Page:History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions.djvu/160

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government chinsurah schools.
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The attendance of the children in the Fort being inconvenient, the Central School was removed to a short distance from Chinsurah, and Mr. May, adverting to the increase of the Schools, and the great augmentation of the number of children on the books, which amounted early in 1816, to 2136, projected the formation of a School for teachers, as necessary to the extension of his plan, and the perpetuation of the means of instruction. A few youths were accordingly taken on probation, their education, food, and clothes, being furnished to them, free of expense. After performing for a time the duties of monitors at the Central School, and receiving more especial instructions from Mr. May, they were sent to the Village Schools to learn accurately the plan observed there, and thus they became qualified to discharge the duties of instructors themselves. So popular was the latter institution, that a blind man performed a journey of three days on foot, for the purpose of securing a place in it for his nephew.

Nor did the higher class of natives in the vicinity withhold their confidence from the general scheme of education. The Rajah of Burdwan,