceptions also, form a very large majority of the cultivators of the ground and of day labourers, and others engage in the very humblest forms of mechanical skill, and of buying and selling, as tailors, turban makers, makers of huqqa-snakes, dyers, wood-polishers, oil-sellers, sellers of vegetables, fish, &c., in few instances attracting the attention of those who do not mix much with the humbler classes of the people, or make special inquiry into their occupations and circumstances.”
Elsewhere, as the general result of the whole of his researches, he speaks of “the greater degradation and ignorance of the lower classes of Musalmans when compared with the corresponding classes of the Hindu population, as a simple, undeniable, matter of fact.”
Let us now present, at one view, the proportions of the Musalman and Hindu population in all the districts investigated by Mr. Adam:—
| Thana Nattore, Rajshahi, Hindus to Musalmans as | 50 | to | 100 |
| City of Moorshedabad | 100 | to | 48 |
| Thana Dowlatbazar ditto | 100 | to | 86 |
| Thana Nanglia, Beerbhoom | 100 | to | 712 |
| Thana Culna, Burdwan | 100 | to | 23 |
| Thana Jehanabad, South Behar | 100 | to | 17 |
| Thana Bhawara, Tirhoot | 100 | to | 912 |
If these Thanas be taken as fair average specimens of their respective districts or Zillahs; and these districts or Zillahs fair average specimens of the rest of Bengal, this would give an average for all Bengal, in the proportion of 100 Hindus to 43 Musalmans, or considerably more than 2, or less than 3 to 1. Even this gives a vastly larger aggregate of Musalman population than has been ordinarily imagined or believed; as nothing is more common in ordinary converse and popular writings than the round assertion that the Hindu exceeds the Musalman population in the proportion of 10 to 1. But our chief concern is with the relative amount of scholastic culture possessed by these two great classes respectively. And one may at once say, that all the best authenticated facts go to prove that it is in favour of the Hindus. Thus in Nattore, Rajshahi, while the proportion of Musalmans to Hindus is that of two to one, the proportion of Musalman to Hindu children receiving domestic instruction is rather less than one to four. In all the other districts there is a somewhat similar or rather greater disproportion in favour of the Hindus against the Musalmans. Let the eye be simply directed to the above table of the proportions of the Hindu and Musalman population, and compare the different items successively with the following statements of the relative numbers of Hindu and Musalman children in the elementary vernacular schools:—
| The City and District of Moorshedabad, | Hindu scholars, | 998; | Musalman, | 82 |
| District of Beerbhoom, | Hindu scholars,„ | 6,125 | Musalman,„ | 232 |
| District of Burdwan, | Hindu scholars,„ | 12,408 | Musalman,„ | 769 |
| District of South Behar, | Hindu scholars,„ | 2,918 | Musalman,„ | 172 |
| District of Tirhoot, | Hindu scholars,„ | 502 | Musalman,„ | 5 |
It next becomes a matter of peculiar interest and importance to inquire in what castes or classes of Hindu Society vernacular education is chiefly found, and in what classes it becomes increasingly deficient. The following enumeration of the castes of the Hindu scholars and of the number belonging to each, in the city and District of Moorshedabad, may, with certain unimportant variations, be viewed as an average specimen of other Districts:—
| Brahman | . . . | 181 |
| Kayastha | . . . | 129 |
| Kaivarta | . . . | 96 |
| Gandhabanik | . . . | 59 |
| Tanti | . . . | 56 |
| Sunri | . . . | 39 |
| Teli | . . . | 36 |
| Mayrà | . . . | 29 |
| Kshetriya | . . . | 26 |
| Tamli | . . . | 22 |
| Goala | . . . | 19 |
| Mala | . . . | 16 |
| Napit | . . . | 15 |
| Vaidya | . . . | 14 |
| Sutar | . . . | 13 |
| Osawal | . . . | 12 |
| Swarnakar | . . . | 11 |
| Yugi | . . . | 10 |
| Chhatri | . . . | 9 |
| Kamar | . . . | 9 |
| Kumar | . . . | 8 |
| Rajput | . . . | 7 |
| Kansyabanik | . . . | 7 |
| Tili | . . . | 6 |
| Aguri | . . . | 5 |
| Luniar | . . . | 5 |
| Halwaikar | . . . | 4 |
| Barayi | . . . | 4 |
| Mali | . . . | 4 |
| Daibajna | . . . | 4 |
| Chandal | . . . | 4 |
| Gaurbanik | . . . | 4 |
| Kandu | . . . | 4 |
| Kalawar | . . . | 3 |
| Kayali | . . . | 3 |
| Sadgop | . . . | 2 |
| Kahar | . . . | 2 |
| Jalia | . . . | 2 |
| Lahari | . . . | 2 |
| Bagdhi | . . . | 2 |
| Vaisya | . . . | 1 |
| Bagdhi | . . . | 1 |
| Kalu | . . . | 1 |
| Pashi | . . . | 1 |
| Gareri | . . . | 1 |
| Dhoba | . . . | 1 |
| Kairi | . . . | 1 |
| Muchi | . . . | 1 |
In three of the districts surveyed by Mr. Adam, the number of Brahman scholars greatly preponderates; in two of them, the Kayasthas stand next, and in a third, nearly so; while in South Behar there are three castes, and in Tirhoot not fewer than seven castes, each yielding a greater number of scholars than the Brahman caste, to which they are so greatly inferior in social estimation. And here Mr. Adam supplies us with a profound, if not original, reflection, when he suggests, that a consideration of the castes by which vernacular instruction is chiefly sought, not merely indicates the manner of its distribution among them, but also furnishes “one of the tests that may be supplied to judge of the integrity of native institutions and of the comparative condition of the people in different districts.” Respecting the division of Hindu Society, Mr. Adam thus writes:—
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 employment, 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 benefit 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.”
From this statement several conclusions may be deduced, like so many natural corollaries. The fact already established, that so many of the first grade, or Brahmanical, particularly in Bengal, seek for vernacular instruction, in order to enable them to engage in worldly employments prohibited to their caste, incontestibly indicates the commencement of a real social change. The fact, on the other hand, that so many persons of the third grade seem to be almost imperceptibly acquiring a sense of the value of that humble instruction which is within their reach, is also a clear indication of incipient change. Thus writes Mr. Adam:—
“The time is not distant when it would have been considered contrary to all the maxims of Hindu civilization that individuals of the Malo, Chandal, Kahar, Jalia, Lahari, Bagdhi, Dhoba, and Muchi castes should learn to read, write, and keep accounts; and if some aged and venerable Brahman, who has passed his life removed from European contamination, were told that these low castes are now raising their aspirations so high, he would deplore it as one of the many proofs of the gross and increasing degeneracy of the age. The encroachment of these castes on the outskirts of learning is a spontaneous movement in native society, the effect of a strong foreign rule, unshackled by native usages and prejudices, and protecting all in the enjoyment of equal rights.
But while we cannot but hail the slightest indication of a change for the better, or the faintest tangible proof that the barrier of supposed insuperability has been in any way trenched upon, by the spontaneous self-elevating efforts of any members of any castes, that were not only on religious grounds excluded from association with the Brahmans, but, according to former custom and usage, were generally deemed unworthy—and what is more, were really as undesirous as they were deemed unworthy, of participating in the advantages of literary instruction even in its humblest forms; we must not forget that the number supplied by these low castes—being only one, two, three, or four—must be practically as next to nothing, while there are many castes that do not supply even one.
Respecting the age and mode of scholastic instruction, Mr. Adam thus writes:—
“It is expressly prescribed by the authorities of Hindu law, that children should be initiated in writing and reading in their fifth year, or if this should have been neglected, then in the seventh, ninth, or any subsequent year, being an odd number. Certain months of the year, and certain days of the month and week, are also prescribed as propitious to such a purpose, and on the day fixed, a religious service is performed in the family by the family priest, consisting principally of the worship of Saraswati, the goddess of learning, after which, the hand of the child is guided by the priest to form the letters of the alphabet, and he is also then taught, for the first time, to pronounce them. This ceremony is not of indispensable obligation on Hindus, and is performed only by those parents who possess the means and intention of giving their children more extended instruction. It is strictly the commencement of the child’s school-education, and in some parts of the country he is almost immediately sent to school.”
It remains only farther to state, in connection with this subject, that as there is a specific routine of instruction, the age of leaving school must depend upon the age of commencement; and that the average age of the scholars for all the districts, when they enter school, is from 5 to 6 years; and the average age when they usually leave school, from 13 to 16 years. Hence, the whole period spent at school varies from 5 to 10 years,—“an enormous consumption of time,” as Mr. Adam truly remarks, “specially at the more advanced ages, considering the nature and amount of the instruction communicated.”
5. The nature and amount of the instruction communicated.—There are in general four stages or gradations in the course of instruction, indicated by the nature of the materials employed for writing on, viz. the ground, the palm-leaf, the plantain-leaf, and paper. The following is the lucid sketch which Mr. Adam supplies of a complete course of Bengali vernacular instruction:—
Such, according to Mr. Adam, is the sketch of a completed course of Bengali instruction; but he distinctly cautions us, that it “must be regarded rather as what it is intended to be, than what it is;” for “most of the schoolmasters whom he met were unqualified to give all the instructions here described, although he has thus placed the amount of their pretensions on record.” All, however, he adds, “do not even pretend to teach the whole of what is here enumerated; some professing to limit themselves to agricultural, and others to include commercial accounts; while the most of them appeared to have a very superficial acquaintance with both.”“The first period seldom exceeds ten days, which are employed in teaching the young scholars to form the letters of the alphabet on the ground with a small stick or slip of bamboo. The sand-board is not used in this district,[2]probably to save expense. The second period, extending from two and a half to four years, according to the capacity of the scholar, is distinguished by the use of the palm-leaf, as the material on which writing is performed. Hitherto the mere form and sound of the letters have been taught, without regard to their size and relative proportion; but the master, with an iron style, now writes on the palm-leaf letters of a determinate size, and in due proportion to each other, and the scholar is required to trace them on the same leaf with a reed-pen and with charcoal-ink, which easily rubs out. This process is repeated over and over again on the same leaf, until the scholar no longer requires the use of the copy to guide him in the formation of the letters of a fit size and proportion, and he is consequently next made to write them on another leaf which has no copy to direct him. He is afterwards exercised in writing and pronouncing the compound consonants, the syllables formed by the junction of vowels with consonants, and the most common names of persons. In other parts of the country, the names of castes, rivers, mountains, &c. are written, as well as of persons; but here the names of persons only are employed as a school-exercise. The scholar is then taught to write and read, and by frequent repetition he commits to memory the Cowrie Table, the Numeration Table as far as one hundred, the Katha Table (a land-measure table), and the Seer Table (a dry-measure table). There are other tables in use elsewhere, which are not taught in the schools of this district. The third stage of instruction extends from two to three years, which are employed in writing on the plantain-leaf. In some districts the tables just mentioned are postponed to this stage, but in this district they are included in the exercises of the second stage. The first exercise taught on the plantain-leaf is to initiate the scholar into the simplest form of letter-writing, to instruct him to connect words in a composition with each other, and to distinguish the written from the spoken forms of Bengali vocables. The written forms are often abbreviated in speech, by the omission of a vowel or a consonant, or by the running of two syllables into one; and the scholar is taught to use in writing the full, not the abbreviated form. The correct orthography of words of Sanskrit origin, which abound in the language of the people, is beyond the reach of the ordinary class of teachers. About the same time the scholar is taught the rules of arithmetic, beginning with addition and subtraction; but multiplication and division are not taught as separate rules, all the arithmetical processes hereafter mentioned being effected by addition and subtraction, with the aid of a multiplication-table which extends to the number of 20, and which is repeated aloud once every morning by the whole school, and is thus acquired, not as a separate task by each boy, but by the mere force of joint repetition and mutual imitation. After addition and subtraction, the arithmetical rules taught divide themselves into two classes, agricultural and commercial; in one or both of which instruction is given, more or less fully, according to the capacity of the teacher and the wishes of the parents. The rules, applied to agricultural accounts, explain the forms of keeping debt and credit accounts; the calculation of the value of daily or monthly labour, at a given monthly or annual rate; the calculation of the area of land, whose sides measure a given number of kathas or bighas; the description of the boundaries of land, and the determination of its length, breadth, and contents; and the form of revenue-accounts for a given quantity of land. There are numerous other forms of agricultural account, but no others appear to be taught in the schools of this district. The rules of commercial accounts explain the mode of calculating the value of a given number of seers, at a given price per maund; the price of a given number of quarters and chataks, at a given price per seer; the price of a tola, at a given rate per chatak; the number of cowries in a given number of annas, at a given number of cowries per rupee; the interest of money, and the discount chargeable on the exchange of the inferior sorts of rupees. There are other forms of commercial account also in common use, but these are not taught in the schools. The fourth and last stage of instruction generally includes a period of two years—often less, and seldom more. The accounts briefly and superficially taught in the preceding stage, are now taught more thoroughly, and at greater length; and this is accompanied by the composition in business letters, petitions, grants, leases, acceptances, notes of bond, &c., together with the forms of address belonging to the different grades of rank and station. When the scholars have written on paper about a year, they are considered qualified to engage in the unassisted perusal of Bengali works, and they often read at home such productions as the translation of the Ramayana, Manasa, Mangal, &c. &c.”[3]
In estimating the nature and amount of the instruction received, Mr. Adam very properly directs special attention to the fact, that “the use of printed books in the native language appears hitherto to have been almost wholly unknown.” Yea, scarcely one even of the schoolmasters “ had ever before seen a printed book; those which he presented to them from the Calcutta School-book Society being viewed more as curiosities than as instruments of knowledge.” And not only are printed books not used in these schools, but in many whole thanas even manuscript text-books are unknown; and in all the districts, except Moorshedabad and Burdwan, the number of schools in which written works are not employed vastly exceeds the number in which they are employed. Thus, in Beerbhoom, the number of the former is 398, and of the latter only 13; in South Behar, of the latter 283, and of the former only 2. How, then, it may be asked, in the latter description of schools, is the business of education conducted? Why, simply thus:—All that the scholars learn is acquired from the oral dictation of the master. What is so acquired is firmly lodged in the memory, by dint of incessant repetition, without any understanding for a long time of what meaning the sounds, so imitated and repeated, convey. Or, at other times, it may, from oral dictation, be committed to writing.
But the point of chiefest importance is that which concerns the subject-matter of what is taught, whether orally, or by the aid of manuscript text-books. What constitutes the staple or substance of the intellectual, moral, and religious provision which is supplied to the opening minds of ingenuous Hindu youth? As regards the use of particular pieces or compositions, there is considerable variety; some being employed in one locality, and others in another,—one or two only being found in some schools, and a larger number in others. But, as regards their general and essential character, there is a distressing samenesss—a terrible uniformity. Apart from the rhyming arithmetical rules of Subhankar—a writer whose name is as familiar in Bengal as Cocker in England, without any one knowing who or what he was, or when or where he lived—these scholastic compositions and text-books consist of translated extracts of wild and extravagant legends from the Purans and other shastras, more particularly works describing the adventures and loves of Radha and the incarnate god Krishna, together with the boyish amusements of the latter,—such as his boating pleasures on the Jumna, in the neighbourhood of Brindavan, and the tricks which he played the milkmen with his youthful companions. There are also hymns or songs without number in praise of the goddess Durga, and other popular divinities. But the works or pieces that are best known, and in most general use, throughout the country, appear to be the following:—The Chanakya, a series of slokes or brief sententious sayings in the proverbial style, avowedly in praise of learning and precepts of morality; the Ganga Bandana, describing the virtues of the river goddess; the Saraswati Bandana, or “Salutation to the Goddess of Learning,” which is committed to memory by frequent repetitions, and is daily recited by the scholars in a body before they leave school, all kneeling with their heads bent to the ground, and following a leader or monitor in the pronunciation of the successive times or couplets; the Guru Bandana, a doggrel composition, containing an expression of the respect and devotion due from the scholar to his teacher; the Guru Dakhina, another doggrel composition, which, in glowing terms, describes the fee or reward which Krishna and his brother Balarama gave to their teacher, after having finished their education, and which is constantly sung by the elder boys of a school from house to house, to elicit donations for their master; and lastly, the Data Karna, illustrating the beneficence and hospitality of Karna, the prime-minister of Duryodhana, and the Hatim Tai of India.
