With the exception of the Multiplication Table, the rhyming
arithmetical rules of Subhankar, and the form of address to
Saraswati, all which the younger scholars learn by mere
imitation of sounds incessantly repeated by the elder boys,
without for a long time understanding what those sounds
convey—with these exceptions, native school-boys learn
everything that they do learn not merely by reading but by
writing it. They read to the master or to one of the oldest
scholars what they have previously written, and thus the hand,
the eye, and the ear are equally called into requisition. This
appears preferable to the mode of early instruction current
amongst ourselves, according to which the elements of language
are first taught only with the aid of the eye and the ear, and
writing is left to be subsequently acquired. It would thus appear
also that the statement which represents the native system as
teaching chiefly by the ear, to the neglect of eye, is founded on a
misapprehension, for how can the aid of the eye be said to be
neglected when with the exceptions above-mentioned, nothing
appears to be learned which is not rendered palpable to the
sense by the act of writing? It is almost unnecessary to add that
the use of monitors or leaders has long prevailed in the common
schools of India, and is well known in those of Bengali.
The disadvantages arising from the want of school-houses
and from the confined and inappropriate construction of the
buildings or apartments used as school-rooms have already been
mentioned. Poverty still more than ignorance leads to the
adoption of modes of instruction and economical arrangements
which, under more favourable circumstances, would be readily
abandoned. In the matter of instruction there are some grounds
for commendation for the course I have described has a direct
practical tendency; and, if it were taught in all its parts, is well
adapted to qualify the scholar for engaging in the actual
business of native society. My recollections of the village schools
of Scotland do not enable me to pronounce that the instruction
given in them has a more direct bearing upon the daily interests
of life than that which I find given, or professed to be given, in
the humbler village schools of Bengal.
ELEMENTARY PERSIAN SCHOOLS: (pp.148-153)
The Persian schools in Nattore are four in number,
containing twenty-three scholars, who enter school at any age
varying from four and a half to thirteen years, and leave it at an
age varying from twelve to seventeen. The whole time stated to