- The Board would naturally enquire, how these children
who are so destitute as not to be able to procure instruction in
their own villages, could subsist in those to which they are
strangers, and to which they travel from 10 to 100 miles, with no
intention of returning for several years. They are supported
entirely by charity, daily repeated, not received from the
instructor for the reasons above mentioned, but from the
inhabitants of the villages generally. They receive some portion of
alms daily (for years) at the door of every Bramin in the village,
and this is conceded to them with a cheerfulness which
considering the object in view must be esteemed as a most
honorable trait in the native character, and its unobtrusiveness
ought to enhance the value of it. We are undoubtedly indebted to
this benevolent custom for the general spread of education
amongst a class of persons whose poverty would otherwise be an
insurmountable obstacle to advancement in knowledge and it
will be easily inferred that it requires only the liberal and
fostering care of government to bring it to perfection. - As the only schools in the district supported by charity
are those which owe their maintenance to the gentlemen at
Cuddapah, I have entered them in the list under the name of
‘subscription schools’. - I am not aware that there is any further matter relating
to this subject which is necessary to be submitted to the Board,
but I beg to assure them that any deficiency which may be re-
marked shall be supplied with all the diligence in my power. - I cannot conclude this letter without expressing to your
Board the obligation I am under to Mr Wheatly for the informant
now submitted, his long residence in the district having afforded
to him the best opportunity of ascertaining correctly the actual
state of education throughout.
Cutcherry of the Collector of
Cuddapah, Roychooty, G.M. Ogilvie,
11th February, 1825. Sub-Collector in charge.
(Statement on following pages)