But no mere general description can convey the remotest conception of the genuine nature and character of these almost universally current school compositions. Mr. Adam, in his report, furnishes no particulars. But having, through the kindness of some educated native friends,[4] got possession of authentic copies of the originals of most of them, accompanied with literal translations in English, we feel tempted to do what alone can convey any adequate impression, and that is, to supply a few specimens. Of these, by far the most respectable is the Chanakya, which does contain many passages that are negatively unexceptionable, and a few that are positively good. But even its best parts can scarcely be said to rise beyond the inculcation of a secular sort of prudence, and never ascend, even in incidental allusion, into the lofty region of pure and godlike morality—the morality of essential truth, inflexible rectitude, unspotted holiness, and disinterested love. On the other hand, the work constantly descends into dead levels and depths far beneath the platform of a worldly-wise and enlightened prudence. The spirit of enmity, revenge, selfishnesss, covetousness, and carnal indulgence seems not sanctioned merely but positively inculcated. We quote a few slokes, as specimens:—
“A man should be kind and liberal to some enemy that he may, by his assistance, be able to kill another; as he would pick out the thorn sticking in his feet by means of another thorn.
“In the time of adversity it is proper to accumulate wealth, which, however, might be expended for the protection of your wife; but you should always preserve your personal welfare even at the sacrifice of your wife or wealth.
“A wife is requisite for the purpose of having a son, a son is requisite for the purpose of offering funeral cakes, a friend is requisite for assistance in time of need, but wealth is requisite for all purposes.
“Possessing plenty of eatables, a good appetite, the power of sexual intercourse, a handsome wife, a liberal heart, and property, are the sure indications of the meritorious actions of man in his former life.
“Fresh meat, soft rice newly prepared, cohabitation with young women, fresh clarified butter, warm milk and tepid water, are the six things which are beneficial to life.”
We may next notice the Ganga Bandana, or hymn in praise of the Ganges, as a genuine specimen of that description of popular scholastic composition. As it is short, we shall give it entire—leaving it to the reader to infer the state of mind that can believingly entertain the sentiments expressed in it, and joyfully and triumphantly give them utterance. It is as follows:—
“O (Ganga) the river of the Gods, whom the Purans declare to be the sacrificer of the fallen, and the most ancient, to thee I pay my reverential bow. Thou art sprung from the foot of Vishnu, art called Drabamahi (fully dissolved), and art alike the mother of the gods, giants, and men. Thou didst reside in the drinking pot of Brahma, and wast with him, sanctifying his whole region by thy presence. But observing the wickedness of living creatures, and intending to destroy their fears of death, thou goddess of the gods, hast come down to this world. Bhagiratha, a descendant of the solar race first showing thee the way, conducted thee to this earth below. The most sinful and misbehaved, merely by touching thy waters, ascend up to heaven with their corporeal frame entire. Thy waters are perfectly pure, and the fruits of drinking them are so various, that even Brahma and Vishnu could not describe them. Who can speak of thy glory, since Shulapani (the spear-handed Shiva), holding thee on his head, thought himself dignified. If rice, herbs, &c., be dressed in thy water, the gods would take the same, considering them as a rarity. That boiled rice also becomes full of Ambrosia,—and, according to Vyasa, the taking of it destroys the fear of death. The place of thy junction with the sea is equal to Baikunta in sanctity, and its importance is so great, that neither Brahma nor Vishnu could fully appreciate it. the very sight of it takes away all the sins of men. Thy waters possess such transcendant qualities that if a man (whether he be of low birth, a Shudra, or a religious mendicant) were to bathe in them on the last day of Pous, he secures for himself a mansion in the heaven of Vishnu. The very utterance of thy name is all that is necessary for directly sending a person to the abode of Vishnu, without the necessity of his visiting the realm of Yama. When the father, mother, son, or wife of a person unceremoniously throws his lifeless corpse upon the burning pile, and with feelings of abhorrence returns home, after having bathed in thy waters, it is thou who at that moment takest him into thy bosom. The kindred and friends who loved him, while he had the power of acquiring, mourn over his death only for a day or two. In such dreadful times, none but thy feet are his real friends. No sooner is the dead carcass of an individual, partly eaten up by crows and jackals, drifted by any means to thy shore, than hundreds of heavenly nymphs, holding fans[5] in their hands, come down and wait on him. I would rather be a lizard, a crab, or even the young one of an emaciated bitch, and live near thee, than be the lord of millions of elephants in a place not sanctified by thy presence. Worms, insects, and birds—even kings, down to millions of other living creatures, are equal in thy sight. If the most sinful and wicked once touch thy waters during their whole life-time, thou becomest a shelter to them on the last day. Even if, from the distance of a hundred yajanas, or eight hundred miles, from thy stream, à person were to utter thy name, immediately does he become perfectly holy. The ashes of the descendants of Sagar, who had been de- stroyed by the curse of a Brahman, having come in contact with thy waters, assumed human forms with four hands, and ascended up to Baikunta (the heaven of Vishnu). Thy glory, oh Ganga! is far beyond my power to describe; the Agama and Purans unfold it full length.”
There is one other popular work extensively employed in vernacular schools, which, for the sake of exhibiting another variety in the way of scholastic instruction, may be briefly noticed;—and that is, the Data Karna. It is too long to be inserted entire; but the following is a faithful epitome of it:—
“Once on a time a certain King requested a Muni, or a sage, to furnish him with some information about Krishna, to which he said he would attentively listen. The Muni agreed to it, and began to speak thus:—
“There was a certain man, whose name was Datakarna. He was reported to be a person of unparalleled liberality. One day the thought of ascertaining the reality of this spontaneously arose in the mind of Krishna. The more effectually to accomplish his end, he metamorphosed himself into a Brahman, so utterly decrepit, that he not only well nigh lost the use of his eyes, but became almost wholly unable to support his tottering footsteps. With this appearance so reverential, and shivering all the way, he made towards the house where Datakarna resided. No sooner did he hear of the approach of a Brahman, than he immediately came to the spot where he was, and received him with every demonstration of joy. He afterwards, with a piece of cloth round his neck, and with his hands closed against each other, prayed the Brahman to satisfy him by stating the reason of his coming,—to which the latter answered as follows:—
“‘Hear me, O King! From various persons I have heard that you are surpassingly virtuous! Yesterday I fasted; therefore give me something to eat. But I have one fixed resolution, which I have formed, and that is, that I will not eat anything without flesh.’
“Datakarna listened to the words of the Brahman with profound respect, and made him the widest possible promise—that he should not deprive him of any kind of flesh whatever, which he might be desirous to eat. Out came immediately from the mouth of the Brahman the words ‘Blessed, Blessed, art thou! There is no other person in this universe equal to you in benevolence!’
“The flesh upon which the Brahman insisted, was that of Brasaketu, the son of Datakarna and Padmabati, who were enjoined by him to saw asunder the child, maintaining all the while a sprightly and cheerful demeanour, without betraying the least degree or symptom of sorrow. If they could thoroughly act upon this order, he would eat the flesh, and every thing would be prosperous; if otherwise, then would he return to his own home, while the unhappy parents must be sent down into eternal perdition. When Karna heard of this, he was thunderstruck, and sadly reflected how, after so long a time, destruction awaited him, and how the glory of his name must be for ever tarnished. With overwhelming anguish, he went to his wife Padmabati, and recounted to her this dreadful interlocution. She replied, that she would part with all her wealth, and sacrifice her own life rather than that of her son. However, after much altercation between them, they agreed to saw the child asunder in the way prescribed. When the child, who was only five years of age, heard that a Brahman was to eat his flesh, he exclaimed thus:—
“‘My life, after so long a time, become truly life! Is it possible that a Brahman will feed upon the flesh of such a wretched being as I am?’ When the head of the child was, by the mutual consent of his parents, severed: from his body, it cried out—‘Krishna! Krishna!’ Then it shrieked out with a loud voice, ‘Krishna, where art thou? Krishna, where art thou?’
“Padmabati then concealed the head in a private place, without the knowledge of her husband, in the hope that, when the Brahman departed, she might be able, by placing it before her, to bewail the loss of her child.
“As soon as the flesh was dressed in diverse forms, Datakarna, the father of Brasaketu, called the guest to eat it. But he said he would not eat any thing unless some flesh be acidulated. Datakarna, on hearing this, answered,—‘All the flesh is dressed, not a bit remains for acidification.’ The guest in return replied,—‘The head of the child is concealed by his mother. Go, therefore, and acidify it.’ Datakarna went and did accordingly. When everything was prepared, the guest was called to dine; to which he answered, ‘Divide the flesh and all other curries into four dishes, one for you, another for me, the third for Padmabati, and the fourth for a child. Go, therefore, and call an infant from the city.’ Datakarna went accordingly; and as he gazed on all sides, being overpowered with grief and sorrow, he saw his child Brasaketu. Datakarna instantly took him in his arms with great ecstasy of joy, went to the Brahman, and prostrated himself repeatedly in the very dust before him. Thereafter, Padmabati and Datakarna, with their hands folded against each other, supplicated him to make known to them who he was; if not, then they would immediately plunge a dagger in their breasts, and expire before him on the spot. The Brahman took compassion on them, resumed his former appearance, and ascended up into heaven. “He that listens to these words (says the author of the legend), is free from malady, sorrow, and danger, and will ultimately go to heaven. But he that employs persons (says Veda Vyasa, a person believed by the Hindus to have been inspired by Brahma, their chief Deity) for the singing of these words, is to be blessed with sons and wealth.”
We shall not insult the understandings of our readers with any comments on this most loathsome legend; or with any reclamation or protest against its revolting barbarism, We shall only remind them that it is but a specimen of the atrocious and abominable stuff that constitutes so much of the scholastic provender of thousands of Bengali youth.
Having requested an intelligent and respectable native to furnish us with a set of the slokes, or metrical couplets, which he had learned memoriter when in the Patshala or vernacular school, he sent one as a specimen, accompanied with a literal translation in English, and enclosed in a note of which the following is a verbatim et literatim copy:—
“Sir,—I beg to state that when I was translating this sloke, which I learned by heart when very young, from my Gura mahashai, or teacher, without at the time understanding the meaning of it, whether it implied a dog or an ass, a kind of unpleasurable sensation arose in my mind, which made me indeed miserable. Afterwards, the whole mind rebelled, with frown and anguish, against the ideas which that sloke conveys, as if they were more than virulent venom, fit only to bring destruction on man. Therefore, I humbly beg that you will kindly excuse me for not translating the other slokes, which are more or less obscene than the one already translated; for I am afraid they will make me unhappy too; nay, they will make me worse. I wish that all the waters of forgetfulness would come to wash away from the tablet of my memory such slokes as these—they are most baneful.
I have, &c. &c.
____________________.”
While the translated sloke is of so gross a nature that we dare not insert it here, we need scarcely add that we hastened to release our native friend from the odious task which we had unconsciously imposed upon him;—with feelings of deep and unfeigned regret at the discovery, that one portion of the vernacular scholastic instruction is, in some respects, even worse than our previous experience of its puerile and legendary absurdities, or its idolatrous and barbarous teachings, had led us to expect or conceive.
6. The System of Discipline—This is a subject which apparently did not attract Mr. Adam’s attention. But as it is one of vast importance in enabling us to arrive at a just and sober estimate of the genuine character and practical effects of the existing system of scholastic tuition, we must endeavour to supply a few brief notes, founded on our own inquiry and experience.
If the scheme of teaching be throughout one of dull, dry, plodding, monotonous mechanism, acting on head and heart with all the force of a congealing efficacy, the scheme of discipline may be truly characterized as throughout a reign of terror. Kindness, patience, generosity, love—all are alike unknown here. Fear is the first and last and only motive brought into play; punishment, the first and last and only stimulant. In varying the modes of this punitory discipline the utmost ingenuity is exercised. With the cane the master is always armed, as with an instrument as indispensable to his vocation as the eyes for seeing, or the ears for hearing; and it is in constant and faithful exercise. The open palm and clenched fist are also vigorously applied to the back, the cheek, and the head. These are but the common droppings that fall with the frequency and the fulness of tropical showers. Of the other varieties constantly exhibited, the following may be taken as those of most ordinary occurrence. A boy is made to bend forward with his face toward the ground; a heavy brick is then placed on his back and another on his neck; and should he let either of them fall, within the prescribed period of half an hour or so, he is punished with the cane. Or, a boy is condemned to stand, for half an hour or an hour, on one foot; and should he shake or quiver, or let down the uplifted leg before the time, he is severely punished. Again, a boy is made to sit on the floor in an exceedingly constrained position, with one leg turned up behind his neck. Or, still worse, he is made to sit with his feet resting on two bricks, and his head bent down between both legs, with his hands twisted round each leg so as painfully to catch the ears. Again, a boy is made to hang for a few minutes with his head downwards from the branch of a neighbouring tree. Or, his hands and feet are bound with cords; to these members so bound a rope is fastened; and the boy is then hoisted up by means of a pulley attached to the beams or rafters of the school. Again, nettles, dipped in water, are applied to the body, which becomes irritated and swollen; the pain is excruciating and often lasts a whole day; but, however great the itching and the pain, the sufferer is not allowed to rub or touch the skin for relief, under the dread of a flagellation in addition. Or, the boy is put up in a sack along with some nettles, or a cat, or some other noisesome creature, and then rolled along the ground. Again, the fingers of both hands are inserted across each other with a stick between, and two sticks without, drawn close together and tied. Or, a boy is made to measure so many cubits on the ground, by marking it along with the tip of his nose. Again, four boys are made to seize another, two holding the arms, and two the feet; they then alternately swing him, and throw him violently to the ground. Or, two boys are made to seize another by the ears; and, with these organs well out-stretched, he is made to run along for the amusement of the bystanders. Again, a boy is constrained to pull his own ears; and if he fail to extend them sufficiently he is visited with a sorer chastisement. Or, two boys, when both have given offence, are made to knock their heads several times against each other. Again, the boy who first comes to school in the morning, receives one stroke of the cane on the palm of the hand; the next receives two strokes; and so each in succession, as he arrives, receives a number of strokes equal to the number of boys that preceded him;—the first being the privileged administrator of them all. When a boy wants to go out, the common practice is to throw some spittle on the floor; if it dries up before he returns, he is punished with the cane; or if not, a boy hostile to him may, with or without the cognizance and connivance of the master, come and wipe it out in order to ensure his punishment. When, instead of teaching, the Guru mahashai or master betakes himself to the making or the copying of almanacks and horoscopes, as he constantly does, to eke out his scanty allowances; the boys, too, very naturally betake themselves to extraneous modes of diversion and employment, such as playing and pinching, chattering and frolic, waggery and abuse; but when, forgetting themselves too far, they become obstreperous, and the noise swells into tumult, the teacher is suddenly roused into red burning wrath, and gives vent to his uncontrollable fury in a crushing tempest of indiscriminate flagellation, intermingled with the loud sound of vituperative epithets, too gross and shocking to be recorded here.
