regarded by themselves as well as by others both in respect of condition and capacity as quite beyond the reach of the simplest forms of literary instruction. You may as well talk to them of scaling the heavens as of instructing their children. In their present circumstances and with their present views, both would appear equally difficult and equally presumptuous. Those who give their children domestic instruction are zemindars, talukdars, and persons of some little substance; shopkeepers and traders possessing some enterprise and forecast in their callings; zemindar's agents or factors (Gomashtas), and heads of villages (Mandals) who know practically the advantage of writing and accounts; and sometimes persons of straitened resources but respectable character, who had been in better circumstances, wished to give their children the means of making their way in the world; Pandits, too, who intend that their children should pursue the study of Sanskrit, begin by introducing them at home to the rudiments of their mother tongue; and Brahmins who have themselves gone through only a partial course of Sanskrit reading seek to qualify their children by such instruction as they can give for the office and duties of a family priest or spiritual guide."

Teachers of Domestic Schools.

"It is not always the father who gives domestic instruction, but quite as often an uncle or an elder brother. In one village I found that the children of three families received instruction from a Pujari Brahmin under the following arrangement :-As the Pujari or family chaplain he receives one rupee per month with lodgings, food, clothing, etc., from one of the three families, the head of which stipulates that he shall employ his leisure time in instructing the children of that and the other two families. In some villages in which not a single individual could be found able either to read or write, I was notwithstanding assured that the children were not wholly without instruction; and when I asked who taught them,

the answer was that the Gomashta, in his periodical visits for the collection of his master's rents, gives a few lessons to one or more of the children of the village."

Quality of the Instruction given in Domestic Schools.

"The instruction given in families is still more limited and imperfect than that which is given in the common schools. In some cases," continues Mr. Adam, "I found that it did not extend beyond the reading of the letters of the alphabet; in others the reading of words. Pandits and priests, unless when there is some landed property in the family, confine the Bengali instruction that they give their children, to writing and reading, addition and subtraction, with scarcely any of the applications of numbers to agricultural and commercial affairs. Farmers and traders naturally limit their instructions to what they know best, and what is to them and their children of greatest direct utility-the calculations and measurements peculiar to their immediate occupations. The parents with whom I have conversed on the subject do not attach the same value to the domestic instruction which their children receive, as they ascribe to the instruction of a professional schoolmaster, both because in their opinion such instruction would be more regular and systematic, and because the teacher would be better qualified." In summing up the condition of domestic instruction in all the districts of Bengal, Mr. Adam observes "there can be no doubt that the instruction given at home is in general more crude and imperfect, more interrupted and desultory than that which is obtained in the common schools."

Mr. Adam's Account of Female Education.

In respect to female education Mr. Adam found the conditions most deplorable. Speaking of the girls of the upper and lower social orders, he says:-"The state of instruction amongst this unfortunate class cannot be said to be low, for with a very few individual exceptions

there is no instruction at all.* Absolute and hopeless ignorance is in general their lot. The notion of providing means of instruction for female children never enters into the minds of their parents; and girls are equally deprived of that imperfect domestic instruction which is sometimes given to boys. A superstitious feeling is alleged to exist in the majority of Hindu families, principally cherished by the women and not discouraged by the men, that a girl taught to read and write will soon after marriage become a widow, an event which is regarded as nearly the worst misfortune that can befall the sex; and the belief is also generally entertained in native society that intrigue is facilitated by a knowledge of letters on the part of females. Under the influence of these fears there is not only nothing done in a native family to promote female instruction, but an anxiety is often evinced to discourage any inclination to acquire the most elementary knowledge, so that when a sister, in the playful innocence of childhood, is observed imitating her brother's attempts at penmanship she is strictly forbidden to do so, and her attention is drawn to something else. These superstitious and distrustful feelings prevail extensively, though not universally, both amongst Hindus who are devoted to the pursuit of religion and those who are engaged in the business of the world. Zemindars are for the most part exempt from them, and they in general instruct their daughters in the elements of knowledge, although it is difficult to obtain from them an admission of the fact. They hope to marry their daughters into families of wealth and property, and they apprehend that without the knowledge of writing accounts their

