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February, 1873.] PYAL SCHOOLS IN MADRAS. 55 knowledge of four or five of the great classics of the language, and becomes perfectly able to read his vernacular. It is not very certain that any other system will produce much better results, except in the points about to be considered. In one respect the system is better than that adopted in European schools for the poor. The classic books thus master¬ ed are also the moral law of the nation, and exhibit a system of ethics of the highest character. Always excepting the Bible, I know no western book in common use which can compare with the Rural, Auveiyar, and most of the other books so employed. In fact, all observers are agreed that the Rural forms the real moral code of the country. It does not fall within the scope of this paper to show whether or how far the adult population follow the rules thus learnt in youth, but there can be no doubt as to the benefit that must follow such moral training. The main evils of the system described above are two : the books read are all in the high dialect, and hence, both in the collocation and the form of the words themselves, are altogether different from the language the lads must speak and hear in their after-life. Hence their study corresponds pretty fairly with that of Latin in an English school. It needs no argument to prove that, if the books studied were written in modern Tamil, the time spent in learning would be much more profitably employed, seeing that now the lad leaves school untrained in the language which he must meet with in ordinary life, in the vernacular journals, and in all the living forms of modern thought. All western books that are trans¬ lated at all are rendered into the modern dialect, and there ought to be no barrier to prevent any person at once appretiating them. Really effective education must march with modern language and modern ideas. A great deal of time is also lost, seeing that it is impossible for a child to make such progress in a dead language as he could in a living one. In studying the Rural, for example, more time is given to the commentary than to the text, because, with¬ out the former, the latter is obscure. The result is much the same as if, in English schools, the reading lessons were always in Ormulum or the Saxon Chronicle. A third evil lies in the fact that the system almost precludes simultaneous or class teaching, and this is a necessary element of rapid progress. It should not be forgotten, however, that the individual teaching now given effectually prevents that resi¬ duum of confirmed idlers, and therefore ignorant lads, which is the one drawback of the system of class teaching iu ordinary hands. The Pyal mode turns out every pupil a fair scholar, though at a great waste of labour. The class system ensures a much higher average, but permits confirmed dullards. I have referred at this length to reading, because this subject is the key of the whole system, and the other lessons will not require much attention. Writing is taught in the very best possible mode— in conjunction with the reading lesson. The pupil begins his writing lessons when he commences to learn his alphabet. He is spared the drudgery of the wretched system that custom makes necessary in every English school,—the weeks of dreary labour on unmeaning strokes, pot-hooks, and hangers. His first lesson is a complete letter, and thus he can feel that every day he makes real and useful progress. The alphabet is almost everywhere written with the finger on the sanded ground. All future writing is done either in the mode described above—writ¬ ing the morrow’s lesson on the palaka—or subse¬ quently with the style on kaj&n, and in the more respectable schools with an English pen on paper. In connexion with this subject, another point of great excellence in the system of education practis¬ ed in a Pyal school must be mentioned. It cannot be better introduced than in the words of Mr. Seton- Rarr, the well-known civilian judge in Bengal. Referring to the Bengal Pyal schools, ha says :— “These (indigenous) schools do supply a sort of information which ryots and villagers, who think at all about learning to read and write, cannot and will not do without. They learn there the system of b&niya’s accounts, or that of agriculturists. They learn forms of notes-of-hand, quittances, leases, agreements, and all such forms as are in constant use with a population not naturally dull and somewhat prone to litigation, and whose social relations are decidedly complex. All these forms are taught by the guru from memory, as well as complimentary forms of address ; and I have heard a little boy, not ten years old, run off from memory a form of this kind with the utmost glibness. This boy, like many others, had never read from a book in his life. On these acquirements the agricultural population set a very considerable value. It is the absence of such instructions as this which, I think, has led to the assertion, with regard to some districts, that the inhabitants consider their own indigenous schools to' be better than those of Government. I would have all forms of address and of business, all modes of account, agricultural and commercial, collected, and the best of their kind printed in a cheap and popular form, to serve as models. I would even have the common summons of our cfiminal or revenue courts printed off.” Much the same mode is followed in Madras. In addition to the regular teaching thus referred to, it is common here for the teacher to borrow from his friends all the up-country letters he can hear of. These are carried to the school, read, copied, studied, and explained. Reading them is no easy matter. The vernacular current hand is as different from the printed character as German hand-writing from the Roman type of books. English influence has been steadily exercised against this current hand, and in many districts it is passing away superseded by the printing character. It is doubt¬ ful whether this is an advantage, as we may consider