Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 1

 

FIRST REPORT

ON THE

STATE OF EDUCATION IN BENGAL,

BY

MR. W. ADAM,

1835.

The importance of more extended and systematic efforts for the promotion of Native education being strongly felt, it has been deemed a necessary preliminary measure to institute an investigation into the number and efficiency of the various descriptions of schools and colleges already in operation throughout the country, exclusive of regimental schools, and institutions under the immediate superintendence and control of the General Committee of Public Instruction. To know what the country needs to be done for it by Government, we must first know what the country has done and is doing for itself. This investigation has been placed under the direction of the General Committee of Public Instruction, and that body have, in the first place, authorised the preparation of a report, in which it is proposed to exhibit a clear and connected view of all that is known, or can be collected from good authority, respecting the present actual state of education in each district. Such a report will show both what is already known and what yet remains to be ascertained, and will thus in some measure contribute to rescue from oversight or neglect, the results of former investigations, and at the same time give a right direction to the further personal and local inquiries that have been ordered by Government.

The materials for this purpose exist in a very dispersed state, but they have been found to accumulate so much, that it has been judged proper to limit the report which is now submitted, to the province of Bengal, reserving the information that has been collected regarding the state of education in the other provinces for future reports. The sources from which the principal facts and statements have been drawn are five. Thie first is the Buchanan Reports, which are deposited in the office of the Secretary to Government, and to which ready access has been afforded. They originally extended to the districts of Dinajpur, Rangpur, and Purniya in Bengal, besides several districts in Behar; but the volumes containing chapters on the state of education in the Bengal district of Rangpur, and in the Behar district of Shahabad arc unfortunately missing. The chapters on the state of education contained in the reports on Dinajpur and Purniya, of which the former has been published, and the latter exists only in manuscript, I have condensed, adding entire the tables which Dr. Buchanan compiled relating to this subject in those districts. The second source from which I have drawn materials is the records of the General Committee of Public Instruction, which furnish information in more scattered details and in a less precise and definite form, but which contain much that is valuable and interesting, principally communicated in answer to circulars sent to different public functionaries by Mr. H. H. Wilson, the Secretary to the Committee, about the period of its establishment. The third authority to which I have referred is Hamilton’s East India Gazetteer, (2nd edition, 2 volumes 1828,) and I have consulted this work as an independent authority, because it is known that the author in compiling it availed himself not only of publications generally accessible, but also of public and private manuscript documents that have never been given to the world. The fourth source from which I have obtained information is Missionary, College, and School Reports. The Associations that issue these reports have for the most part religious objects in view which are foreign to the purpose of this inquiry; but they have under various modifications sought to promote education by the establishment of schools and colleges, which cannot but be regarded as valuable auxiliaries to the other means employed for the general enlightenment of the country by the diffusion of knowledge. The fifth authority to which I have had recourse is a memoir, with supplement, compiled by the Searcher of Records at the India House, showing the extent to which aid had been afforded by the local Governments in India towards the establishment of Native schools in this country and published in the first Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company, 16th August 1832. The memoir and supplement are chiefly occupied with details of Government institutions which are purposely excluded from this report, but they also contain several notices which I have not found elsewhere of philanthropic and private institutions. In addition to the principal sources of information, I have drawn several facts from works incidentally or partially treating the subject, whose authority will be acknowledged in the proper places. I have not introduced into this report any statement of facts resting on my observation and authority, but have merely attempted to bring into a methodised form the information previously existing in detached portions respecting the state of education. The details, therefore, which follow must be regarded as the results of the observations of others, and as depending upon their authority, and all that I have done is to connect them with each other and present them in consecutive order. I have not sought to multiply details except in so far as they are necessary to show the nature and extent of the educational means, apart from Government institutions, employed for the moral and intellectual improvement of the country. I have applied for information in every quarter in which it might be supposed to exist, and while I have faithfully employed the information communicated, I am fully aware that the high repute and salutary influence of several of the private schools and colleges, claim for them a more extended notice than I have deemed compatible with the limited scope of this report.

The sufficiency of the means of education existing in a country depends, first, upon the nature of the instruction given; secondly, upon the proportion of the institutions of education to the population needing instruction; and thirdly, upon the proper distribution of those institutions. I have accordingly endeavored, in collecting and compiling the following details, to keep these three considerations in view. The report includes a brief account of the course of instruction pursued in each large class of schools, or in single institutions whose importance entitles them to separate notice. Some idea may be formed of the relative distribution of the means of education to the wants of the population by comparing the districts with each other; but in the present state of our information, the notion thus obtained must be very imperfect, for it cannot be doubted that, in most districts, there are many Native institutions, of which no known record exists, and the distribution of the means of education within each district can be ascertained only by minute local investigation. The estimates of the population of the different districts are still for the most part merely conjectural. No approach to actual investigation was attempted until 1801, during the administration of the Marquis Wellesley, when, by the directions of the Governor General, the Board of Revenue circulated various questions on statistical subjects to the Magistrates and Collectors, with the view of ascertaining the population and resources of their respective districts. The returns are deemed to have been made with too implicit a dependence upon unchecked Native Authorities; and it would appear from the results of subsequent and more minute investigation that the public functionaries, from whatever cause, kept greatly within the real amount. These are the only estimates that have been made of the population of the districts of Midnapur, Hooghly, Jessore, Nuddea, Dacca, Jalalpur, Backergunge, Chittagong, Tipera, Mymunsingh, Sylhet, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, and Rajshahy. In 1807, 1808, and 1809, Dr. Francis Buchanan surveyed and reported on the Bengal districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur, and Purniya. He had in some instances opportunities of inspecting the original returns of 1801, and satisfied himself of their fallacy; and his own estimates of the population of these three districts, founded on such data as the number of ploughs, the consumption of rice, &c., are greatly in excess of the preceding,—in one instance about double, in another treble, and in a third nearly septuple. In 1814, Mr. Bayley, then Judge and Magistrate of Burdwan, endeavored with more attention to accuracy than had been in any instance previously given to ascertain the exact number of inhabitants within his jurisdiction, and the amount at which he arrived in like manner exceeded the estimate of 1801. Hamilton remarks that if the population of the other districts was as much underrated in 1801 as that of those estimated by Dr. Buchanan and Mr. Bayley, great as the sum total is, it might be almost doubled. On the other hand, the population of some principal cities has been found by actual census to fall considerably short of what it was before supposed to be. Until, therefore, a complete and accurate census of the population is taken, we can only attempt to judge by approximation of the proportion and fit distribution of the means of instruction, in relation to the real wants of the country.

 

 

Sections (not listed in original)

• Section I.: The Twenty-four Pergunnahs, including Calcutta
• Section II.: The District of Midnapore
• Section III.: The District of Orissa Proper or Cuttack
• Section IV.: The District of Hugly
• Section V.: The District of Burdwan
• Section VI.: The District of Jessore
• Section VII.: The District of Nuddea
• Section VIII.: The District of Dacca, Jelalpoor, including the City of Dacca
• Section IX.: The District of Backergunge
• Section X.: The District of Chittagong
• Section XI.: The District of Tipera
• Section XII.: The District of Mymunsing
• Section XIII.: The District of Sylhet
• Section XIV.: The District and City of Moorshedabad
• Section XV.: The District of Beerbhoom
• Section XVI.: The District of Rajshahy
• Section XVII.: The District of Rangpur
• Section XVIII.: The District of Dinajpur
• Section XIX.: The District of Purneah
• Section XX.: Conclusion