the day fixed, a religious service is performed in the family by the family priest, consisting principally of the worship of Saraswati, the goddess of learning, after which, the hand of the child is guided by the priest to form the letters of the alphabet, and he is also then taught, for the first time, to pronounce them. This ceremony is not of indispensable obligation on Hindus, and is performed only by those parents who possess the means and intention of giving their children more extended instruction. It is strictly the commencement of the child’s school-education, and in some parts of the country he is almost immediately sent to school.”
It remains only farther to state, in connection with this subject, that as there is a specific routine of instruction, the age of leaving school must depend upon the age of commencement; and that the average age of the scholars for all the districts, when they enter school, is from 5 to 6 years; and the average age when they usually leave school, from 13 to 16 years. Hence, the whole period spent at school varies from 5 to 10 years,—“an enormous consumption of time,” as Mr. Adam truly remarks, “specially at the more advanced ages, considering the nature and amount of the instruction communicated.”
5. The nature and amount of the instruction communicated.—There are in general four stages or gradations in the course of instruction, indicated by the nature of the materials employed for writing on, viz. the ground, the palm-leaf, the plantain-leaf, and paper. The following is the lucid sketch which Mr. Adam supplies of a complete course of Bengali vernacular instruction:—
“The first period seldom exceeds ten days, which are employed in teaching the young scholars to form the letters of the alphabet on the ground with a small stick or slip of bamboo. The sand-board is not used in this district,[1]probably to save expense. The second period, extending from two and a half to four years, according to the capacity of the scholar, is distinguished by the use of the palm-leaf, as the material on which writing is performed. Hitherto the mere form and sound of the letters have been taught, without regard to their size and relative proportion; but the master, with an iron style, now writes on the palm-leaf letters of a determinate size, and in due proportion to each other, and the scholar is required to trace them on the same leaf with a reed-pen and with charcoal-ink, which easily rubs out. This process is repeated over and over again on the same leaf, until the scholar no longer requires the use of the copy to guide him in the formation of the letters of a fit size and proportion, and he is consequently next made to write them on another leaf which has no copy to direct him. He is afterwards exercised in writing and pronouncing the compound consonants, the syllables formed by the junction of vowels with consonants, and the most common names of persons. In other parts of the country, the names of castes, rivers, mountains, &c. are written, as well as of persons; but here the names of persons only are employed as a school-exercise. The scholar is then taught to write and read, and by frequent repetition he commits to memory the Cowrie Table, the Numeration Table as far as one hundred, the Katha Table (a land-measure table), and the Seer Table (a dry-measure table). There are other tables in use elsewhere, which are not taught in the schools of this district. The third stage of
- ↑ Nattore.
