Society being viewed more as curiosities than as instruments of
knowledge. That Society has now established an agency for the
sale of it publications at Bauleah, hence works of instruction will
probably in time spread over the district.
Not only are the printed books not used in these schools,
but even manuscript text-books, are unknown. All that the
scholars learn is from the oral dictation of the master; and
although what is so communicated must have a firm seat in the
memory of the teacher, and will probably find an equally firm
seat in the memory of the scholar, yet instruction conveyed
solely by such means must have a very limited scope. The
principal written composition which they learn in this way is the
Saraswati Bandana, or salutation to the Goddess of Learning,
which is committed to memory by frequent repetitions, and is
daily recited by the scholars in a body before they leave school
all kneeling with their heads bent to the ground, and following a
leader or monitor in the pronunciation of the successive lines or
couplets. I have before me two versions or forms of this
salutation obtained at different places; but they are quite
different from each other, although described by the same name,
and both are doggrels of the lowest description even amongst
Bengali compositions. The only other written composition used
in these schools, and that only in the way of oral dictation by the
master, consists of a few of the rhyming arithmetical rules of
Subhankar, a writer whose name is as familiar in Bengal as that
of Cocker in England, without any one knowing who or what he
was or when he lived. It may be inferred that he lived, or if not a
real personage that the rhymes bearing that name were
composed, before the establishment of the British rule in this
country, and during the existence of the Mussalman power, for
they are full of Hindustani or Persian terms, and contain
references to Mahomedan usages without the remotest allusion
to English practices or modes of calculation. A recent native
editor has deemed it requisite to remedy this defect by a
supplement.
It has been already mentioned that there are four different
stages in a course of Bengali instruction. The first period seldom
exceeds ten days, which are employed in teaching the young
scholars to form the letters of the alphabet on the ground with a
small stick or slip of bambu. The sand-board is not used in this
district, probably to save expense. The second period, extending
from two and a half to four years according to the capacity of the
scholar, is distinguished by the use of the palm-leaf as the
material on which writing is performed. Hitherto the mere