No wonder that the Patshala, or vernacular school, should be viewed, as it uniformly is, as an object of terror by the young. The conductor of it is the ghost that haunts and scares the young. When a child misbehaves, the most severe and awe-inspiring threat of the mother is, “Call the Guru mahashai to take him to school.” Apart from its general influence in paralysing the intellectual and moral powers, this system of terror leads to many specific practices of a baneful tendency. It superinduces the habit of crouching servility towards the master in his presence, and the rendering of many menial and even dishonest services. To propitiate the dreaded tyrant, the boys are glad to prepare his hookah, to bring fire for smoking, gather flowers for his pujah, sweep his lodging, wash his brazen pots, cleave thick pieces of wood for fuel, &c. They are induced to go to the bazaar with their written plantain-leaves, and to give them to the shopkeepers as packing materials, in exchange for cowries, fish, tobacco, fruits, betel-nut, pawn, &c., which they present as offerings to the master. Or, they are positively encouraged, for his sake, to bring, that is, in reality, to purloin or steal wood, rice, salt, dhal, oil, &c., from home, or from anywhere else; seeing that those who succeed, by fair means or foul, in presenting such gifts most frequently, have the best chance of escaping the dreaded rod, the best chance of being praised for cleverness though the greatest dunces, for diligence though the greatest sluggards, and for knowledge though the greatest ignoramuses.
On the other hand, as might be expected, the system tends to generate the spirit of hatred, retaliation, and revenge towards the master. This spirit practically shows itself in various ways. For example, in preparing his hookah, it is a common trick for the boys to mix the tobacco with chillies and other pungent ingredients, so that when he smokes he is made to cough violently, while the whole school is convulsed with laughter;—or, beneath the mats on which he sits may be strewn thorns and sharp prickles which soon display their effects in the contortions of the crest-fallen and discomfited master;—or, at night, he is way-laid by his pupils, who, from their concealed position in a tree, or thicket, or behind a wall, pelt him with pebbles, bricks, or stones;—or, once more, they rehearse doggerel songs in which they implore the gods, and more particularly Kali, to remove him by death—vowing, in the event of the prayer being heard, to present offerings of sugar and cocoa-nuts.
Once more, the system, naturally, and even necessarily, leads the young to regard the Patshala, not as a place for healthful, renovative, mental exercise, but as a sort of dungeon or grievous prison-house, to escape from which is the chiefest of all ends, as the desire to do so is the most powerful of all instincts. Many, accordingly, are the pretexts and the expedients resorted to in order to escape the “durance vile” of scholastic imprisonment. The boy often runs off for several days to the house of a relation or friend at a distance, and, on his return, asseverates that he was sent there by his parents. To throw boiled rice on domestic vessels ceremonially defiles them;—hence, when a boy is bent on a day’s release from school, he peremptorily disobeys his admonishing mother, saying, “No; if you insist on my going I shall throw about the boiled rice”—a threat which usually gains him the victory. If a person of a different caste, or unbathed, or with shoes on his feet, touch the boiled rice or pot of another, it is polluted; hence, when a boy effects his escape from school, he often hastens to some kitchen, touches the boiled rice, or the pots in which it has been boiled, and thus becomes himself polluted; and, until he bathes, no one can touch or seize him, without being polluted too. A temporary impunity is thus secured. At other times, the boy finds his way to filthy and unclean places, where he remains for hours, or a whole day, defying the master and his emissaries to touch him, knowing full well that they cannot do so, without partaking of his own contracted pollution. So determined are boys to evade the torturous system of discipline, that, in making good their escape, they often wade or swim through tanks, or along the current of running drains, with a large earthen-pot over their head, so that the suspicion of passers by, or of those in pursuit, is not even excited, seeing that nought appears on the surface but a floating pot; or, they run off, and climb into the loftiest neighbouring tree, where they laugh to scorn the efforts of their assailants to dislodge them. In the recent case of one personally known to our informant, the runaway actually remained for three days on the top of a cocoa-nut tree, vigorously hurling the cocoa-nuts, as missiles, at the heads of all who attempted to ascend for the purpose of securing him.
Not sufficiently adverting to the deleterious influence of the substantive instruction communicated, and apparently overlooking altogether the noxious system of discipline, Mr. Adam was led to view those vernacular schools in a more favourable light than their intrinsic merits or rather demerits warrant. Regarding them chiefly as instruments for simply teaching reading, writing, and accounts, he was disposed to view them as negatively defective rather than positively vicious. But, even under this aspect of the case, he could not help penning the following delineation and verdict:—
“No one will deny that a knowledge of Bengali writing, and of native accounts, is requisite to natives of Bengal, but when these are made the substance and sum of proper instruction and knowledge, the popular mind is necessarily cabined, cribbed, and confined, within the smallest possible range of ideas, and those of the most limited local and temporary interest, and it fails even to acquire those habits of accuracy and precision which the exclusive devotion to forms of calculation might seem fitted to produce. What is wanted is something to awaken and expand the mind, to unshackle it from the trammels of mere usage, and to teach it to employ its own powers; and for such purposes, the introduction into the system of common instruction of some branch of knowledge, in itself perfectly useless (if such a one could be found), would at least rouse and interest by its novelty, and in this way be of some benefit. Of course the benefit would be much greater if the supposed new branch of knowledge were of a useful tendency, stimulating the mind to the increased observation and comparison of external objects, and throwing it back upon itself with a larger stock of materials for thought. A higher intellectual cultivation, however, is not all that is required, That, to be beneficial to the individual and to society, must be accompanied by the cultivation of the moral sentiments and habits. Here the native system presents a perfect blank. The hand, the eye, and the ear, are employed; the memory is a good deal exercised; the judgment is not wholly neglected; and the religious sentiment is early and perseveringly cherished, however misdirected. But the passions and affections are allowed to grow up wild without any thought of pruning their luxuriances or directing their exercise to good purposes. Hence, I am inclined to believe, the infrequency in native society of enlarged views of moral and social obligation, and hence the corresponding radical defect of the native character which appears to be that of a narrow and contracted selfishness, naturally arising from the fact that the young mind is seldom, if ever, taught to look for the means of its own happiness and improvement in the indulgence of benevolent feelings and the performance of benevolent acts to those who are beyond a certain pale. The radical defect of the system of elementary instruction seems to explain the radical defect of the native character; and if I have rightly estimated cause and effect, it follows that no material improvement of the native character can be expected, and no improvement whatever of the system of elementary education will be sufficient, without a large infusion into it of moral instruction that shall always connect in the mind of the pupil, with the knowledge which he acquires, some useful purpose to which it may be and ought to be applied, not necessarily productive of personal gain or advantage to himself.”
II. Private or Domestic Instruction—Meagre and imperfect as is the system of instruction in public schools, we have Mr. Adam’s express authority for asserting “that the instruction given in families is still more limited and imperfect.” Elsewhere he adds, “there can be no doubt that the instruction given at home is in general more crude and imperfect, more interrupted and desultory, than that which is obtained at the common schools.” In some cases he found that “it did not extend beyond the writing of the letters of the alphabet, in others the writing of words.” Pundits and priests, “unless where there is some landed property in the family, confine the Bengali instruction they give their children to reading and writing, addition and subtraction, with scarcely any of the application of numbers to agricultural and commercial affairs. Farmers and traders naturally limit their instructions to what they best know, and what is to them and their children of greater direct utility, the calculations and measurements peculiar to their immediate occupations.” The parents with whom Mr. Adam conversed on the subject did “not attach the same value to the domestic instruction their children received which they ascribed to the instruction of a professional schoolmaster, both because in their opinion such instruction would be more regular and systematic, and because the teacher would be probably better qualified.”
The fact is, that this domestic instruction can be regarded only as “a sort of traditionary knowledge of written language and accounts, preserved in families from father to son, and from generation to generation.” Sometimes the father is the instructor, but quite as often an uncle, or an elder brother. Sometimes a pujari Brahman, or family chaplain, is bound by agreement to employ his leisure hours instructing the children. Sometimes, in villages, in which Mr. Adam could not find a single individual able either to read or write, he was, notwithstanding, assured that the children were not wholly without instruction; and when he asked who taught them, the answer was, “that the gomastha, in his periodical visits for the collection of the master’s rents, gave a few lessons to one or more of the children of the village.”
Since this domestic elementary instruction is, from its very nature, more imperfect and precarious than even the scholastic elementary instruction, and is consequently less esteemed, it may create surprise that it should be allowed to form a substitute for the other at all. The reasons are twofold. In some cases poverty, or inability, to pay for school-instruction is the sole cause of preference. In other instances, the pride or rank of station, of birth and learning, acting also upon circumscribed means, prevents the respective parties from looking beyond their own respective households for the instruction which their children need. Accordingly, the classes of Hindu society to which these families belong, that give domestic instruction to their children, are thus specified by Mr. Adam:—
“Those who give their children domestic instruction are Zemindars, Talukdars, and persons of some little substance; shopkeepers and traders, possessing some enterprize and forecast in their callings; Zemindar’s agents or factors (Gomashtas), and heads of villages (Mandals), who know practically the advantage of writing and accounts; and sometimes persons of straitened resources but respectable character, who have been in better circumstances, and wish to give their children the means of making their way in the world. Pandits, too, who intend that their children should pursue the study of Sanskrit, begin by instructing them at home in the rudiments of their mother tongue; and Brahmans, who have themselves gone through only a partial course of Sanskrit reading, seek to qualify their children by such instruction as they can give for the office and duties of a family priest, or spiritual guide.”
In connection with this subject, there is one other point worthy of note. It has already been shown, in the case of school-instruction, how much, proportionably, the Hindu pupils in numbers preponderate over the Musalman. The following table will exhibit, at one view, a specimen of similar preponderance, as regards domestic instruction:—
| Families. | Children. | |||||
| Hindu. | Musalman. | Total. | Hindu. | Musalman. | Total. | |
| City of Moorshedabad | 147 | 69 | 216 | 195 | 105 | 300 |
| Thana Daulatbazar | 201 | 53 | 254 | 265 | 61 | 326 |
| Thana Nanglia | 197 | 10 | 207 | 267 | 18 | 285 |
| Thana Culna | 414 | 61 | 475 | 595 | 81 | 676 |
| Thana Jehanabad | 295 | 65 | 360 | 435 | 104 | 539 |
| Thana Bhawara | 223 | 12 | 235 | 275 | 13 | 288 |
schools of learning.
The state of learned education may be considered with reference to the two great divisions of the population, the Musalmans and the Hindus. Of the former, the grand media of instruction are the Persian and the Arabic; of the latter, the Sanskrit. The schools or colleges in which these are taught claim a separate notice.
1. Persian Schools.—While Bengali and Urdu are the languages of ordinary conversation with the great mass of the Muhammadan population, it is easy to see why Persian must have peculiar attractions for the educated. It is the language of their popular literature, science, and philosophy. It is the language of “the former conquerors and rulers of Hindustan, from whom they have directly or indirectly sprung, and the memory both of a proud ancestry and of a past dominion—the loyalty which attaches itself rather to religion and to race than to country,—attract them to its cultivation.” Apart from such motives, however, the importance given to the Persian language, under the Mogul Sovereigns, and till recently under the British Government, in the administration of justice and police, and in the collection of the revenue, must have exerted no inconsiderable influence. And, in the case of the Hindus, that consideration must have had almost conclusive weight. For it is a remarkable fact, that though, as regards the Hindus, the Persian be altogether a foreign language, the number of Hindu scholars in the Persian schools considerably exceeds that of the Musalman pupils; there being, in the five districts visited by Mr. Adam, 2,096 of the former, and only 1,558 of the latter. This is a fact which can only be accounted for in one way. It is the effect of the artificial stimulus supplied by the long, and until very recently, the almost exclusive use of the Persian in the ordinary routine of Government and local administration. And, as it has been an unnaturally forced growth, Mr. Adam very justly remarks, that “some of the considerations by which Persian is recommended might be brought with much more force in favour of English if it would be made more accessible,”—and that “it would not be difficult not merely to substitute English for it, but to make English much more popular.”
The Persian teachers, Mr. Adam was led to regard as “intellectually of a higher grade than the teachers of Bengali schools, although that grade is not high, compared with what is to be desired, and is attainable. Morally, they appear to have as little notion as Bengali teachers of the salutary influence they might exercise on the dispositions and character of their pupils.” Their remuneration arises, as in the case of the vernacular teachers, from wages, fees, presents, and a variety of other sources. Their average monthly gain varies “from rs. 8-14 in Moorshedabad to rs. 3 in Tirhoot, the medium rates being rs. 6-6-1 in Beerbhoom, 6-10-8 in Burdwan, and 5-2 in South Behar”. The difference between the highest and the lowest rates Mr. Adam explains by a reference to various causes:—
“One cause will be found in the average number of scholars taught by each master, the highest average being 9-3 in Burdwan, the lowest 2-5 in Tirhoot, and the medium average being 6-7 in Beerbhoom, 5-7 in Moorshedabad, and 5-1 in South Behar. The lowest rate of monthly gain, and the smallest average number of scholars, are found in Tirhoot. Further, the persons acquainted with Persian, and seeking employment, are numerous; the general standard of living is very low, and both the number of those who receive, and the poverty of those who give employment of this kind, combine to establish a very low rate of remuneration. In Behar, too, and especially in Tirhoot, parents do not, nearly to the same extent as in the Bengal districts, unite with each other to support a teacher for the benefit of their children; and thus each teacher is very much isolated, seldom extending his instructions beyond the children of four or three families, and often limiting them to two and even one. The effects are waste of power, and degradation of character, to teachers and taught.”
Of the nature of the instruction given in the Persian schools, Mr. Adam gives the following sketch:—
“Although printed books are unknown, yet manuscript works are in constant use. The general course of instruction has no very marked stages or gradations into which it is divided. Like the Hindus, however, the Musalmans formally initiate their children into the study of letters. When a child, whether a boy or a girl, is four years, four months, and four days old, the friends of the family assemble, and the child is dressed in his best clothes, brought into the company, and seated on a cushion in the presence of all. The alphabet, the form of letters used for computation, the introduction to the Koran, some verses of Chapter lv., and the whole of Chapter lxxxvii. are placed before him, and he is taught to pronounce them in succession. If the child is self-willed, and refuses to read, he is made to pronounce the Bismillah, which answers every purpose, and from that day his education is deemed to have commenced. At school he is taught the alphabet, as with ourselves, by the eye and ear, the forms of the letters being presented to him in writing, and their names pronounced in his hearing, which he is required to repeat until he is able to connect the names and the forms with each other in his mind. The scholar is afterwards made to read the thirtieth section of the Koran, the chapters of which are short, and are generally used at the times of prayer, and in the burial service. The words are marked with the diacritical points, in order that the knowledge of letters, their junction and correct orthography, and their pronunciation from the appropriate organs, may be thoroughly acquired, but the sense is entirely unknown. The next book put into his hands is the Pandnameh of Sadi, a collection of moral sayings, many of which are above his comprehension, but he is not taught or required to understand any of them. The work is solely used for the purpose of instructing him in the art of reading, and of forming a correct pronunciation, without any regard to the sense of the words pronounced.
