able to find any trace. Generally, wherever the object of the inquiry has been understood, the disposition of the people has been friendly.
It is only the recollection of this object that will give any interest to the dry and minute details on which I am now about to enter. The object is to improve and extend public instruction; and the first step towards this object is to know, with all attainable accuracy, the present state of instruction in native institutions and in native society. The instructions given by the French Government with a series of statistical questions addressed to its diplomatic and consular agents furnish both a useful guide and a just criterion of such inquiries:—“Le principal mérite des expériences consiste dans la precision; et si l’estime attachée á un travail est un premier encouragement á l’exécuter, vous devez être persuadés que le Gouvernement attache un grand prix á celui dont vous etes chargés; qu’il en connait les obstaclês, les difficultés; et qu’il sait d’avance, que telle réponse en deux lignes vous aura couté souvent un mois de recherches; mais ces deux lignes seront une vérité, et une vérité est un don eternel à l’humanité.”[1] In the spirit of these views I have sought 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, I have endeavoured to keep constantly present to my own mind, to the minds of my native assistants, and to the minds of all with whom I have come 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 truths.
Section III.
District of Midnapore.
The information respecting this district communicated by Mr. Malet is contained in tables framed differently from those which I employed, and to prevent confusion all the details derived from this source will be included in the present Section. Mr. Malet states that the tables may, to the best of his belief, be depended on as correct, having been drawn out by the different darogahs when under his orders as Acting Joint Magistrate. Like those which I have myself prepared, they are too voluminous to be embodied entire in this Report; but the following abstract shows the number of Bengali, Ooriya, Persian,
- ↑ See Hemso’s Theorie de la Statistique, p. 78.
