schools, frequented alike by Mahomedans, Hindus and Sikhs, in
which Persian or Lunde was taught. There were hundreds of
learned men who gratuitously taught their co-religionists, and
sometimes all-comers, for the sake of God-‘Lillah’. There was not
a single villager who did not take a pride in devoting a portion of
his produce to a respected teacher. In respectable Mahomedan
families husbands taught their wives, and these their children;
nor did the Sikhs prove in that respect to be unworthy of their
appellation of ‘learners and disciples’. In short, the lowest
computation gives us 3,30,000 pupils (against little more than
1,90,000 at present) in the schools of the various denominations
who were acquainted with reading, writing, and some method of
computation; whilst thousands of them belonged to Arabic and
Sanskrit colleges, in which Oriental Literature and systems of
Oriental Law, Logic, Philosophy, and Medicine were taught to the
highest standards. Tens of thousands also acquired a proficiency
in Persian, which is now rarely reached in Government and
aided schools or colleges. Through all schools there breathed a
spirit of devotion to education for its own sake and for its
influence on the character and on religious culture; whilst even
the sons of Banyas who merely learnt what they absolutely
required in order to gain a livelihood looked with respect,
amounting to adoration, on their humble Pandhas, who had
taught them the elements of two ‘Rs’.
We have changed all this. The annexation disturbed the
minds of believers in Providence, and all that was respectable
kept, as much as possible, aloof from the invader,—just as the
best Englishman would not be the first to seek the favour of a
foreign conqueror.
CLASSIFICATION OF INDIGENOUS SCHOOLS
I. SIKH INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
- Gurmukhi Schools
II. MOHAMMEDAN INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
- Maktabs
- Madrasas, religious and secular
- Koran Schools.
III. HINDU INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
- Chatsalas (for the trading community)
- Patshalas (religious)