“It is generally after this that the scholar is taught to write the letters, to join vowels and consonants, and to form syllables. The next book is the Amadnameh, exhibiting the forms of conjugating the Persian verbs which are read to the master and by frequent repetition committed to memory. The first book which is read for the purpose of being understood is the Gulistan of Sadi, containing lessons on life and manners, and this is followed or accompanied by the Bostan of the same author. Two or three sections of each are read; and simultaneously short Persian sentences, relating to going and coming, sitting and standing, and the common affairs of life, are read and explained. The pupil is afterwards made to write Persian names, then Arabic names, and next Hindu names, especially such as contain letters, to the writing or pronunciation of which difficulty is supposed to attach. Elegant penmanship is considered a great accomplishment, and those who devote themselves to this art, employ from three to six hours every day in the exercise of it, writing first single letters, then double or treble, then couplets, quatrains, &c. They first write upon a board with a thick pen, then with a finer pen on pieces of paper pasted together, and last of all, when they have acquired considerable command of the pen, they begin to write upon paper in single fold. This is accompanied or followed by the perusal of some of the most popular poetical productions, such as Joseph and Zubikha, founded on a well-known incident in Hebrew history; the loves of Leila and Majnun, the Secander Nameh, an account of the exploits of Alexander the Great, &c. &c. The mode of computing by the Abjad, or letters of the alphabet, is also taught, and is of two sorts; in the first, the letters of the alphabet in the order of the Abjad being taken to denote units, tens, and hundreds, to a thousand; and in the second, the letters composing the names of the letters of the alphabet being employed for the same purpose. Arithmetic, by means of the Arabic numerals, and instruction of great length in different styles of address, and in the forms of correspondence, petitions, &c. &c. complete a course of Persian instruction. But in many schools the course is very superficially taught, and some of the teachers do not even profess to carry their pupils beyond the Gulistan and Bostan,”
After showing that the average age of entering school, for all the districts, is about 8½ years, of leaving school 22, and the average period of the duration of study about 12, Mr. Adam thus sums up his impression of the results of the protracted term of scholastic apprenticeship:—
“Upon the whole, the course of Persian instruction, even in its less perfect forms, such as are found to exist in this district, has a more comprehensive character, and a more liberal tendency, than that pursued in the Bengali schools. The systematic use of books, although in manuscript, is a great step in advance, accustoming the minds of the pupil to forms of regular composition, to correct and elegant language, and to trains of consecutive thought, and thus aiding both to stimulate the intellect and to form the taste. It might be supposed that the moral bearing of some of the text-books would have a beneficial effect on the character of the pupils; but, as far as I have been able to observe or ascertain, those books are employed like all the rest solely for the purpose of conveying lessons in language—lessons in the knowledge of sounds and words, in the construction of sentences, or in anecdotical information, but not for the purpose of sharpening the moral perceptions or strengthening the moral habits. This, in general native estimation, does not belong to the business of instruction, and it never appears to be thought of or attempted. Others will judge, from their own observation and experience, whether the Musalman character, as we see it in India, has been formed or influenced by such a course of instruction. The result of my own observation is that of two classes of persons—one exclusively educated in Muhammadan and the other in Hindu literature—the former appears to me to possess an intellectual superiority, but the moral superiority does not seem to exist.”
2. Arabic Schools.—Of this description there are two sorts, which may be contradistinguished as Formal Arabic and Learned Arabic, properly so called.
The former of these institutions may be described as intended exclusively for “instruction in the formal or ceremonial reading of certain passages of the Koran.”
“The whole time stated to be spent at school varies from one to five years. The teachers possess the lowest degree of attainment to which it is possible to assign the task of instruction. They do not pretend to be able even to sign their names; and they disclaim altogether the ability to understand that which they read and teach. The mere forms, names, and sounds of certain letters and combinations of letters they know and teach, and what they teach is all that they know of written language, without presuming, or pretending, or aiming to elicit the feeblest glimmering of meaning from these empty vocables. This whole class of schools is as consummate a burlesque upon mere forms of instruction, separate from a radical meaning and purpose, as can well be imagined. The teachers are all Kath-Mollas—that is, the lowest grade of Musalman priests, who chiefly derive their support from the ignorance and superstition of the poor classes of their co-religionists, and the scholars are in training for the same office.”
After such a statement, we need not be surprised at Mr. Adam’s conclusion, that “no institution can be more insignificant and useless, and in every respect less worthy of notice, than those Arabic schools, viewed as places of instruction.”
The learned schools, properly so called, are of course of a higher order. They are intimately connected with the Persian, and almost imperceptibly run into each other.
“The Arabic teacher teaches Persian also in the same school and to the same pupils; and an Arabic school is sometimes known from a Persian school only by having a single Arabic scholar studying the most elementary Arabic work, while all the other scholars read Persian. The same scholars, who are now studying Arabic, formerly read or may still be reading Persian in the same school and under the same teacher; and the scholars in an Arabic school, who are reading Persian only, will probably, in the same school and under the same teacher, advance to the study of Arabic. The only distinction that can be drawn is, that while there is no Arabic teacher who does not or may not teach Persian, there are many Persian teachers who do not and cannot teach Arabic. But the class for which both Persian and Arabic schools exist is the same, and that is the upper class of native society, whether Hindus or Musalmans are the scholars, and whether Persian or Arabic is the language taught. Both languages are foreign, and both classes of schools are inaccessible to the body of the people.”
In these schools, the average duration of study is about eleven or twelve years, generally extending to the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year of age—affording ample time for the introduction of, or the improvement and extension of old courses of study. The subjects taught are somewhat varied. The works on grammar occupy a prominent place. These are numerous, systematized, and often profound. Complete courses of reading on rhetoric, logic, and law, are embraced. The external observances and fundamental doctrines of Islam are minutely studied. The works of Euclid on geometry, and Ptolemy on astronomy in translation, are not unknown; other branches of natural philosophy are also taught; and the whole course is crowned by the perusal of treatises on metaphysics, deemed the highest attainment of the instructed scholar. Perhaps, adds Mr. Adams, “we shall not err widely if we suppose that the state of learning amongst the Musalmans of India resembles that which existed among the nations of Europe before the invention of printing.”
This is the most favourable picture which, in a generalized way, can be given of these Arabic institutions; for in none of them singly can it be found fully realized. And if the subjects taught be not, by any means, of a liberalizing and edifying character, the deficiency is certainly not supplied by any redeeming qualities in the mode of teaching, or the system of discipline. No mere words can possibly convey any adequate conception of the indolence and listlessness, the drowsiness and sleepiness, the disorderand anarchy, which reign paramount in a Persico-Arabic institution. The following is a brief sketch of one of the best endowed and best circumstanced in the district of Rajshahi. And from our own experience of the system of discipline, or rather no discipline, generally pursued, we have no hesitation in saying that the picture falls far short of the reality, as it is ordinarily exhibited:—
“There is no fixed age for admission or dismission for beginning or completing the course of study. Students are admitted at the arbitrary pleasure of Musafir-ul-Islam, and they leave sooner or later according to their own caprice. During the period that they are nominally students, their attendance from day to day is equally uncontrolled and unregulated except by their own wishes and convenience. Many of the students are mere children, while others are grown up men. The business of the school commences at six in the morning and continues till eleven, and again at mid-day and continues till four. Every scholar reads a separate lesson to the master, one coming when another withdraws, so that there is a total absence of classification. “The weekly periods of vacation are for Arabic students every Tuesday and Friday, and for Persian students every Thursday and Friday, and the annual periods of vacation are the whole of the month Ramzan, ten days for the Mohurrum, and five days at four different periods of the year required by other religious observances. It thus appears that this institution has no organisation or discipline, and that the course of instruction is exceedingly meagre.”
From such a course of teaching and discipline what beneficial effect on the mind and character could possibly be expected to result? To suppose any such sanatory influence possible, would be to annihilate or reverse the established laws of antecedence and consequence. Perhaps the only consolation consists in knowing, that, in these lower provinces, the whole scheme of a purely Arabic education is so extremely limited in its extent. In the five zillahs or districts, so often named already, Mr. Adam found only 158 Arabie students, of whom nine were Hindus and 149 Musalmans. When we reflect on the genuine spirit of the Muhammadan system—how it inculcates a mere negative faith of lifeless empty Theism—re-establishes the reign of sensuality on earth to be terminated by a “paradise of lust” in the world to come—encourages the craving thirst of conquest and blood—stimulates the malignant passions of hatred and revenge—and even “commands irreconcilable enmity, eternal warfare, eternal slaughter, to propagate throughout the world a belief in its blood-stained prophet of pride and lust;” when we reflect on all this, we may be disposed to reckon it a gracious interposition of Providence, that the study of the higher Arabic literature is at so low an ebb, instead of regretting that the more advanced disciples of this “pure old doctrine of all-conquering Islam and of all-surpassing faith” are so few in number, and drink so scantily at its original well-heads.
3. Sanskrit Schools.—This class of schools is that in which “the literature, law, philosophy, and religion of the Hindus are taught through the medium of the Sanskrit language; and with reference to the number of seminaries and students, the nature of the influence which learned Hindus possess, and the amount of the population over whom it is exercised, this can be considered inferior in importance only to the class of vernacular schools, from which the great body of the people derive the chief part of the instruction they receive.” Sanskrit learning is, to a certain extent, open to all respectable classes of native society. Castes, inferior to the Brahmanical, may study the more secular branches, such as “grammar and lexicology, poetical and dramatical literature, rhetoric, astrology and medicine;” but the higher and more sacred branches, such as “law, the writings of the six schools of philosophy, and the sacred mythological poems are the peculiar inheritance of the Brahman caste.” Such, in theory, is “the distinction recognised in the legal and religious economy of Hinduism; but, practically, Brahmans monopolize not only a part, but nearly the whole of Sanskrit learning.” In the Behar districts, visited by Mr. Adam, both teachers and students, without a single exception, belonged to that caste; and the exceptions in the Bengal districts were comparatively few. Indeed, the only exceptions to the Brahmanical monopoly of Sanskrit teaching were a few Vaidyas or native physicians.
In some instances, the schools are endowed; but, for the most part, they owe their origin to the voluntary efforts of single individuals. There is no combination or co-operation. Each pandit sets up a school for himself, in which he “teaches separately the branch or branches of learning which he has studied most, or for which there is the greatest demand; and the students make their selections and remove from one to another at their pleasure.” The students again are “divided into two classes, one of which consists of those who are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated, and the other of natives of the other villages—the former called natives, and the latter foreigners, corresponding respectively with the externes and internes of the Royal Colleges of France. The students of a school or college who are natives of the village, are the externes, attending it daily for the purpose of receiving instruction, and daily returning home to their parents, relatives, or friends with whom they board and lodge, while the students who are natives of other villages than that in which the school is situated are the internes, residing in the house of the teacher and receiving from him not only instruction but also lodging and food.” The majority of the teachers have separate school-houses, “either built at their own charge or at the expense of patrons and friends, or by the subscriptions of the most respectable inhabitants of the village where the school is situated. In those instances in which there is no regular school-house, the Baithakhana or Chandi-mandap of the pandit or of some wealthy friend answers the purpose.” The school-house is also frequently used as a place of accommodation for the students who have no house in the village; or these may be accommodated in separate lodging apartments attached to the school-room—apartments of the humblest description, consisting of huts with raised earthen floors, the whole of which may have cost from ten to sixty rupees.
In those instances—and they are not few—in which the teachers are too poor to erect separate apartments, they are constrained to give their instructions within their own dwellings. In these also the stranger students are lodged and fed, and pursue their studies, whether by night or by day.
Since, then, instruction is given gratuitously nearly to all, and food and lodging in addition, to so large a proportion, it may naturally be asked, whence do the teachers acquire the means of accomplishing all this? As the inquiry is fraught with interest, inasmuch as it tends to throw much light on the whole internal economy of learned or scholastic Hinduism, we shall quote Mr. Adam’s full and lucid statement on the subject:—
“The custom of inviting learned men on the occasion of funeral obsequies, marriages, festivals, &c., and at such times of bestowing gifts on them proportioned in value and amount to the estimation in which they are held as teachers, is general amongst those Hindus who are of sufficiently pure caste to be considered worthy of the association of Brahmans. The presents bestowed consist of two parts—first, articles of consumption, principally various sorts of food; and, second, gifts of money. In the distribution of the latter, at the conclusion of the celebration, a distinction is made between sabdikas, philologers, or teachers of general literature—smarttas, teachers of law—and naiyayikas, teachers of logic,—of whom the first class ranks lowest, the second next, and the third highest. The value of the gifts bestowed rises not merely with the acquirements of the individual in his own department of learning, but with the dignity of the department to which he has devoted his chief labours, and in which he is most distinguished. It does not, however, follow that the professors of the most highly honoured branch of learning are always on the whole the most highly rewarded; for in Rajshahi, logic, which, by the admission of all, ranks highest, from whatever cause, is not extensively cultivated, and has few professors, and these receive a small number of invitations, and consequently of gifts, in proportion to the limited number of their pupils, and the practical disuse of the study. Their total receipts, therefore, are not superior, and even not equal to the emoluments enjoyed by learned men of an inferior grade, who have moreover a source of profit in the performance of ceremonial recitations on public occasions, which the pride or self-respect of the logicians will not permit them to undertake. Whatever the amount, it is from the income thus obtained[6] that the teachers of the different classes and grades are enabled to build school-houses, and to provide food and lodging for their scholars: but several have assured me that, to meet these expenses, they have often incurred debt, from which they are relieved only by the occasional and unexpected liberality of individual benefactors. “When a teacher of learning receives such an invitation as is above described, he generally takes one or two of his pupils with him, giving each pupil his turn of such an advantage in due course; and when the master of the feast bestows a gift of money on the teacher, it is always accompanied by a present to the pupil less in amount, but proportioned to the respectability of the teacher’s character and the extent of his attainments. The teacher sometimes takes a favorite pupil more frequently than others, the object being to give a practical proof of the success of his instructions, as well as to accustom the pupil to the intercourse of learned and respectable society. As the student is furnished with instruction, food, and lodging without cost, the only remaining sources of expense to him are his books, clothes, and minor personal expenses, all of which, exclusive of books, are estimated to cost him in no case more, and often less, than seven rupees per annum. His books he either inherits from some aged relative, or, at his own expense and with his own hands, he copies those works that are used in the college as text-books. In the latter case the expense of copying includes the expense of paper, pen, ink, ochre, and oil. The ochre is mixed with the gum of the tamarind seed, extracted by boiling, and the compound is rubbed over the paper, which is thus made impervious to insects, and capable of bearing writing on both sides. The oil is for light, as most of the labour of copying is performed by night, after the studies of the day have been brought to a close. An economical student is sometimes able, with the presents he receives when he accompanies his teacher to assemblies, both to defray these expenses and to relieve the straitened circumstances of his family at a distance. I have learned, on good authority, that ten and even twenty rupees per annum have been saved and remitted by a student to his family; but the majority of students require assistance from their families, although, I am assured, that what they receive probably never in any case exceeds four rupees per annum.”
To the subject-matter of learned instruction, it is scarcely possible, within our narrow limits, to do more than briefly allude. From the preceding statement, it has appeared that there are “three principal classes into which the teachers and schools of Hindu learning are divided. The acquirements of a teacher of logic in general pre-suppose those of a teacher of law; and the acquirements of the latter in general pre-suppose those of a teacher of general literature, who, for the most part, has made very limited attainments beyond those of his immediate class.” As a preliminary remark equally applicable to all the classes, it may be stated, that “the youths who commence the study of Sanskrit are expected to have acquired, either at home or in a Bengali school, merely a knowledge of Bengali writing and reading, and a very slight acquaintance with the rules of arithmetic, viz., addition and subtraction, without a knowledge of their application. Hence, learned Hindus having entered with these superficial acquirements at an early age on the study of Sanskrit, and having devoted themselves almost exclusively to its literature, are ignorant of almost everything else.”
The chief object of the first or lowest department, which is that of philology and general literature, is, “the knowledge of language as an instrument for the communication of ideas.” A full course of instruction in it embraces grammar, the most extensive and profound treatises on which, such as Panini, the Kalapa, Mugdhabodha, and the Ratnamala, are in general use; Lexicology, or that branch of study by which, simultaneously with the study of grammar, a knowledge of single words classified under heads of objects, qualities, actions, with their synonyms, is acquired, the words being first committed to memory from the Amarakosha, the great standard work on the subject, without the meaning, and afterwards explained by the teacher; Poetry and the Drama, on which the works in most common use are the Bhatti Kavya or the life and actions of Ram—the Raghu Kavya, also on the history of Ram—Magha Kavya, on the war between the Sisupala and Krishna—Naishada Kavya, on the loves of Nala and Damayanti—Bharavi Kavya, on the war between Yudisthira and Durgodhana—Sakuntala, the well known drama, so elegantly translated by the celebrated orientalist, Sir W. Jones; Rhetoric, the Chando Manyan, Kavya Chandrika, Sahitya Darpana, Kavya Prakasa and other similar works on prosody and poetical composition. It is proper, however, to add that all these branches of general literature are not taught by every teacher. Some teach only one; and others two or more; the mere grammarian ranking in the lowest scale of learned men, and raising his reputation and emoluments in proportion to the number of the other branches which he adds to his acquirements.