* It is believed that the first attempt in Bengal-possibly in all India-to instruct native girls in organized schools, was made by the Rev. Mr. May in 1818 in the neighbourhood of Chinsurah. His girls' schools, however, offered so little prospect of success, that they were within a short time discontinued by order of Government. In 1821 Miss Cook, better known as Mrs. Wilson, in connection with the Church Missionary Society, established female schools in Calcutta, which in 1822 numbered 22 and contained over 400 pupils. In 1823 the Serampore Missionaries started several girls' schools, and the movement gradually spread to the towns of Burdwan, Bankura, Katwa and Khulna.

daughters, in the event of widowhood, will be incompetent to manage their deceased husband's estate, and will inevitably become prey to the interested and unprincipled. The Muhammadans participate in all the prejudices of the Hindus against the instruction of their female offspring, besides that a very large majority of them are in the very lowest grades of poverty, and are thus unable, even if they are willing, to give education to their children. It may, therefore, be affirmed that the juvenile female population of this district (Nattore)—that is, the female population of the teachable age, or of the age between 14 and 5 years, without any known exceptions, and with so few probable exceptions that they can scarcely be taken into account, is growing up wholly destitute of the knowledge of reading and writing . . . . Exceptions to the general ignorance are found amongst the mendicant 'Vaishnavas' or followers of Chaitaniya, amounting in Nattore probably to 1,400 or 1,500 individuals, who are generally able to read and write, and who are also alleged to instruct their daughters in these accomplishments. They are the only religious body of whom, as a sect, the practice is characteristic. Yet it is a fact that, as a sect, they rank precisely the lowest in point of general morality, and especially in respect of the virtue of their women. It would be erroneous, however, to attribute the low state of their morality to the degree of instruction prevailing amongst them. It is obviously and solely attributable to the fact that the sect is a colluvies from all other sects-a collection of individuals who throw off the restraints of the stricter forms of Hinduism in the profession of doctrines which allow greater license."

Mr. Adam's Statistical Conclusions.

Mr. Adam estimated that in Bengal there were about 100,000 schools for the education of the people. By a process of fair and legitimate induction he showed that "in the most highly cultured Districts visited by the Government Commissioner, only 16 per cent. of the

teachable or school-going population do actually receive any kind or degree of instruction at all: and in the least cultured Districts visited only 2% per cent. - while the aggregating average for all the Districts is no more than 74 per cent.-leaving 924 of every 100 children of the teachable age wholly destitute of all kinds and degrees of instruction whatever."

Mr. Adam's Criticism of Indigenous Elementary Education.

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Mr. Adam thus reflects on the condition of elementary education as revealed by his survey :-" The chief evils in the system of common Bengali schools consist less in the nature of that which is taught, or in the manner of teaching it, than in the absence of that which is not taught at all. The system is bad because it is greatly imperfect. What is taught should, on the whole, continue to be taught; but something else should be added in order to constitute it a system of salutary popular instruction. No one will deny that a knowledge of Bengali writing, and of native accounts is requisite to natives of Bengal; but when these are made the substance and sum of popular instruction and knowledge, the popular mind is necessarily cabined, cribbed and confined within the smallest possible range of ideas, and those of the most limited local, temporary interests, and it fails even to acquire those habits of accuracy and precision which the exclusive devotion to forms of calculation might seem fitted to produce. What is wanted is some thing to awaken and expand the mind, to unshackle it from the trammels of mere usage, and to teach it to employ its own powers; and, for such purposes, the introduction into the system of some branch of knowledge in itself perfectly useless (even if such an one could be found) would at least arouse and interest by its novelty, and in this way be of some benefit. Of course, the benefit would be much greater if the new branch of knowledge were of a useful tendency, stimulating the mind to the increased observation and comparison of external objects, and throwing