INTRODUCTION
BRIEF VIEW
of the
PAST AND PRESENT STATE
of
VERNACULAR EDUCATION IN BENGAL.
Adam’s Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal have long been held in high esteem for their valuable statistics and researches on a subject of great social and political importance—the intellectual condition of the masses of Bengal. The investigations were conducted with great diligence, and extended over a space of three years, at an expense to Government of more than a lac of rupees. In some points, as was to be expected from the difficulty of the enquiry, there are inaccuracies, but, on the whole, they afford a mass of information of great value.
As more energetic measures are about to be adopted towards the extension of Vernacular Education in Bengal, and as the Reports have long been out of print, it has been thought desirable to re-print those parts of them which bear on this vital question.
But as Adam’s Reports close with 1838, it has been deemed necessary to give a resumè of what has been done in Bengal since that period towards carrying out a system of Vernacular Education, as well as to glance at its previous condition.
Mr. Ellerton at Malda established some Vernacular Schools in the beginning of this century, and in the leisure of his Factory composed various Bengali books for the use of his scholars. In 1814, Mr. May, a Missionary, began his first Vernacular School in the Dutch Fort of Chinsura. In June 1815 he had 16 schools and 951 pupils, which soon increased to twenty-six schools, besides some ten others six miles below Chinsura, visited by him and his assistants sixty times every three months. In 1815 Lord Hastings made a monthly grant of Rupees 600 to the schools, and stated in a minute on the Schools, “the humble, but valuable, class of village schoolmasters claim the first place in this discussion.” In 1816 there were 2,136 pupils, and a school for instructing teachers was commenced. In 1818 there were thirty-six schools and 3,000 pupils—but Mr. May was cut off by death, and Mr. Pearson then took charge. Mr. May’s labors excited such interest, that after his death money arrived in Bengal from friends in America for the support of his schools. Mr. Lushington, Secretary to Government in his “History of Calcutta Religious and Benevolent Institutions,” remarks—“it may be safely asserted that the foundation of more extensive and higher knowledge