The department next in dignity to general literature is that of Law. The teachers of law must, in all cases, be conversant with the grammar and lexicology of the Sanskrit language, and prepared to give instructions in them; and some are also acquainted more or less familiarly with the poetical, dramatic, and rhetorical writings. Every teacher of law “receives students at the earliest stage, and instructs them according to the extent of his own acquirements in general literature, and when he has reached that limit, he carries them on to the study of law. The majority of law students, however, begin and end their studies in general literature, to whatever extent they desire to proceed, with a professor of that branch of learning, and afterwards resort to a teacher of law, for instruction in his peculiar department.” On the subject of law, the Daya Bhaga, the Mitakshara, and other standard works, are more or less studied. But the great work is the compilation of Raghunandana on every branch of Hindu law, comprised in twenty-eight books, which, besides the prescriptions of religion, treat of the rules of inheritance, contract, &c. It consists, according to Mr. Colebrooke, of “texts collected from the institutes attributed to ancient legislators, with a glossary explanatory of the sense, and reconciling seeming contradictions.” Of the twenty-eight books, as Mr. Adam assures us, “those are almost exclusively read which prescribe and explain the ritual of Hinduism. The first book invariably read is that on lunar days; and this is followed by others, without any fixed order of succession, such as those on marriage, on penance, on purification, on obsequies, on the intercalary month of the Hindu calendar,” &c. In most districts also, it appears, that the number of books read is “seldom more than ten, and never exceeds twelve, and is sometimes not more than four, three, and even two.” And, as if superstition were inherent in the soil of this land, and all-pervading as its atmosphere, it must, even in the department of legal scholastic discipline, cause its claims to be heard, and the feelings which it engenders to be systematically cherished. For, up to this hour, there is a rigorous observance of many of the puerile forms and meaningless ceremonies prescribed by the great Indian legislator, Manu; and, more particularly, of the injunctions which specially direct the study of law to be suspended during either of the twilights, at the conjunction, on the fourteenth day, at the opposition, and on the eighth day, of the moon; when the lightning flashes and the thunder roars, with or without rain; on the occasion of preternatural sounds from the sky, of an earthquake, or an obscuration of the heavenly bodies, or an ordinary eclipse caused by the dragon’s head; while dust falls like a shower; while the quarters of the firmament are inflamed; while jackals yell, while dogs bark or yelp, while asses or camels bray, or while men in company chatter, &c. &c.
In the department of logic (Nyaya), which, in general estimation, ranks higher than that of law, various works[7] are read and explained, on the definitions of terms, qualities, and objects; the derivation and meaning of the radical portions, and of the suffixes and affixes of words, on the necessary or inherent qualities of objects; on the definition of classes or genera; on inferential propositions; on syllogisms and fallacies; on the proofs of the Divine existence, the attributes of the Divine nature, and the means of absorption into it, &c. Though eminently fitted to acuminate and subtilize the intellect, the system as a whole must be regarded as tending to waste its powers on hair-splitting distinctions, and to paralyze its energies by the expenditure of these on the pursuit of what is frivolous, or meaningless, or useless, or worse. The stupendous pile of subtleties—which, throughout the entire cycle of the dark ages, the European mind, for lack of more wholesome nutriment, as well as more fitting materials to work on, continued ingeniously to spin out of its own substance, and which it required the “Reformation” of a Luther and the “Instauration” of a Bacon, with the convulsions of empire and the crash of ancient institutions, to sweep away—can alone convey an approximate conception of the masses of sharp-edged organa, and gossamer-like tenuities that have accumulated in our Indian schools of logic, and constitute the staple commodities of intellectual production and distribution there.
Besides the three principal grades of schools of learning now briefly described, there are seminaries for the inculcation of other branches of Sanskrit learning, which, though fewer in number, must not be wholly passed by unnoticed. There are Medical schools, for the study of the most approved medical shastras, which, containing much that is useful, though intermixed with the strangest fallacies and quackeries, have, in their own department, exercised for ages a supremacy “so absolute and undisputed, as to have repressed all independent inquiry, observation, and experiment.” There are Philosophical schools, in which the Sankya, the Mimansa, and other theistic, atheistic, atomic, and ideal schemes of philosophy are propounded with as much zeal as if they were the happy discoveries of yesterday, instead of the periodically reviving and periodically exploded errors of successive ages and of different climes. There are Puranic or mythological schools, in which are read portions of the Bhagavat and other Puranas, containing fabulous accounts of the creation, the genealogy and achievements of gods and heroes, with all manner of wild and extravagant legends; as also selections from the Ramayana and Mahabharat, the gigantic epic poems of India, the former of which rehearses the exploits of the incarnate deity Ram, and the latter the misfortunes and final victory of a race of kings descended from the great Bharat. There are astrological schools, which not only embrace the teaching of the art of divination and the casting of nativities by the situation and aspect of the stars, but also the science of computation in its widest sense, together with mathematical and astronomical knowledge. There are Tantric schools, in which are taught those works that are employed in explaining “the formulæ peculiar to the votaries of Shiva and the female deities, by which they seek to attain supernatural powers, and accomplish objects either good or bad for themselves or others.” The followers of the Tantric system have been justly described by Mr. Adam as “intemperate and licentious in their habits and manners, not only believing that the use of intoxicating liquors (and it might truly be added, an unlimited indulgence in licentiousness) is permitted, but that it is enjoined by the system which they profess.” And lastly, there are Vedantic schools, in which are read the Bhagavat Gita, a celebrated episode of the Mahabharat, unfolding a curious scheme of half mythological, half philosophical rationalism; the Vedanta Sara, and other treatises expository of pantheism,—a system which, in its more ideal and spiritual, not less than its grosser forms, impiously confounds the creature with the Creator, inflates the soul with a pride vastly more towering than that of stoicism, sanctions or inculcates the popular polytheistic idolatry, enforces the abhorrent dogma of transmigration through the various forms of animate and inanimate nature, and, by authoritatively teaching that final beatitude consists in a literal immersion or absorption of the human spirit in the unfathomable abyss of the divine essence, virtually points to the atheist’s hope and the godly man’s fear—a moral and intellectual self-annihilation.
As regards the number of schools, the allowances of the teachers, the number of pupils, the period of scholastic attendance, and other details we may select, the district of Burdwan is, on the whole, the most favourable specimen. In this district there are 190 Sanskrit schools, conducted by as many learned teachers. In these schools there are 1,358 students, averaging 7-1 to each school. Of the total number, 590 are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated, and 768 natives of other villages. In respect of caste, they are thus distributed:—Brahmans, 1,296; Vaidyas, or medical students, 45; Daivajoras, a degraded class of Brahmans, 11; Vaishnavas, or followers of the god Vishnu, 6. The average age of the teachers is 45 years. In the form of presents at public assemblies, &c., the entire body of professors of learning annually receive, in all, rs. 11,960, averaging to each per annum Rs. 63-4-5. The students of one hundred and five schools receive nothing in the form of presents, or by mendicancy. Those of eighty-five schools receive rs. 391, averaging about rs. 4-9-7 annually to the students collectively of each school. The following presents, at one view, an enumeration of the studies pursued, the number of students engaged in each, the average age of commencing andc ompleting the several branches of study:—
| Subjects of Study. | Number of Students. | Average age of commencing study. | Average age of completing study. |
| Grammar | 644 | 11.4 | 20.7 |
| Lexicology | 31 | 15.7 | 17.8 |
| Literature | 90 | 18.6 | 24.9 |
| Rhetoric | 8 | 23.6 | 27.1 |
| Law | 238 | 23.2 | 33.5 |
| Logic | 277 | 17.8 | 29.0 |
| Vedanta | 3 | 24.3 | 34.6 |
| Medicine | 15 | 16.2 | 24.2 |
| Mythology | 43 | 24.6 | 31.6 |
| Astrology | 7 | 23.4 | 30.5 |
| Tantras | 2 | 27.5 | 32.5 |
In other districts there are considerable differences as regards the numerical proportion of students pursuing the several branches of learning. Thus, in Tirhoot, while there are only 16 that study logic, there are 53 students of astrology. But, while similar variations will be found in most of the other departments, there is a remarkable uniformity throughout, as respects the average age of commencing and completing the different branches of study. grammar, lexicology, and literature which includes poetical, dramatic and rhetorical productions, although begun in succession, are generally studied simultaneously; and the same remark is in some measure applicable to law, logic, and other higher departments. A glance at the foregoing table, will at once show that the average of the whole period of scholastic study varies from twelve to twenty-two years!—a prodigious proportion of the best and most active years of one’s life, if we take into account the nature and amount of the acquisitions gained!
In estimating the value of these institutions, it is important to note, that, even if the benefits conferred by them were vastly greater than they really are, these are practically limited to a single class of the community. There is not, Mr. Adam assures us, “any mutual connection or dependence between vernacular and Sanskrit schools. The former are not considered preparatory to the other; nor do the latter profess to complete the course of study which has been begun elsewhere. They are two separate classes of institutions, each existing for distinct classes of society —the one, for the trading and agricultural, and the other, for the religious and learned classes. They are so unconnected that the instruction in Bengali and Hindi, reading and writing, which is necessary at the commencement of a course of Sanskrit study, is seldom acquired in the vernacular schools, but generally under the domestic roof; and, unless under peculiar circumstances, it is not extended to accounts, which are deemed the ultimate object of vernacular school instruction.” And the total disconnection farther appears from the fact, that, in some divisions of districts, there are vernacular schools with no institution of learning; and, in certain divisions of other districts, the learned institutions abound most where there are no vernacular schools at all!
While Mr. Adam testifies that, as a class, he found the learned Brahmans, “in general, shrewd, discriminating, and mild in their demeanour,” he also strongly avers that, beyond the narrow limits of their own immediate circle, “none of the humanizing influences of learning are seen in the improved moral and intellectual character or physical condition of the surrounding humbler classes of society. It seems never to have entered into the conceptions of the learned that it was their duty to do something for the instruction of those classes, who are as ignorant and degraded where learning abounds as where it does not exist; nor has learning any practical influence upon the physical comforts even of its professors, for their houses are as rude, confined, and inconvenient as those of the more ignorant, and the path-ways of Brahman villages are as narrow, dirty, and irregular as those inhabited by the humblest and most despised Chasas and Chandalas.” Or, as Mr. A. has elsewhere expressed it;—
“I saw men not only unpretending, but plain and simple, in their manners—and although seldom if ever offensively coarse, yet reminding me of the very humblest classes of English and Scottish peasantry—living constantly half-naked, and realizing in this respect the descriptions of savage life; inhabiting huts which, if we connect moral consequences with physical causes, might be supposed to have the effect of stunting the growth of their minds, or in which only the most contracted minds might be supposed to have room to dwell; and yet several of those men are adepts in the subtleties of the profoundest grammar of what is probable the most philosophical language in existence,—not only practically skilled in the niceties of its usage, but also in the principles of its structure; familiar with all the varieties and applications of their national laws and literature; and indulging in the abstrusest and most interesting disquisitions in logical and ethical philosophy.”
This latter clause is the glowing generalization of an indiscriminating panegyrist rather than the measured and qualified conclusion of a sober judge. And it is but justice to Mr. Adam, whose candour of mind and honesty of purpose are beyond all suspicion, to say, that at a later period, with a more enlarged experience and a maturer judgment, he was led to indite and put on record the following more accurate and truthful estimate:—
“The native mind of the present day, although it is asleep, is not dead. It has a dreamy sort of existence, in separating, combining, and recasting, in various forms, the fables and speculations of past ages. The amount of authorship shown to exist in the different districts, is a measure of the intellectual activity which, however now misdirected, might be employed for useful purposes. The same men who have wasted, and are still wasting, their learning and their powers in weaving complicated alliterations, recompounding absurd and vicious fictions, and revolving in perpetual circles of metaphysical abstractions—never ending, still beginning—have professed to me their readiness to engage in any sort of literary composition that would obtain the patronage of Government.”
Apart, then, altogether from the distorted views of moral and religious truth inculcated in the Sanskrit institutions and the perverted habits of mind contracted in acquiring them, we have Mr. Adam’s own distinct admission that both the teachers and the taught are only wasting their learning and their powers on what is utterly frivolous, or useless, or worse. In such a case, the more learned any man is, the more frivolous and useless do his labours become. And this is a fact, which Mr. Adam himself amply exemplifies in his third Report. He there recounts the literary achievements of the most learned men in the different districts. The most voluminous author he met with, was a native of Burdwan; of whose works he enumerates nearly forty. Of these, some are of great extent, such as the history of Rama, written on 889 leaves or 1,776 pages, containing 30,000 slokas or metrical stanzas. The greater part of them relate to fabulous, mythological, or purely scholastic subjects. And amongst these, we find such rarities and ingenuities as the following;—a work on the praises of Vishnu and Shiva, so composed that every sloka has two senses, of which one is applicable to Vishnu and the other to Shiva—another, exhibiting a double sense, one expressing the praises of Shiva, and the other some different meaning—a third, containing the praises of Krishna, written in a species of alliteration by a repetition of the same sounds—a fourth, in question and answer, so framed that the answer to one question contains the answers to all the questions in the same sloka—a fifth, containing the praises of Radha and Krishna, and so framed that they may be read either backward or forward—a sixth, so framed that each sloka contains materials for 64 slokas by the transposition of each letter in succession from the beginning to the end, first the thirty-two syllable from the left to right, and afterwards the thirty-two from right to left, &c. &c. How forcibly may all this remind us of the dark ages in Europe—those ages of coarse taste and rude discernment, of laborious trifling and busy indolence—when the learned could find no better employment for their time and talents than in unceasingly spinning and weaving the most fantastic subtleties out of their own racked and wearied brains; and when one of the loftiest and most characteristic achievements, in the favourite department of antithesis and alliteration, was the production of the celebrated mock heroic, the Pugna Porcorum per Publium Porcium Poetam, consisting of hundreds of lines and thousands of words, selected with such singularly mis-studied artifice that every one of them began with the letter P!!
We have thus, as we trust, calmly and dispassionately portrayed the genuine nature and character of indigenous instruction, throughout all its divisions and sub-divisions of elementary and learned Education. In doing so, we have purposely followed, and for the most part, only faithfully epitomized the official reports of Mr. Adam, the special government commissioner—reports, the accuracy of whose minute yet comprehensive details has hitherto been as unimpeached, as from its very nature, it is seemingly unimpeachable. It now only remains, therefore, that we should shortly endeavour to point out the extent to which indigenous instruction, such as it is, may be communicated. And for this end, we shall appeal to the same authentic source—the same high and indisputable authority.
