the reports of former years, the firm determination which the Board have ever displayed to close all schools, both English and vernacular, in which they have discovered a lack of zeal and co-operation on the part of the Native community. Strong appeal for additional pecuniary grant. 32. We consider it, therefore, to be our most emphatic duty at the present epoch, and after the solemn review made by the Board, to urge on Government the propriety of making a further grant for educational purposes. The small annual sum of Rs. 1,25,000 has been found to produce no insignificant results, but the Board are wholly impotent to carry out the least extension of the system, or to remedy those obvious defects which every one can perceive, without additional resources. The Board are aware that the task has not been, and cannot be, undertaken by Government, of educating the whole people; and they have endeavoured to dispel the delusion on this subject in former paragraphs. But to lead towards such a blessed consummation-to introduce a selfsupporting system, such as Mr. Willoughby, equally with the Board, points at as our proper aim-it is necessary in the first instance to produce the requisite amount of public spirit and good citizenship amongst the influential classes of India, and this can only be drawn forth by judicious stimulation from the State. We see indications of such a spirit springing up in the island of Bombay, and we will notice presently the attempts made by the Board to give it a further developement, but it cannot be expected that a population of ten millions can be regenerated on a lak and a quarter per annum ; and we trust we may be excused for suggesting, in reference to the expressed inclination of your Lordship in Council* to afford the Board additional pecuniary assistance, that no worthier object presents itself Mr. Lumsden's letter to Board, para. 23, April 24th 1850. for a portion of the lapsed pension of the late Peshwa,* than the extension of education amongst the people he formerly governed. 33. There are two other directions in which the interposition of Government may be made to subserve the interests of education, and without any recourse to the revenue. The first Education may also be promoted by additional Government countenance. is in the encouragement to be given to schools by high Government officers. In a former report we have noticed the valuable assistance rendered by Messrs. Lumsden and Goldsmid in countenancing youths who had distinguished themselves in the Government schools. Evidence to the same effect, of a very pleasing character, is recorded of the late Mr. Donelly, Revenue Commissioner of Decca, in the Bengal Report for 1848-49. In the present year we have also to mention with gratitude the visits of the Revenue Commissioner, Mr. Townsend, to the Government schools, and the valuable hints with which he furnished the Board. On the other hand, Mr. Graham, in his last reportof his superintending tour through Gujerath, points out the evil to the schools which ensues from the neglect of the Government officials. "Some of the local committees," he observes, “as at Dholka and Jambocseer, never visit the schools at all, and many others display complete indifference." Here again, however, we observe the humanizing effects of superior education, for Mr. Graham adds, some of the committees "are animated by higher considerations, especially where any of the Members have received an English education. I may instance the Sudder Ameen of Broach, Moyehdin Munsiff of Bardoli, &c.; such individuals advocate and support Native improvement in a right spirit from experimental evidence of its positive advantages." We would venture to suggest that a circular letter from Government to the heads of By the death of the Ex-Peshwa, in January last, a pension of Rs. 9,00,000 lapsed to the State. departments enjoining personal encouragement to the schools might prove beneficial. 34. The second direction relates to the much-vexed ques Also by admitting to office only educated Omedwars. tion of official promotion on which we before addressed Government, and on which your Lordship in Council has been good enough to write to us at length. We beg leave respectfully to intimate that we subscribe fully to the force of the arguments in favor of not diminishing the responsibility of heads of offices by interfering with their patronage; we also see clearly that experience and training are as necessary in the official line as in any other department of life; and we understand the grounds why a system of omedwarí has found its way into nearly every office; indeed, the latter is not very unlike the system in operation in the public offices in England, where young men of the highest connections are content to accept clerkships on lower salaries than are received by some of their fathers' upper servants. But the proposition we desired to urge upon the attention of Government did not interfere with any of the above conditions; for we conceive that as the means of education are now sufficiently diffused throughout the Presidency to enable parents in competent circumtances to avail themselves of our best schools,-English schools in most of the zillahs, vernacular schools in all,-no one ought to be allowed to enter an office as Omedwar without a certificate of qualification from the Government Superintendent, and, cæteris paribus, the highest school certificate should qualify for the first Omedwar vacancy. 35. We consider that as regards the further progress of education we have now discharged our principal task in indicating, as we have done, the means by which it may be promoted; our own performances in this direction are, and necessarily must be, very limited. The first step to be taken is to discharge, either on pension or gratuity, old, worn-out, and in Immediate steps for improvement requiring funds. competent masters, who, though the best to be found at the time of appointment, have so often called forth the reproaches or rather the regrets of the Board, and whose glaring incapacity operates as an unmitigated evil in the communities amongst whom they are located. The second step is to supply their places with more competent, better instructed, and therefore higher-paid masters, but each of these steps requires resources which are not at the command of the Board. 36. The Board have steadily striven to introduce a system of self-supporting schools, by appealing to the wealthier classes in the Mofussil, and they have been especially anxious to encour Attempts to introduce self-supporting system in Mofussil hitherto fruitless. age the building of substantial school-houses. In the latter direction they have had some success; and, in order to bring the subject more prominently before the public, they have obtained, through the kindness of Mr. Conybeare, an elevation and revised plan for a school-house, of which a lithograph is given in this Report. But we regret to have to notice that up to the close of the current year we have not had a single application for a School to be supported by the Natives themselves, though at the time we are writing, such an application, made through Mr. Reeves, has reached us. We think, however, that more activity than has been displayed by our superintendents in this behalf may enable us to make a more favorable report in the ensuing year. Self-supporting system manifesting itself in Bombay. 37. In the island of Bombay, however, where superior education has been much more widely extended, the fruits of it are displaying themselves at an earlier period, and in a more pleasing form, than possibly the most sanguine educationists could have anticipated. It does not, perhaps, lie within the province of the Board to record the spontaneous efforts which are being made by the educated youth of Bombay for the diffusion of knowledge amongst others less fortunately circumstanced than themselves. But it was impossible for the Board to ignore the great facts occurring within their ken, the female schools, publications for diffusing useful information, and vernacular lectures on science, all conducted by young men educated in the Elphinstone Institution; and all denoting both the soundness of the system that had been adopted within those walls, and the true means of diffusing popular instruction on a large scale in India. Advantage was accordingly taken by the Board of this excellent spirit, which was observed to exist amongst the young men in question, to attempt through their agency to diffuse education more widely amongst the poorer classes of the island than had been hitherto found compatible with the means at the disposal of the Board. 38. In November 1850 a circular was issued by the Attempt by the Board to develope it, with results. Board, which will be found in the Appendix No. 4, calling together the principal friends of native education, when an excellent sub committee was formed, consisting of the gentlemen in the Jaganath Sunkersett, Esq., margin, who undertook to apply themselves to the objects aimed at in the Board's circular. We have since received a very instructive and satisfactory report, which we have also placed in the Appendix No. 4. Amongst the subjects for congratulation in that report, as offering promise for the future, not the least is to be found in the important movement in favor of education which has now been made amongst the wealthy Gujerathi merchants, who have hitherto stood much aloof from our Government institutions. 39. We have now exhausted all that need be said as to Varjívandás Mádhavadás, an intelligent Gujeráthí gentleman, was subsequently added to this Committee. |