“The Governor General in Council would be glad if the Zemindars of Bengal could be similiarly brought to tax themselves for Vernacular Education. In such case, without pledging the Government to any specific condition, His Excellency would willingly give such aid as the finances of the Empire could, from time to time, fairly afford.
“But if any such voluntary arrangement is impossible, His Excellency in Council is of opinion that legislation may justly be employed for the imposition of a general local cess of such amount as may be necessary.”
The last letter of Mr. Bayley, Secretary to the Government of India, on the subject, April 28th 1868, was urgent; he observes:—
“I am directed to request the attention of His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor to the urgent necessity which, in the opinion of the Governor General in Council, now exists for providing from local sources the means of extending elementary education in Bengal, and for the construction and maintenance of roads and other works of public utility.
“While there is no Province in India which can bear comparison with Bengal in respect of the progress made in the higher branches of education by a considerable section of the upper classes of the community, the Governor General in Council has long observed with regret the almost total absence of proper means of provision for the elementary education of the agricultural classes which form the great mass of the population.
“The contrast in this respect between Bengal and other Provinces is striking. In Bengal, with a population that probably exceeds forty millions, the total number of pupils in the lower class Government and Aided Schools was, in 1866-67, only 39,104. In the North-Western Provinces, with a population under thirty millions, the number of pupils in Schools, of a similar class was 125,394. In Bombay, with a population of sixteen millions, the number was 79,189. In the Punjab, with a population of fifteen millions, it was 62,355. In the Central Provinces, with a population of eight-and-a-half millions, it was 22,600. Nor does there seem to be any probability that these proportions will hereafter become more favorable to Bengal, although the measures that have lately been taken for the encouragement of vernacular education by means of the system of training Masters in the so-called indigenous Schools have been more or less successful. The means of affording elementary instruction appear to be increasing with far greater rapidity in other Provinces. It is shewn by Mr. Howell’s Note on the state of Education in India in 1866-67, that in Bombay the annual increase in the number of Schools and of scholars is most remarkable. In the North-western Provinces, in the Punjab, and in the Central Provinces, constant progress is being made. In Oude, where educational operations only commenced a few years ago, the Director of Public Instruction expects before very long to see ‘a School, under a well-trained and fairly paid Teacher, within two-and-a-half miles of every child in the Province.’
“The Governor General in Council feels that it would not be right to evade any longer the responsibility which properly falls upon the Government of providing that the means of obtaining at least an elementary education shall be made accessible to the people of Bengal. He feels that this responsibility must be accepted in this, as in other Provinces, not only as one of the highest duties which we owe to the country, but because among all the sources of difficulty in our administration, and of possible danger to the stability of our Government, there are few so serious as the ignorance of the people.
“In Bengal, at least, the Government cannot be charged with having done too little for the encouragement of the higher branches of education. The expenditure, in 1866-67, on Government and Aided Schools, mostly of a superior class, was nearly £250,000, of which more than £150,000 was contributed by the State. The Government is entitled to say, quoting the words of the Home Government in the well-known Despatch of 1854, that it has done ‘as much as a Government can do to place the benefits of education plainly and practically before the higher classes’ of Bengal. It may, indeed, be a
