APPENDIX No. XII.

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SIR,

No. 3480 of 1851.

GENERAL DEPARTMENT.

M. STOVELL, Esquire,

Secretary to the Board of Education.

I have been directed to communicate to you the following observations on the Report submitted by the Board of Education for the year 1850.

2. This Report is in many respects the most complete, interesting, and instructive which has yet been laid before Govern

ment.

3. It embodies fuller information in regard to the proceedings of the Board and their subordinates during the past year than is contained in any former Reports. It invites attention to marked indications of progress never before noticed; it commemorates occurrences of great importance (comparatively speaking) to the advancement of education. It is replete with suggestions for the future, as well as with evidence of the successful operations of the past; while in the first forty paras. it lays down certain deductions from the Board's past experience, in the form of axioms for future guidance, which cannot be too generally disseminated, if correct, or too early corrected, if in any respect, erroneous.

4. But for the above consideration, the Right Honorable the Governor in Council would have been disposed to pass them over without a very detailed notice, since, containing, as they do, many just and excellent observations, His Lordship has not failed to perceive that there is a tendency throughout them to re-open a discussion which, as far as the Board are concerned, has been set at rest by the Government letter No. 1635, of the 24th April 1850. There is nothing, however, advanced in this Re

port to shake His Lordship's confidence in the propriety of that decision.

5. If the reasoning of that portion of the Report to which I am now alluding be sound, it will follow that systematic attention should be paid by the advocates of education in this country to certain deductions, which I proceed to notice, as to conditions, on the observance of which success must materially depend.

I. In the 8th and 15th paras. the Board enlarge on the generally-received opinion that the most effective method of applying a limited income to the diffusion of education is to educate the superior classes in a superior manner. II. In the 18th para. it is argued, with much ingenuity, that the most promising and influential pupils of the higher classes, and therefore the pupils to whose education the principal efforts of the Board should be directed, are the children of indigent Brahmins.

III. In the 23rd para. it is contended that, for the reasons assigned, the claims of the lowest castes-the Mhars and Dhers-to participate in the blessings of education, should be for the present disregarded.

IV. In the 27th para. the Board argue that an essential condition of any scheme of instruction in this country is to combine the cultivation of the vernacular languages with the study of English.

V. In the same para. it is affirmed that the classes for whom

our schools are intended in this country being very homogeneous in character, and differing but slightly in social rank, the system of education pursued in all the vernacular schools should be uniform.

VI. Para. 29 of the Report lays down the broad proposition

that the Government patronage of vernacular literature should be limited to the production of elementary schoolbooks.

6. As silence on the part of Government in regard to these several propositions might be assumed to imply an unqualified

approval of them, the Right Honorable the Governor in Council feels constrained to remark that though they contain much to which he has no difficulty in subscribing, there are parts which are to be received with considerable qualification, and others again from which he is compelled to record his dissent.

7. His Lordship will begin by remarking, of the two first of these propositions, that, admitting their justice in the abstract, if they were fairly and logically carried out to their legitimate extent, as we find them stated in the Report, it would follow that the entire educational resources of Government should be exclusively devoted to the education of young Brahmins, the sons of poor parents.

8. Yet it is presumed that the Board do not intend that all the efforts of Government should be directed exclusively into a single channel, and that while the class referred to should be carefully instructed, under colour of the influence which they exercise, and which would render them the most successful propagandists of enlightened views, the people should be left entirely to themselves.

9. While discussing this subject, the Board take occasion to controvert the opinions expressed by Government, that, in as far as practicable, schools which provide the means of a superior education should be rendered self-supporting, and that the admission of the poorer classes to privileges for which the more wealthy might be induced to pay, should depend on their attaining a standard of acquirements to be regulated by the Board, and which would sufficiently guarantee the superior intellectual qualifications of the successful candidates.

10. Yet, as regards the first of these suggestions, Government are informed, in a subsequent part of the Report, that the Board have unanimously approved and adopted a proposal by Professor Green to admit the children of parents, wealthy enough to pay for the privilege, to the benefits of a high order of education in the Elphinstone College, without exacting from them the standard proficiency required of those who are admitted free of payment. They further learn that the new rule is in actual operation, and that a class has been already formed. This, it may be

observed, is a movement which precisely accords with the suggestion thrown out by Government.

11. As regards the latter, in arguing that " no means for ascertaining unusual intelligence amongst the poor exist, until their faculties have been tested and developed by school training," the Board have apparently overlooked the test afforded by the vernacular schools, from which the Government instructions contemplated that the youths drafted into the English schools would be principally drawn.

12. The Right Hon'ble the Governor in Council can see nothing impracticable in the opinions which he formerly placed on record. Indeed, whenever a large portion of our vernacular scholars were the sons of Brahmins, there would be the less difficulty in acting up to these opinions, without prejudice to the preference which the Board are disposed to assign to pupils of that caste.

13. Should, however, the Board think fit to systematically relax, in favor of the sons of the poorer Brahmins, the existing rules of admission into the English schools, and to admit men to a high order of education whose intellectual endowments are inferior, simply on account of the superior influence which they exercise in virtue of their caste, the Board are competent to make provision for this object.

14. His Lordship refrains from comment upon the opinions which the Board in the 23rd para. of their Report have advanced on the subject of the education of the lowest castes. He fears it must be admitted, that the only way to combat strong prejudices successfully, is to enlighten those who entertain them.

15. His Lordship altogether concurs with the Board in the reasoning of the 27th para. of the Report, that the cultivation of the vernacular tongues should be combined with the study of English by the superior class of pupils to whom allusion has been made, and that a critical acquaintance with their own language must be possessed by those of the native youth who aspire to a character for scholarship. He further desires to take the present opportunity of stating his persuasion, that the highest and most useful order of education which a native of this country can receive, must combine, with a critical knowledge of the vernacular of the country in which he lives, a certain familiarity with the Sanscrit language and literature.