the adoption of practical measures for its diminution. Virtually, the state of instruction of more than thirty-five millions of its subjects is before Government, that portion of the Indian population which has lived longest under British rule, and which should be prepared or preparing to appreciate and enjoy its highest privileges. I trust that the expense which Government has incurred in collecting this information will not be in vain, and that the hopes which have grown up in the minds of the people in the progress of the inquiry will not be disappointed.
CHAPTER SECOND.
Consideration of the means adapted to the improvement and extension of Public Instruction in Bengal and Behar.
The instructions which I have received from the General Committee of Public Instruction stated that the inquiry which I have now completed was instituted “with a view to ulterior measures” and I was expressly directed to report on “the possibility and means of raising the character and enlarging the usefulness of any single institution or of a whole class.” In conformity with these views and instructions, in the Second Report, besides reporting on the state of education in the Nattore thana of the Rajshahi district, I brought to the special notice of the Committee the condition of the English school at Rampoor Bauleah in the Bauleah thana, and of the Mahomedan College at Kusbeh Bagha in the Bilmariya thana; but I abstained from recommending any plans or measures for the improvement of whole classes of institutions until I should possess greater leisure and opportunities of more extended observation and experience. I however expressed the opinion that, as far as my information then enabled me to judge, existing native institutions from the highest to the lowest, of all kinds and classes, were the fittest means to be employed for raising and improving the character of the people—that to employ those institutions for such a purpose would be “the simplest, the safest, the most popular, the most economical, and the most effectual plan for giving that stimulus to the native mind which it needs on the subject of education, and for eliciting the exertions of the natives themselves for their own improvement, without which all other means must he unavailing.” Subsequent consideration has confirmed me in this view; and, after noticing other plans which have been suggested or adopted, I shall proceed to illustrate it in detail and to explain the means that may be employed in order to carry it into effect.
SECTION I.
Preliminary Considerations.
The object of this Section is to notice the most feasible of those plans for the promotion of general education which appear to