If the instruction conveyed were better and more unexceptionable than it has been found to be, it would be sad to reflect that, as has already appeared, whole castes and classes of the native community are entirely excluded from its benefits. Or, if no whole classes were virtually or entirely so excluded, it would still be melancholy to consider not merely the utter inadequacy but the anomalous inequality of the supply in point of local distribution. In the city and district of Moorshedabad, for example, there are four thanas, or police sub-divisions, without any institution of education whatsoever; four others, in each of which there is only one vernacular school; and two others, in which there are a Persian and an Arabic school, or a Sanskrit and a Persian one, but no vernacular school at all. So, in Tirhoot, there are two thanas, in each of which there is only one vernacular school; and a third, in which not even one is to be found; while this latter is the one in which is the largest number of Sanskrit institutions! Or, if once more, the instruction were of a superior quality, and its denial to particular classes less extensive or complete, and its local distribution less unequal, there would still remain, to distress and harrow us, the appaling fact, that everywhere, with scarcely any exceptions, the entire half of every class from the highest to the lowest grades of Native Society is systematically deprived of any of its benefits! Mr. Adam’s elaborate census amply proves what our experience of all other lands would lead us antecedently to anticipate, viz., that the numerical proportion between the male and female population is, as nearly as possible, one of equality, while the same census as authoritatively confirms what had been often asserted, but often captiously and ignorantly cavilled at, disputed, or denied, viz., that the entire female population with hardly any known exceptions are hereditarily debarred from the advantages of instruction of any kind, and consequently abandoned to the absolute dominion of an all-enveloping night of starless and rayless ignorance! But, as the subject is one fraught with painful, yea, tremendous importance to the interests and welfare of society at large, we must, in order to obviate the possibility of any farther cavils, quote Mr. Adam’s own clear and explicit statements. In his second Report to the Supreme Government of India, he thus writes:—
In this third report to the same government, and with the advantages of a still wider experience, after substantially reiterating the statement of the fact, that nowhere is there any indigenous school for girls, he proceeds thus:—“The state of instruction amongst this unfortunate class (females) cannot be said to be low, for, with a very few individual exceptions, there is no instruction at all. Absolute and hopeless ignorance is in general their lot. The notion of providing the means of instruction for female children never enters into the minds of parents; and girls are equally deprived of that imperfect domestic instruction which is sometimes given to boys. A superstitious feeling is alleged to exist in the majority of Hindu females, principally cherished by the women, and not discouraged by the men, that a girl taught to write and read will soon after marriage become a widow, an event which is regarded as nearly the worst misfortune that can befal the sex; and the belief is also generally entertained in native society, that intrigue is facilitated by a knowledge of letters on the part of females. Under the influence of these fears, there is not only nothing done in a native family to promote female instruction, but an anxiety is often evinced to discourage any inclination to acquire the most elementary knowledge; so that when a sister, in the playful innocence of childhood, is observed imitating her brother’s attempts at penmanship, she is expressly forbidden to do so, and her attention drawn to something else. The Muhammadans participate in all the prejudices of the Hindus against the instruction of their female offspring; besides that, a very large majority of them are in the very lowest grades of poverty, and are thus unable, even if they were willing, to give education to their children. It may therefore be affirmed that the juvenile female population of this district—that is, the female population of the teachable age, or of the age between fourteen and five years, without any known exception, and with so few probable[8] exceptions, that they can scarcely be taken into the account—is growing up wholly destitute of the knowledge of reading and writing.”
“I made it an object to ascertain, in those localities in which a census of the population was taken, whether the absence of public means of native origin for the instruction of girls was to any extent compensated by domestic instruction. The result is, that in thanas Nanglia, Culna, Jehanabad, and Bhawara, domestic instruction was not in any one instance shared by the girls of those families in which the boys enjoyed its benefit; and that in the city of Moorshedabad, and in thana Daulatbazar of the Moorshedabad district, I found only five, and those Musalman families, in which the daughters received some instruction at home. In one of these instances, a girl about seven years of age was taught by a Kath Molla the formal reading of the Koran; in another instance two girls, about eight and ten years of age, were taught Persian by their father, a Pathan, whose object in instructing his daughters was stated to be to procure a respectable alliance for them; and in the three remaining families, four girls were taught mere reading and writing. This is another feature in the degraded condition of native society; the whole of the juvenile female population, with exceptions so few that they can scarcely be estimated, are growing up without a single ray of instruction to dawn upon their minds.”
As the natural and unavoidable result of such total deprivation of the means of instruction in youth, the state of instruction amongst the adult female population is that of an utter blank. In the whole city and district of Moorshedabad he only found nine women, who could read or write, or rather who could merely decipher writing, or sign their names. “In all the other localities,” adds he, with unwonted emphasis, “in all the other localities, of which a census was taken, no adult females were found to possess even the lowest grade of instruction.”
Lastly, in order to convey a clear and definite view of the precise extent of indigenous education, and consequently a clear and definite apprehension as to how far it comes short of the great object to be accomplished, which is none other than that of affording the means of instruction to the whole teachable population,—we shall present an aggregate estimate of the number and proportion of the instructed and uninstructed divisions of the juvenile community. Let it be remembered that the teachable or school-going age has, after due consideration and inquiry, been assumed to be between 14 and 5 years. Let it also be remembered, that under the term “instructed,” are included all that have obtained any kind or degree of instruction, however humble, including even those who can merely decipher writing, or sign their names. With this understanding, the following table and remarks, supplied by Mr. Adam, will exhibit a complete representation of the whole subject:—
| Total number of children between 14 and 5 years of age. | Number of children receiving school instruction. | Number of children receiving domestic instruction. | Total number of children receiving domestic and school instruction. | Children receiving neither domestic nor school instruction. | Proportion of children capable of receiving to children actually receiving instruction is as 100 to | |
| City of Moorshedabad | 15,092 | 959 | 300 | 1,259 | 13,833 | 8.3 |
| Thana Dowlatbazar, | 10,428 | 305 | 326 | 631 | 9,797 | 6.05 |
| Thana Nanglia | 8,929 | 439 | 285 | 724 | 8,205 | 8.1 |
| Thana Culna | 18,172 | 2,243 | 676 | 2,919 | 15,257 | 16.05 |
| Thana Jehanabad | 15,595 | 366 | 539 | 905 | 14,690 | 5.8 |
| Thana Bhawara | 13,409 | 60 | 288 | 348 | 13,061 | 2.5 |
“The last column of the preceding table shows, that in the Culna thana of the Burdwan district, where the amount of instruction is greater than in any other of the localities mentioned, of every 100 children of the teachable age, 16 only receive any kind or degree of instruction, while the remaining 84 are destitute of all kinds and all degrees of it; and that in the Bahwara thana of the Tirhoot district, where the amount of instruction is less than in any other of the localities mentioned, of every 100 children of the teachable age, 212 only receive any kind or degree of instruction, while the remaining 9712 are destitute of all kinds and all degrees of it. The intermediate proportions are those of thana Jehanabad, in South Behar, and thana Daulatbazar, in the Moorshedabad district, where there are about 6 children in every 100 who receive some instruction, leaving 94 wholly uninstructed; and those of thana Nanglia, in the Beerbhoom district, and the city of Moorshedabad, in which there are about 8 children in every 100 who receive some instruction, leaving 92 wholly uninstructed.”
Thus in Burdwan, the most highly cultured district visited, only 16 per cent. of the teachable or school-going population do actually receive any kind or degree of instruction at all; and in Tirhoot, the least cultured district visited, only 212 per cent. receive any kind or degree of instruction;—while the aggregate average for all the districts is no more than 734 per cent.—leaving 8234 out of every 100 children of the teachable age wholly destitute of all kinds and degrees of instruction whatsoever! And taking this as a fair, legitimate, and inductively established average for all Bengal and Behar with their many millions, how fearful—how utterly appalling the aggregate amount of educational destitution!
In order still farther to complete and render more impressive our view of the utter inadequacy of the means of indigenous instruction, it is necessary to direct special attention to the literary condition of the adults. When the number of the juvenile population actually receiving any sort of instruction is so disproportionably small, compared with the number actually needing instruction, it might, as a necessary consequence, be anticipated, that a similar disproportion would be found in the respective numbers of the instructed and uninstructed adult population. And such a result, Mr. Adam, on entirely independent grounds, has ascertained and established, as the following table, partly extracted, and partly framed out of his materials, will abundantly verify:—
| Different classes of instructed adult population. | ||||||||
| names of districts. | Total adult population. | Adults who have received a learned education. | Adults who have received an education superior to mere reading and writing. | Adults who can merely read and write. | Adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names. | Total number of adults who have any kind or degree of instruction. | Total number of the wholly uninstructed adults population. | Proportion of total adult population to instructed adult population is |
| as 100 to | ||||||||
| City of Moorshedabad | 97,818 | 108 | 4832 | 1700 | 715 | 7355 | 90,463 | 7.5 |
| Thana Daulat bazar | 42,837 | 13 | 580 | 614 | 565 | 1772 | 41,065 | 4.1 |
| Thana Nanglia | 30,410 | 14 | 386 | 593 | 620 | 1613 | 28,797 | 5.3 |
| Thana Culna | 81,045 | 187 | 2517 | 2304 | 2350 | 7308 | 73,737 | 9.01 |
| Thana Jehanabad | 157,573 | 25 | 1045 | 761 | 1004 | 2835 | 54,738 | 4.9 |
| Thana Bhawara | 44,416 | 34 | 431 | 303 | 265 | 1033 | 43,381 | 2.3 |
To this table we subjoin some of Mr. Adam’s appropriate remarks, both of a deductive and an explanatory character:—
“The total adult population is the population, male and female, above 14 years of age, including the students both of Hindu and Muhammadan schools of learning, as being generally above that age; and the instructed adult population is the total number of those who were ascertained to possess any kind or degree of instruction, from the lowest grade to the highest attainments of learning. The result is a natural consequence of the degree of instruction found to exist amongst the juvenile population, and is confirmatory of the proportions given in the last table. The Culna thana of the Burdwan district, in which the highest proportion of juvenile instruction was found, is that also in which the highest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz., about 9 in every 100, leaving 91 of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The Bhawara thana of the Tirhoot district, in which the lowest proportion of juvenile instruction was found, is that also in which the lowest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz., 2 and 3-10ths in every 100, leaving 97 and 7-10ths of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The intermediate proportions have also a correspondence. Thus, in the comparison of one locality with another, the state of adult instruction is found to rise and fall with the state of juvenile instruction; and although this is what might have been anticipated on the most obvious grounds, yet the actual correspondence deserves to be distinctly indicated, for the sake of the confirmation which it gives to the general accuracy of the numerous details and calculations by which the conclusion has been established.”[9]
From the preceding table and statements, it will be seen that the aggregate average for all the districts is no more than 512 per cent.! leaving 9412 of every 100 adults wholly destitute of all kinds and degrees of instruction whatsoever! What, then, must be the amount of educational destitution among the adult population of Bengal and Behar with their many millions?
In order to have the mind not only penetrated but absolutely saturated with a sense of the fearful extent of the destitution, let us endeavour to form an approximate estimate of the actual numbers of the juvenile and adult population that are without any educational instruction whatever, even of the humblest description, such as simple reading and writing. In the statistical tables supplied by Mr. Montgomery Martin, in his recent and most authoritative work on the subject, we find the aggregate population of Bengal and Behar estimated, in round numbers, at thirty-six millions. First, as regards the juvenile population, from the most favourable average furnished by European statists, it appears that 366 in 1000, or about eleven-thirtieths of the whole people of any nation, may be reckoned as under fourteen years of age, and that of this entire population of children, three-sevenths are of an age to go to school, even when the school-commencing age is fixed at seven years complete. In India, however, the school-commencing age is, in point of fact, not seven but five years; and at this lower rate it has been reckoned all along. This would render the proportion of the juvenile population of the school-going age not three-sevenths, but about three-sixths, or one-half. Let us now, then, actually apply these proportions to the case before us. In Bengal and Behar, there is a population of about 36,000,000,—thirty-six millions. Eleven-thirtieths of this aggregate will give us a juvenile population amounting to 13,200,000, or upwards of thirteen millions. The half of this gives us 6,600,000, or upwards of six and a half millions, as the number of children of the school-going age. But we have already ascertained that of children of the school-going age, only 734 in 100 receive instruction of any kind. Consequently, of the 6,600,000, or upwards of six and a half millions, of the school-going age, only 511,500 or about half a million, receive any kind of instruction, —leaving 6,088,500, or about six millions of children, capable of receiving school instruction, wholly uneducated!—that is, a number of school-going children in the provinces of Bengal and Behar alone, wholly uneducated, greatly more than double the aggregate of the entire population of Scotland, including men, women, and children! Then, again, as to the adults:—deducting the juvenile population of 13,200,000, or upwards of thirteen millions, from the sum-total of 36,000,000, or thirty-six millions, it will leave 22,800,000, or nearly three millions, as the aggregate of the adult population. But we have already found that, of the adult population, only an average of 512 in 100 receive instruction of any kind. It will hence appear, that of the entire adult population of about twenty-three millions, only 1,254,000, or about a million and a fourth, receive instruction of any kind;—leaving 21,546,000, or upwards of twenty-one and a half millions of adults wholly uneducated!—that is a number of adults, in the provinces of Bengal and Behar alone, wholly uneducated, considerably exceeding in amount the entire aggregate of the population of England and Scotland united, including men, women, and children! What a tremendous conclusion, to have been arrived at, is this! Upwards of six millions of children, of the school-going age, and upwards of twenty-one and a half millions of adults, in the provinces of Bengal and Behar alone, without one shred or tittle of school or domestic instruction of any kind or degree, however humble, meagre, or inadequate! And yet, whoever has given a patient attention to the cautious inductive process by which these fearful results have been obtained, must feel satisfied that they cannot be far wide of the truth. Let, then, these terrific summations be kept ringing in the ears of our statesmen at home and abroad, aye, and of the whole sovereign British public, till some educational movement be originated, somewhat commensurate in its nature and extent with the clamant necessities of the living and moving masses of ignorance around us. For, viewed even as a case of simple ignorance or blank vacuity, who can, without painful emotion, contemplate its vastness—its almost boundlessness of expanse? Who, that has in any adequate degree realized the astounding fact, can maintain anything like silence, when he reflects that, in the two provinces of Bengal and Behar alone, the amount of ignorance is numerically far more extensive than it would be if, in the British isles, including England, Scotland, and Ireland, with their several insular appendages, not a single man, woman, or child, could be found, endowed with the humblest of all scholastic attainments—the attainment that would capacitate them simply to read, cypher, or write!
Mr. Adam himself, albeit not a man over much given to the melting or emotive mood, seems to have felt something like an indescribable sensation taking possession of his soul when, looking down from the high tower of his educational survey, he gazed at the wide waste of utter sterility, intellectual and moral, that stretched out in all directions around him. In summing up the details of his first report on the educational statistics of the thana Nattore in the district of Rajshahi, he thus gives vent to the uncontrollable feelings which had gained the ascendancy over his usually cool and phlegmatic temperament:—“The conclusions to which I have come on the state of ignorance both of the male and female, the adult and the juvenile population of this district, require only to be distinctly apprehended in order to impress the mind with their importance. No declamation is required for that purpose. I cannot, however, expect that the reading of the report should convey the impression which I have received from daily witnessing the mere animal life to which ignorance consigns its victims, unconscious of any wants or enjoyments beyond those which they participate with the beasts of the field—unconscious of any of the higher purposes for which existence has been bestowed, society has been constituted, and government is exercised. I am not acquainted with any facts which permit me to suppose that, in any other country subject to an enlightened government, and brought into direct and immediate contact with European civilization, in an equal population, there is an equal amount of ignorance with that which has been shown to exist in this district.” And when a more enlarged experience forced on his mind the appalling fact that this was not a solitary district, but only an average specimen of all the districts and provinces of Bengal and Behar, he thus embodies his confirmed impressions and quickened aspirations:—“While ignorance is so extensive, can it be matter of wonder that poverty is extreme, that industry languishes, that crime prevails, and that, in the adoption of measures of policy, however salutary or ameliorating their tendency, government cannot reckon with confidence on the moral support of an intelligent and instructed community? Is it possible that a benevolent, a wise, a just government can allow this state of things any longer to continue?”
