instruction extends from two to three years, which are employed in writing on the plantain-leaf. In some districts the tables just mentioned are postponed to this stage, but in this district they are included in the exercises of the second stage. The first exercise taught on the plantain-leaf is to initiate the scholar into the simplest form of letter-writing, to instruct him to connect words in a composition with each other, and to distinguish the written from the spoken forms of Bengali vocables. The written forms are often abbreviated in speech, by the omission of a vowel or a consonant, or by the running of two syllables into one; and the scholar is taught to use in writing the full, not the abbreviated form. The correct orthography of words of Sanskrit origin, which abound in the language of the people, is beyond the reach of the ordinary class of teachers. About the same time the scholar is taught the rules of arithmetic, beginning with addition and subtraction; but multiplication and division are not taught as separate rules, all the arithmetical processes hereafter mentioned being effected by addition and subtraction, with the aid of a multiplication-table which extends to the number of 20, and which is repeated aloud once every morning by the whole school, and is thus acquired, not as a separate task by each boy, but by the mere force of joint repetition and mutual imitation. After addition and subtraction, the arithmetical rules taught divide themselves into two classes, agricultural and commercial; in one or both of which instruction is given, more or less fully, according to the capacity of the teacher and the wishes of the parents. The rules, applied to agricultural accounts, explain the forms of keeping debt and credit accounts; the calculation of the value of daily or monthly labour, at a given monthly or annual rate; the calculation of the area of land, whose sides measure a given number of kathas or bighas; the description of the boundaries of land, and the determination of its length, breadth, and contents; and the form of revenue-accounts for a given quantity of land. There are numerous other forms of agricultural account, but no others appear to be taught in the schools of this district. The rules of commercial accounts explain the mode of calculating the value of a given number of seers, at a given price per maund; the price of a given number of quarters and chataks, at a given price per seer; the price of a tola, at a given rate per chatak; the number of cowries in a given number of annas, at a given number of cowries per rupee; the interest of money, and the discount chargeable on the exchange of the inferior sorts of rupees. There are other forms of commercial account also in common use, but these are not taught in the schools. The fourth and last stage of instruction generally includes a period of two years—often less, and seldom more. The accounts briefly and superficially taught in the preceding stage, are now taught more thoroughly, and at greater length; and this is accompanied by the composition in business letters, petitions, grants, leases, acceptances, notes of bond, &c., together with the forms of address belonging to the different grades of rank and station. When the scholars have written on paper about a year, they are considered qualified to engage in the unassisted perusal of Bengali works, and they often read at home such productions as the translation of the Ramayana, Manasa, Mangal, &c. &c.”[1]
- ↑ There is this difference between Bengali and Hindi schools, that whereas in the second and third stages of the former the palm-leaf and plantain-leaf are generally used; in the same stages of the latter a wooden-board and brazen-plate are employed as the materials on which lessons in writing and accounts are given. Two modes are adopted of writing on the brazen-plate; first, by dissolving chalk in water to a consistency that permits the scholar to rub it on the plate, where it dries and receives the impression of a hard pin or reed-pen: and second, by writing on the plate with chalk-ink. The former is the mode chiefly employed in writing on the board, and mud is sometimes substituted for moistened chalk.
