pay a few pice to be coached by some student. There must be
more literacy in the sense of reading the vernaculars, than the
numbers in schools indicate, or else how could every Bengal
bazaar swarm with these frightfully printed (but cheap) texts of
Ramprasad, Chandidas, Krittibas’s Ramayana (before the War,
according to Dinesh Sen, two hundred thousand sold every
year), even of Bhadu songs (which are sung only in two
divisions)? Sarat Chatterjee told me that in 1921 the twelve
annas edition of his fiction had brought him in twelve thousand
rupees in royalties, which I estimate to be a sale of two hundred
thousand. But the semi-religious texts swarm and always have
done, irrespectively of the number in schools.
I will go into the matter when in India next spring. But my
impression has steadily deepened that the first real advance we
made—in most things—began about 1917. I do not think you
will believe how stagnant officialdom was before the War. When I
started in educational work in Bengal, the M.V. Schools used to
pour an indescribably turbid stream into the fourth class of our
high school—literate, if you like, but it would have been almost
better if they were not. And the Education department was
shocking. The acting Lieut. Governor was the notoriously
inefficient Slack, and the D.P.I. the notoriously lazy Kuchler. I do
not believe that a century ago there was widespread literacy. But
neither do I believe that anything we ever did for education
before about 1917 made any serious difference or improvement.
We give ourselves many unjustified chits. But I will stand up for
what we have done since the unfairly abused Montagu-
Chelmsford Reforms.
Previous to 1917, what were the figures of literacy? Four or
five per cent of the population? I believe they were higher a
century ago. But the only way of proving this would be by
finding out what sales in the very much smaller population of
that day (though the first census was 1871, was it not?) were
achieved for the popular classics.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- Edward Thompson
(IN HAND FOLLOWING TYPED LETTER)P.S. ‘Banyan’ is a usual way of referring to ‘Banias’, in East India
Company documents.
I have again read carefully through your letter. It seems to
me that we are in agreement. Obviously we both think that (a)