Thus to look down on an expanse of absolute ignorance—a sheer intellectual and moral waste—would be sufficiently painful. But, alas, there is something more painful still—and that is, to look down on a region that is not merely sterile of all that is useful or wholesome, but spontaneously prolific of all that is unprofitable and noxious. Now that is precisely what truth and reality—justice to the great cause we advocate and justice to the people of India—imperatively demand of us. Mr. Adam was too much disposed to view the whole case negatively—in other words, to treat it simply as a question of ignorance. Even then, as we have seen, on his own showing and in accordance with his own clear admissions, the contemplation is a harrowing one. But how much more so does it become when we reflect that, as regards the overwhelming majority of the juvenile and adult population, there is not merely a total absence of school-instruction of any kind for good, but the positive presence and ever-active energy of an education of circumstances for all manner of evil?
As regards actual innate ideas or impressions, the mind of man may be truly allowed, agreeably to the phraseology of Locke, to come into the world as unvaried a blank as “a sheet of white paper.” But then all sound philosophy, backed by Scripture and experience to boot, must convince us that, though destitute of actual innate ideas or impressions, the mind does come into the world endowed with various innate powers, susceptibilities, or tendencies, which only await the presentation of their appropriate objects to insure their various and fitting development. In this truer aspect of the case, the mind may be said rather to resemble “a sheet of white paper,” which has been written all over with divers chemical solutions—the letters, words, and sentences remaining wholly invisible, until brought in contact with heat or any other exciting cause, fitted to reveal them in perceptible legible forms. The mind of man, somewhat similarly endowed with latent and undeveloped powers, susceptibilities, and tendencies, is, immediately on its introduction on the actual stage of time, plunged, as it were, into an atmosphere of circumstances, which, calling these varied powers, susceptibilities, and tendencies into active exercise, impart unto them all their own peculiar tinge and colouring. It is thus that the intellectual and moral faculties are most influentially moulded, the future life and character most effectually shaped and formed. The manners, language, and pleasurable associations of earliest youth become the habits of maturer years. The feelings, prejudices, and predilections of the susceptible mind of the child become the predominant feelings, prejudices, and predilections of the indurated mind of the man. In this view of the case, we cannot but respond to the truth and accuracy of the sentiment expressed by a British journalist, when he exclaims,—“How infinitely small is the education which is obtained at school compared with that which is obtained at home! The formation of habits and the acquisition of rules of conduct, the most efficacious of all processes of education, take place outside the walls of schools, and are derived chiefly from example and association in infancy. It is, indeed, in the dwellings of the people that the mind and character of the people are formed, that their physical frames are matured, their moral natures educated, their judgments guided and directed, and that their future place in the scale of morality and intellect is determined.”
Such being the acknowledged potency of the education of external circumstances, let us consider, for a moment, the social atmosphere into which every Hindu is plunged from the very dawn of his palpable being! What sights and sounds encompass him all around, by night and by day—in printing the most vivid images of sense on the captive mind, and exciting the most carnal propensities of the unregenerate heart! The subject is too vast to be entered on here; we can only passingly and incidentally allude to it. It would require whole volumes to depict the endless round of shows, spectacles, and revelries,—the monotonous circle of mechanical forms, frivolous rites and ceremonial mummeries—which constitute the popular worship of Hinduism, and endow it with resistless fascinations to infantile minds, whether of earlier or of riper years. To prevent even the suspicion of misrepresentation on the subject we shall here quote the words of a celebrated native writer, who, though he never renounced Hinduism in its more refined form, was quite alive to the evils of the popular idolatry:—
“We often see the idolaters act in the most childish manner whilst engaged in what they call their religious worship. As children present food and couches to their playthings, so they, both old and young, offer food to their idols, and afterwards eat it themselves with the greatest delight, pretending that they have left it. We see them occasionally marrying male and female idols together, and acting more like madmen than rational beings. They whirl their hands round their head, snap with their hands, breathe with the greatest rapidity, knock with their arms forcibly against their sides, beat themselves on the cheek, bend their hands and fingers, and their whole body, in various unnatural ways, and perform a thousand other gesticulations of a similar nature, and call this spiritual worship. At certain festivals they engage in pugilistic contests, and, with a view of performing religious actions, bedaub their face and hands and all their limbs with mud, or even blood, and fight together, or strike each other with their fists, and commit such outrages, and play such gambols before the gods, as one would hardly think rational beings capable of performing. Occasionally they substitute another person in the place of their favourite god, and make him dance before them, and amuse themselves by ridiculing and reviling him through Bashoodeb, Kashoodeb,[10] and other such like buffoons, so that it is truly distressing to behold them. They consider their blocks as animated beings, and though they cannot eat, offer them food; and though they cannot smell, present them with various flowers; and lest in the cold season they might suffer from the cold, they furnish them with warm clothes; and in the hot season, they fan them; and lest the musquitoes should bite them, they place them within curtains at night. They are constantly afraid lest the hands and feet of these their gods should be broken, and are therefore very anxious about their preservation; and yet, with all their care, we sometimes see that the rats and cockroaches spoil their colour, and make holes in their bodies; and the flies, after sitting upon various unclean things, come and sit upon them. Alas! where then is their divinity, seeing they suffer themselves to be thus insulted? And how is it that they are so entirely dependent for protection upon the diligence of their worshippers, if they are really animated, as their adherents suppose, by the spirit of the gods? Again, idolaters, to get rid of their sins, likewise pay their adoration to a shell or a bell. For the same purpose, they also anoint their gods of wood and stone, with milk, curds, ghee, sugar, and honey; they present to them clothes, sandal-wood, and garlands; they burn incense, and kindle lamps, present eatable offerings, cocoa-nuts, betel, and money, and scatter flowers before them. They sometimes worship them by standing in their presence, placing their fingers in their mouth, and bleating like sheep; sometimes they bawl out before them in the most unnatural way, and use language which it would be highly improper here to repeat. They beat drums, play on various instruments, walk in procession, wave clubs, twigs, &c.”
Now, viewed in reference to its effect on the intellect only, what must be the influence of a system like this in perpetual operation?—a system, which robs the divine Being of every attribute fitted to awaken veneration, gratitude, or love; a system which virtually and practically converts cows, monkeys, dogs, jackals, squirrels, birds, and other animals; trees, plants, books, wood, stone, and other lifeless substances, into gods or objects of religious reverence; a system studiously inculcating as worship a mass of trivialities such as one would think “could only be practised by infants taught to do so by their nurses, or by persons devoid of intellect?” What, we ask, must be the direct and legitimate influence of such a system on the intellect of its enthusiastic votaries, young and old? What can it be, except a resistless influence in depraving the reason and judgment—in crippling and degrading the cognitive powers—in paralysing the energies of original thought—in fettering or even crushing the spirit of inquiry—in contracting, if not wholly annihilating, the capacity of accurate discriminative discernment; in a word, in superinducing and perpetuating a state of hopeless childhood and mental imbecility?
And if such be the inevitable effect of the existing system of things on the intellect, still more disastrous is the influence which it exerts on the moral nature of the Hindu community.
In the existing circumstances of that community, there is not merely the absence of any principles fitted to elevate the moral character, but the positive presence of every principle fitted to destroy it. Think of the mantas or popular formularies for inflicting damage or mortal injury on enemies. Think of the rites and ceremonies for obtaining success in invading the rights of property, and violating the sanctity of a neighbour’s home. Think of the promiscuousness with which persons of all sexes, with scarcely a covering, perform their ablutions in tanks and sacred streams. Think of the wanton and lascivious dances, constantly exhibited before the idols, with their fitting accompaniments of filthy and abominable songs. Think of the apathy, the hard-heartedness, the unfeeling disregard of human suffering produced by the distinctions of caste, the self-inflicted cruelties, and the brutal exposures of the sick and the dying. Think of the boundless license to all vice and crime afforded by the unseemly characters of the gods—the very objects of devotion and worship—whose unworthy exploits are perpetually rehearsed amid the excitement of festivity, music, and song; how they quarrelled with each other, kicked and abused each other, and, in their various social feuds and domestic scuffles, often bore away the most unmistakeable badges of their folly and shame, in the loss of an eye, a tooth, or a head; how, in their personal bearing and demeanour towards others, they were ever and anon guilty of the worst possible excesses—excesses of dishonesty and fraud, of lying and deceit, of intemperance and licentiousness, of ferocious cruelty and bloody revenge; in a word, how the popular gods of Hinduism, whose lives and actions are constantly imaged before the mental eye of their deluded votaries, are beings who seem to differ from the most depraved of the race of man only by their superiority in power and wickedness—beings, whose society, if they were merely human, would be systematically shunned by the wise and the good; whose movements would be scrupulously watched by the myrmidons of a vigilant magistracy; whose most frequent homes ought to be the penitentiary or the jail; and whose exit from the stage of time might well be the penalty-consecrated pathway of the most reprobate of felons! Think of all this, with seriousness and sobriety, and then say, whether the unavoidable tendency of the whole be not to blunt the sense of decency—to extinguish all feeling of delicacy—to replenish the imagination with thoughts of impurity—to pollute the best of the affections—to sear and deaden the conscience, and so render it insensible to the distinctions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood; to stunt the growth of every nobler and more generous aspiration—to excite into inordinate development every grosser and more prurient inclination of the naturally corrupt heart; in a word, to habituate to scenes, sentiments, and practices which cannot fail to issue in a depravation of all morals and a deterioration of all manly character. And yet, is not this, with exceptions so few, and modifications so partial and unimportant, as not materially to affect the general estimate—is not this indisputably, in its broad and characteristic lineaments, a painful but a faithful portraiture of the actual condition of the great masses of the native population?
From a picture so deplorable of the wholly uninstructed many, who are thus entirely abandoned to the education of circumstances, it may be thought that some relief must be found in turning the eyes away and fixing them on the variously instructed few. In other more highly favoured lands, such relief is to be found as an ever ready refuge. In Great Britain it is calculated that there may be a million of youth without any means of school instruction, and several millions of adults that exhibit the bitter fruits of ignorance, and so entail on society at large the retributive awards of its criminal neglect. But there, if, at the foundations of the social pyramid, we are painfully compelled to behold a huge chaotic congeries of base materials, such as iron mixed with clay, we may, above these, be cheered with the spectacle of a finer stratum of brass—on which may be superimposed another of silver—while the whole may be seen surmounted with a head or apex of gold. As to the cultivation of intellect, and the acquisition of useful knowledge, are there not thousands and even tens of thousands who have reached the highest standard to which civilized humanity has yet attained? Witness the effects! effects which, in real, tangible, visible forms, seem almost to outstrip the fabled metamorphoses of antiquity. What changes, what transitions, what triumphs, in the arts and sciences! What gigantic strides in the mastery of mind over nature’s elements! What a shadowing of omnipotence in the power by which all are made tributary to the augmented comforts and enhanced enjoyments of man! But this is not all. The apex of the British social pyramid, with its clustering pinnacles, does not sparkle with the brilliancy of a cultured intellectualism only; for then might it merely exemplify and realise the garnishing of a corpse or the whitening of a sepulchre. No, there are—thanks to a gracious over-ruling Providence—thousands and tens of thousands that are morally and spiritually good, as well as intellectually enlightened. These, from higher, nobler, and more constraining motives than the children of this world ever knew, strive immeasurably to outstrip the latter, even in the chosen sphere of their own favourite earthborn moralities. As they name the name of Jesus, they feel themselves under solemn oath and covenant to depart from all iniquity—to be holy as He is holy—to refrain from all those fleshly lusts and carnal desires by which men’s lives are polluted and their religion defiled, from all riotous and luxurious excesses, from all covetousness and usury, from all extortion and oppression, from all envy and jealousy, from all hatred and malice, from all pride and arrogancy, from all ambition and vain glory, from all slander and backbiting, from all enmity, and strife, an uncharitableness. From the same high and holy motives thed feel themselves also bound positively to cultivate all the personal virtues, all the social and domestic charities; that tenderness which awakens sympathy; that gentleness which wins on the affections; that generosity which excites the sense of gratitude; that benevolence which stimulates affectionate regard; that unflinching integrity which is greeted with salutations in the haunts of business, and unbending fidelity, with the tribute of warmest acknowledgments, and open-handed liberality, with the heart-felt responses of the poor, the needy, and the fatherless; and unalterable friendship, with the enthusiasm of quickened sensibility; and untainted honour, with the generous approbation of high-minded men; and devoted patriotism, with the enkindled ecstasies of a benefited people. And, above and beyond all those virtues and moralities, which may not have their roots deeper than in the more generous impulses of unrenewed nature, or the more prudential maxims of a wisely-regulated self-love, and which, consequently, may never raise their heads, or exhale their perfume beyond the unsettled region of this earthly atmosphere; these feel themselves additionally bound, by every obligation, the most sacred and divine, to cultivate those purely evangelical tempers and graces, the roots of which strike deep into the soil that has been upturned under the husbandry of the Almighty Spirit of all grace, and the flowers and fruits of which, after beautifying and enriching for a season these wintry climes of earth, are destined to appear in richer and more beauteous forms, amid the never-withering flowers and fruits of Paradise. They feel themselves bound, by every obligation the most sacred and divine, to cultivate that poverty of spirit without which the kingdom of heaven is not theirs; that mourning for sin, without which they shall never be comforted; that meekness, without which they shall never inherit the earth; that hungering and thirsting after righteousness, without which they shall never be filled; that mercifulness, without which they shall never obtain mercy; that purity of heart, without which they shall never see God; that patience and forbearance, forgiveness and good-will, that shall ever prompt them to love their very enemies, to bless those that curse them, to do good to them that hate them, and to pray for those that despitefully use them and persecute them. Above all, they feel themselves bound to cultivate that charity, or heavenly love, of all the graces best, without which they know they may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, possess all faith, so that they would remove mountains, bestow all their goods to feed the poor, and give their body to be burned, and yet be nothing; that charity which suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up, which rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; that charity, which, like “the immortal amaranth, a flower that once in Paradise, fast by the tree of life, began to bloom,” derives its origin from heaven, and, after temporarily gracing and adorning earth with its presence, thence returns to heaven again where first it grew, and there for ever grows, peering aloft, the richest and most beauteous flower in the garland of immortality. The thousands and the tens of thousands, who, amid many cleaving infirmities and many acknowledged imperfections, thus habitually strive, in humble dependence on Divine aid, to have the lower vestment of their practical life and conduct, which is of earthly texture, thus in-woven with the moral virtues, and the upper robe, which is of heavenly fabric, thus begemmed with the heavenly graces; these, constituting, as they do, at once the preservative “salt” and the irradiating “light” of British society, diffuse all round them the most healthful influences—influences, which circulate in multiplied reflections from the minds and characters of myriads more, that have little or no intrinsic savour and lustre of their own. It is the very nature of moral and spiritual goodness to be, like the pure light of heaven, freely and exhaustlessly communicative. “A good man,” observes an eloquent writer of antiquity, “a man who feels the power of religion, is not a blessing only to himself, but the common benefit of all other men; as he really communicates to all others the advantages which he himself enjoys. For, as the sun is a light to all those who have eyes, so the pious, the divinely wise, are the light of all rational beings: as the aromatic spices, which exhaling spread on the breeze and fill with their sweet odour those who are near; in the same manner, the friends and acquaintances of a good man derive from the breath of virtue, which emanates far and wide from his character, a perfume that adorns and enriches their own.”
