IV
PRINCIPAL COLLECTOR, CANARA TO BOARD
OF REVENUE:
27.8.1822
(TNSA: BRP: Vol.924 Pro.5.9.1822, pp.8425-29 Nos.35-6)- I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
dated 25th ultimo, together with its enclosure being copy of
letter from the Secretary to Government Revenue Department
dated 2nd July directing me to forward a statement filled up as
per Form transmitted, and to report upon the state of education
in this zillah.
As the preparation of the necessary information to fill up
the statement in question, would take up a considerable time
and as any just criterion of the actual extent of such schools as
exist in this zillah cannot be formed upon it, I have considered it
expedient to submit this address, explanatory of the foregoing
causes, which will I think show the preparation of the document
for this Province unnecessary.
- There are no colleges in Canara for the cultivation of the
abstruse Sciences. Neither are there any fixed schools and
masters to teach in them.
There is no instance known of any institutions of the above
description having ever received support in any shape from the
former governments.
- The education of the few Bramin children of the higher
classes in towns or villages, is conducted in the house of the
principal man. He selects a teacher, who receives for each child
a small sum, a present of cloth at particular ceremonies, and the
same for a few others, children of the friends of the principal
man, who also meet at his own house for the same purpose. The
Moolla* in the same manner teaches a few Mussulman children
on the same principle. It is entirely a private education, and the
master is as often changed as the scholars. There is nothing
belonging to it which can assimilate it with a shadow of public
education, or indeed of regularity in learning.
The children are taught to read and write and accounts,
and unless belonging to the highest classes, the attainment of