Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 3/Chapter 1/Section 11

←

→

This edition skips Section XI., Chapter I of the Third Report (1838) by William Adam, even though it (incorrectly) places excerpts, reproduced below, from two of its sub-sections (viz. Burdwan and District of South Behar) as part of the previous section. Interested readers can find the complete section contents in a later edition published by the University of Calcutta.

4454978Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar, Report 3, Chapter 1

Burdwan.

There are four girls’ schools in the district, of which one, situated at Japat in the Culna thana, and superintended by the Reverend Mr. Alexander, is supported by the Ladies’ Society of Calcutta; a second, situated in the town of Burdwan, and superintended by the Reverend Mr. Linke, is supported by the same Society; a third, situated on the Mission premises in the neighbourhood of Burdwan, is supported and superintended by the Reverend Mr. Weitbrecht; and a fourth, situated in the neighbourhood of Cutwa in the thana of that name, and superintended by the Reverend William Carey of the Baptist Missionary Society, is supported by the Calcutta Baptist Society for promoting Native Female Education. In all these cases the wives of the Missionaries co-operate in the superintendence.

Besides the above-mentioned gratuitous superintendence there are thirteen paid teachers employed in these four schools; and of that number eight teachers are attached to the Japat school alone, two to the Cutwa school, two to the Burdwan school, and one to Mr. Weitbrecht’s school. Six of the teachers are Native Christians and seven are Hindus. Of the Native Christian teachers four are males and two females. The following are the castes of the Hindu teachers :—

Rajbansi	. . .	2
Brahman	. . .	1
Kayastha	. . .	1
Kshatrya	. . .	1
Chhatri	. . .	1
Vaishnava	. . .	1

The teachers are paid by monthly salaries—

		Rs.	As.	P.
Six of the teachers paid by the Ladies’ Society receive Rupees 5 each	. . .	30	0	0
Four receive Rupees 4 each	. . .	16	0	0
One teacher receives from Mr. Weitbrecht	. . .	8	0	0
Two teachers paid by the Baptist Society receive Rupees 12-8 each	. . .	25	0	0

The average is Rupees 6-12-3 to each teacher.

The average age of all the teachers is 26.7 years. The age of one of the female Native Christian teachers is 16, and of the other 18 years.

The number of girls taught in the four schools is 175. Their average age, when they entered school, was 6.5 years; their average age at the time when the schools were visited was 9.1 years; and the average age at which they intended or were expected to leave school was 14.9 years.

Of the total number of scholars one is a Musalman girl; thirty-six are the daughters of Native Christian parents, or orphans rescued from starvation and supported by the Missionaries; and one hundred and thirty-eight are the daughters of Hindu parents. The Hindus are thus sub-divided according to their castes—

Bagdhi	. . .	58
Muchi	. . .	18
Bauri	. . .	17
Dom	. . .	17
Hari	. . .	12
Vaishnava	. . .	6
Tanti	. . .	6
Chandal	. . .	2
Kurmi	. . .	1
Bäiti	. . .	1

A sum of Rupees 1-8 per month is allowed by the Ladies’ Society for refreshments to the children. Three female messengers are employed to bring the children to school and to conduct them home. If one messenger brings ten scholars every day for a month she gets two rupees, and more or less in proportion to the number. It is not necessary that the same scholars should always be brought by the same messenger; the number only is regarded.

The only language taught in the girls’ schools is Bengali. The books read are chiefly religious and the instruction Christian. They are also taught needle-work. The following is the distribution of the scholars into four grades of Bengali instruction:—

(a)	Girls who read only	. . .	112
(b)	Girls„ who write on the ground	. . .	⟨2⟩
(c)	Girls„ who write„ on the palm-leaf	. . .	⟨57⟩
(d)	Girls„ who write„ on the plantain-leaf	. . .	⟨4⟩

⟨The only other institution in this district to be noticed is an infants’ school situated on the Church Mission premises in the neighbourhood of Burdwan. The children are about 15 in number of both sexes, partly Native Christian children and partly orphans. They are under the care of Miss Jones, lately arrived from England, and well acquainted with the modes of infant instruction in use there. The ear is chiefly taught, and the exercises are pronounced in recitative.⟩

District of South Behar.

⟨In this district there is only one institution to be noticed under the present section. At Sahebgunge, the chief town of the district, a school in which English, Persian, and Arabic are taught has been established by Raja Mitrajit Singh of Tikari, and is superintended by his son Mirza Bahadur Khan. Two Maulavis and and one English teacher are employed; and as they discharge their respective duties without any connection or communication with each other, I have preferred considering them as at the head of three separate institutions. The Raja has granted the use of a garden-house for the purposes of the school, but one of the Maulavis causes his pupils, six in number, to attend him at his own dwelling-house, and the other meets his, five in number, in one of the apartments of the garden-house. The two schools have already been enumerated amongst the Persian and Arabic schools in Section IX.⟩