But, in India, whither are we to turn, or where are we to look for relief in the privilege of gazing at the bright side of a picture like this?—or one, in any way approximating to this? —or one, containing even the seeds, germs, or primordial elements of anything resembling this?—We confess, we know not. The intellectual and moral condition of the wholly uninstructed masses, constituting the overwhelming majority, we have already glanced at; and, in the preceding pages, will be found ample materials, from which to form an accurate estimate of the intellectual and moral condition of the partially or inadequately instructed minority. To spare the reader the tedium of a lengthened recapitulation, we have only to request that he may be pleased to look back and carefully re-ponder the statements of fact already given. Let him look at the nature, character, and influence of the instruction imparted in the elementary schools, and say, whether Mr. Ward’s estimate of it does not fall far short of the reality, rather than exceed it. Education in these schools, “is confined,” says he, “to a few rudiments, qualifying the pupils to write a letter on business, and initiating them into the first rules of arithmetic. A Hindu school is a mere shop, in which, by a certain process, the human mind is prepared to act as a copying machine, or as a lithographic press. The culture of the mind is never contemplated in these seminaries. Hence Hindu youths, though of a capacity exceedingly quick, never find the means of strengthening or enlarging the faculties. The bud withers as soon as it is ready to expand. Destitute, therefore, of all that is reclaiming in education, of all that contributes to the formation of good dispositions and habits, these youths herd together for mutual corruption. Destitute of knowledge themselves, the parents, the tutors cannot impart to others that which they themselves have not received; human nature takes its unrestrained course; and whatever is in the human heart receives an unbounded gratification.” These schools, thus viewed, as by Mr. Ward, chiefly in their negative character, are sufficiently unproductive of good and prolific of evil. How much more so, when viewed in their positive character! Under the endless recurrence of a dull, monotonous, mechanical routine, the intellectual soil, light by nature and wholly unmanured by art, soon becomes impoverished altogether. Under the combined influences of an utterly vicious system of discipline, the forced initiation into deceptive and dishonest practices, the habitual inculcation of loose, grovelling, carnalizing maxims for the regulation of future conduct, the unceasing repetition of abominably filthy or grossly idolatrous legends,—the moral and religious soil is transformed into a fertile nursery of all manner of rank, unprofitable, and noxious weeds!
Nor is the aspect of things materially improved, when we turn aside to contemplate the nature, character, and influence of the education in the schools of learning, whether Muhammadan or Hindu. Besides the details already supplied, we may, instead of deducing any further inferences of our own, appeal to the well-weighed judgments of the most disinterested, impartial, and unsuspicious witnesses. The English translator of Schlegel’s work on the Philosophy of History, adduces, from the illustrious Goerres, the following passage as a brief summary of his estimate of the practical influence of the system so enthusiastically propounded by the prophet of Mecca, and, by his credulous followers, embraced and propagated with such resolute and inflexible zeal. “The rigid monotheism,” says he, “of his (the prophet’s) doctrine, which, by denying the Trinity and with it all personal manifestation of the Deity, limits its idea to the depths of eternity, without admitting any true or living communication of the Godhead with what appertains to time, naturally allures the metaphysical pride which in this abstraction hath made itself its own God. The ethical Pantheism which this religion professes, while it furnishes a pretext, a motive and a palliation to all the pretences of the mighty, to the ambition of usurpers, the violence of pride, and the arrogance of tyranny, and at the same time consoles and disarms the injured and the oppressed by the inevitableness of destiny, must draw to its preacher the men of the sword, of violence, and of blood, and links those once bound indissolubly to him. The sensual Eudaimonism, to which his creed opens so free a scope both in this world and the next, must rally round the apostle of lust the multitude that burns with all the passionate glow of that fervid zone, and place under his control all the wild fiery energies of that region.” With reference to the practical influence of Sanskrit learning, we have the recorded testimony of the equally illustrious Rammohan Roy. Being himself one of the profoundest Oriental scholars of his day, and being also conversant with European literature and science, he was peculiarly qualified and entitled to deliver an authoritative opinion. Accordingly, in a memorial and remonstrance against the establishment of the Sanskrit College in Calcutta, addressed to Lord Amherst, we find the following emphatic passages:—“This seminary” (the proposed Sanskrit College), “similar in character to those which existed in Europe before the time of Lord Bacon, can only be expected to load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and metaphysical distinctions of little or no practical use to the possessors or to society. The pupils will there acquire what was known two thousand years ago, with the addition of vain and empty subtleties since produced by speculative men, such as is already commonly taught in all parts of India. The Sanskrit language, so difficult that almost a lifetime is necessary for its acquisition, is well known to have been for ages a lamentable check on the diffusion of knowledge; and the learning concealed under this almost impervious veil is far from sufficient to reward the labour of acquiring it. If it had been intended to keep the British nation in ignorance of real knowledge, the Baconian Philosophy would not have been allowed to displace the system of the Schoolmen, which was the best calculated to perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner, the Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in darkness, if such had been the policy of the British Legislative.” And when, to the useless, the frivolous, and the puerile acquisitions of Sanskrit lore, which, instead of truly bracing and invigorating the mental faculties, tend rather to dilute and rarefy them info a vain and subtilizing spirit of error, we add the louring pride thereby engendered, the callousness of feeling, the total insensibility to the wants and miseries of man, together with the defence which it involves and entails of all that is blasphemous in literate pantheism and all that is revolting in the popular idolatry;—we have a picture in which the resemblance of each better light is wholly shrouded and eclipsed by the reality of the darksome shadows.
Whether, therefore, we look at the wholly uninstructed majority, or the partially instructed minority of the people of this land, we cannot help concluding that the work of education, in any right and proper sense of that term, has, with very few isolated exceptions, yet to be begun. For, by education, we mean that process by which the faculties are not only developed but improved and set to work in the right way—which does not teach merely but train—which regards oral precepts, however excellent, when unaccompanied with wholesome restraint, discipline, and good example, as altogether insufficient guides for childhood and youth—which systematically aims at making its subjects moral and virtuous as well as learned—which habitually inculcates the great truth, that a conquest over the evil passions and desires of the heart is a mightier achievement far than any triumphs over the ignorance of the head—which studiously and decidedly prefers purity of life, and integrity, and sincerity of conduct to all the merely bookish knowledge in the world—which, taking the word of the ever-living God for its guide, lays its foundations deep in religious culture, and, by imbuing the youthful mind with the love and fear of the true God, teaches most effectually the love of our neighbour, together with all due respect for his personal rights and social privileges.
In the present article, we have restricted ourselves to the subject of education and its kindred or collateral topics. But though we have done so, it has been purposely, and not because we are ignorant of, or indifferent to, other subjects which are intimately linked with it, or inseparably interwoven with its effective operation and success. We allude particularly to the reign of terror and insecurity that is abroad under the tyranny and oppression of the zemindars, the guilty connivance of a corrupt and unprincipled police, and the briberies, perjuries, and law-form mockeries of our Mofussil court of justice. We not only admit, but solemnly record, our deliberate conviction that the whole of this system—most iniquitous in its results though not in the intention of our rulers—demands revision, reform, remodelling. Moreover, we candidly admit that, without such revision and reconstruction of the Zemindary, Police, and Judicial systems, education itself, however vigorously set on foot and prosecuted, will be, in a thousand ways, baulked, thwarted, neutralized, and evacuated of its legitimate fruits. True it is, most true, that if an enlightened education could everywhere be communicated, it would eventually tear off, and “flutter into rags,” a vast deal of the present external organism, that is wielded in crushing and prostrating the energies of the people. In this respect we fully concur in the sentiments so honourably and creditably expressed by a young native gentleman—himself a zemindar—at a public meeting of the Native inhabitants recently held in the hall of the Free Church Institution, to vote an address of thankful acknowledgment to the Governor-General, on account of his enlightened educational enactment of the 10th October last. “Educate the people,” said he,“ and you will find them manfully resisting the oppressions of the zemindar. Educate the people, and they will cease to be victimized by the Darogah. Educate the people, and they will burst asunder those fetters by which they are now bandaged and trampled on.”
That such would be the ultimate effects of a sound and wholesome system of education, we have not the shadow of a doubt. Our only doubt is, as to how, or in what way, such a system could be generally established, with hopeful prospects of efficiency and success, in the face of the all-pervading, all-grinding demon of oppression that now stalks forth in all the lordliness of unchallenged supremacy, over the length and breadth of the land. Some would, consequently, have us wholly to suspend educational operations, until this evil demon in its multiplex forms is exorcised and fairly expelled from our borders. Others, on the contrary, would have us wholly to refrain from agitation on the subject of oppression, and proceed exclusively with educational measures. Now, in our sober judgment, both these extremes are wrong, and both equally to be avoided. Why should not administrative reforms, in the police and judicial departments, advance hand in hand with reform and extension in the educational departments? Why should the one be done and the other left undone? Rather, why should not both be prosecuted simultaneously? If both systems have, in point of fact, been allowed to grow up to a full maturity of evil—if both, acting and reacting on each other in a mutually strengthening process of mischief and misery—are leagued together in a terrible conspiracy against the welfare and prosperity of unhappy millions, why should we, in such an emergency, keep dallying and loitering in blank unprofitableness, or waste precious time in tracing their respective genealogies—in settling antiquarian questions as to which may be regarded as the cause and which the effect, which the antecedent and which the consequent, which the parent and which the child? Be the primary source or origin what it may, it is but too palpable that both systems now are inextricably blended in reciprocal influences for evil. And ought not this to be enough to persuade us to seek earnestly for the rectification of both, and plead unweariedly for the expansion of both in rectified and improved forms? Administrative reform can come from Government alone. Let us, then, unceasingly refresh the memory and stimulate the conscience of a not unwilling Government; let us accept, with cheerfulness and candour, any reformational instalment as a pledge of sincerity and good-will on its part; and let us ever wisely view such instalment as a stepping-stone of facility towards the ultimate attainment of more beneficial measures, under the ascendancy of more auspicious circumstances. Educational reform, on the other hand, is, to a certain extent, within reach of every member of the community at large. Each one, who has a will, may find a way of doing something; and that something, under whatever drawbacks or discouragements, each one is sacredly bound to attempt to do. However insignificant the result of individual endeavour, it is always another atom added to the momentum of onward improvement; and, however insignificant when viewed prospectively in reference to the grand design of national regeneration, it is sure to be viewed with peculiar satisfaction in retrospect, as one of the units in that mighty aggregate of influences, which contributed to ensure so glorious a consummation. Let us, then, each and all of us, resolve to discharge aright his own individual part in this great work; and let the recorded utterances of a wisdom that may be pronounced oracular, incite us to perseverance in such a course. Let the cutting reflection of Pythagoras shame us, as rational beings: “He that knoweth not that which he ought to know, is a brute beast among men; he that knoweth no more than he hath need of, is a man amongst brute beasts; and he that knoweth all that may be known is as a celestial being amongst men.” Let the sententious aphorism of our great English moralist quicken us, as accountable beings: “He that voluntarily continues in ignorance is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a light-house might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwreck.” Let the generous sentiment of Sir P. Sidney encourage us, as philanthropic beings: “Whatever be our learning, we ought to communicate it freely; imparting knowledge is only lighting other men’s candles at our lamp, without depriving ourselves of any flame.” Let the weighty remarks of a living statesman, in reference to the circumstances of another land, accommodated and applied to those of India, alarm us, as social beings: “Consider, too, the rapid progress of time. In ten years from this hour—no long period in the history of a nation—all who are nine years of age will have reached the age of nineteen years; a period in which, with the ten years that follow, there is the least sense of responsibility, the power of the liveliest action, and the greatest disregard of human suffering and human life. The early years are of incalculable value; an idle reprobate of fourteen is almost irreclaimable; every year of delay abstracts from us thousands of useful fellow-citizens; nay, rather it adds them to the ranks of viciousness, of misery, and of disorder. So long as this plague-spot is festering among our people, all our labours will be in vain; our recent triumphs will avail us nothing. To no purpose, while we are rotten at heart, shall we toil to improve our finances, to extend our commerce, and explore the hidden sources of our difficulty and alarm. We feel that all is wrong; we grope at noon-day as though it were night, disregarding the lessons of history and the word of God, that there is neither hope nor strength, nor comfort, nor peace, but in a virtuous, a wise, and understanding people.”
- ↑ The first report has been purposely omitted here, as it consists merely of a digest of the information possessed previous to the more minute, personal, and local inquiries of Mr. Adam himself.
- ↑ Nattore.
- ↑ There is this difference between Bengali and Hindi schools, that whereas in the second and third stages of the former the palm-leaf and plantain-leaf are generally used; in the same stages of the latter a wooden-board and brazen-plate are employed as the materials on which lessons in writing and accounts are given. Two modes are adopted of writing on the brazen-plate; first, by dissolving chalk in water to a consistency that permits the scholar to rub it on the plate, where it dries and receives the impression of a hard pin or reed-pen: and second, by writing on the plate with chalk-ink. The former is the mode chiefly employed in writing on the board, and mud is sometimes substituted for moistened chalk.
- ↑ We would willingly give the names of these, were it not that their own modesty has prohibited us from so doing. This much, however, we may state, that some of them are now usefully and honourably employed as teachers in the Free Church of Scotland’s Institution, Calcutta, diligently conveying to others the knowledge which they themselves have learned to appreciate.
- ↑ In the original, chamara, which means the tail of the cow of Tartary used as a fan, is for the purpose of fanning the gods in particular.
- ↑ Besides the principal sources of income now indicated, there are individual cases in which the teachers mainly depend on the liberality of a patron, on the proceeds of an endowment, on the emoluments derived from the practice of divination, on village subscriptions, on the wages derived from officiating as family priests, or initiating priests, or reciters of the Purans, &c.
- ↑ Not to encumber the text with harsh and, to the general reader, unintelligible names, we may here furnish a few of the titles of works that are perused in the logical schools:—Siddhanta Muktavali; the Murthuri commentaries of Tarka, and Vyapti Panchaka; the Godahari commentaries of Avayava and Satpratipaksha, and the Sabdasakiprakasika; the Jagadisi commentaries of Purva Paksha, Savyabhichara, Kevalanwaya, and Vyaddhikaranadharmachinnabhava, &c. &c.
- ↑ The few probable exceptions here alluded to are these:—1st. Zemindars are said occasionally to instruct their daughters in writing and accounts, since, without such knowledge, they would, in the event of widowhood, be incompetent to the management of their deceased husband’s estates, and would unavoidably become a prey to the interested and unprincipled; although, as Mr. Adam adds, “it is difficult to obtain from them an admission of the fact”—such, in social repute, is the disgrace of instructing a female in letters! 2nd. The mendicant Vaishnavas or followers of Chaitanya, a comparatively recent sect consisting of a colluvies from all other sects, are alleged, in some measure at least, to instruct their daughters in reading and writing. Yet, as Mr. Adam adds, it is a fact that, “as a sect, they rank precisely the lowest in point of general morality, and especially in respect of the virtue of their women.” 3d. Many of the wretched class of nautch girls, who are prostitutes by profession, also acquire some knowledge of reading and writing, in order to enable them the better to carry on their clandestine correspondence and intrigues. With these few unimportant exceptions, Mr. Adam peremptorily assures us, that “the total number of grown up females may be reckoned as destitute of instruction in letters.”
- ↑ “Although this correspondence is shown to exist so that in comparing one locality with another the proportion of adult instruction rises or falls with the proportion of juvenile instruction, yet the proportions are by no means identical. Not only are the proportions not identical, but in comparing the proportion of juvenile instruction in one locality with the proportion of adult instruction in the same locality, the former is found to be uniformly higher. Still further, the excess in the proportion of juvenile instruction above that of adult instruction is found much higher in the Bengal than in the Behar thanas. These results are explained and confirmed by the conclusion at which we arrived on independent grounds, viz., that within a comparatively recent period certain classes of the native population, hitherto excluded by usage from vernacular instruction, have begun to aspire to its advantages; and that this hitherto unobserved movement in native society has taken place to a greater extent in Bengal than in Behar. Such a movement must apparently have the effect which has been found actually to exist, that of increasing the proportion of juvenile instruction as compared with that of adult instruction, and of increasing it in a higher ratio in Bengal than in Behar.”
- ↑ Names of persons employed for the purpose of ridiculing the representatives of their favourite gods.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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