On the effect of Elementary Schools in improving the habits of the pupils, the Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab remarks:—
Effects of Schools on habits of boys.
“In some districts the effect of Government Vernacular Schools on the manners and habits of the boys is very remarkable. In 1858-59, when many of these Schools were first established, the widest reports were circulated, and it was asserted that Government, after collecting all the little boys, intended to send them down to Calcutta with some ulterior object that was not clearly explained, but in a short time the scholars were ready to come in from any distance for an examination. When the discipline maintained in a district is good, all the boys who appear at an examination are neat and clean in their persons, and are provided with every requisite, such as paper, pens, ink, &c., &c. This is particularly the case in the Loodhianah District (where the standard of education in Village Schools also is unusually high), and is to be attributed to the active supervision of the Chief Mohurir. The effect produced by many of our Village Schools in teaching habits of neatness, order and cleanliness to the rural population is of great importance.”
In Bengal, where the educated and upper stratum of Native Society is practically indifferent to the education of the masses, it is the more incumbent on the State to take up the interests of that dumb animal the ryot,—the peace of the country is at stake. On the question of mass education, and the social elevation which must be its result, depends to a great extent the contentment of the people, the purging the Courts from bribery by an enlightened public opinion, the development of the agricultural and commercial resources of India.
On the other hand, its neglect must bring on what Sir J. Key Shuttleworth, the great English Educationist, has so well stated: “The sure road to socialism is by a prolongation of the contrasts between luxury and destitution; vast accumulations and ill-rewarded toil; high cultivation and barbarism; the enjoyment of political privileges, and the exclusion from all rights by ignorance or indigence.”
Calcutta, July 30, 1868.
