castes from 35% in Guntoor to over 41% in Cuddapah and
Vizagapatam.SCHOOLS CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE
OF INSTRUCTION
Some of the districts also provided information regarding the
language in which education was imparted, and the number of
schools where Persian or English were taught. The number of
schools teaching English was only 10, the highest being 7 in the
district of North Arcot. Nellore, North Arcot and Masulipatam
had 50, 40 and 19 Persian schools respectively, while Coimba-
tore had 10, and Rajahmundry 5. North Arcot and Coimbatore
had schools which taught Grantham (1 and 5 respectively) as
well as teaching Hindvee [a sort of Hindustani] (16 and 14
respectively), and Bellary had 23 Marathi schools. The district of
North Arcot had 365 Tamil and 201 Telugu schools, while
Bellary had nearly an equal number of schools teaching Telugu
and Kannada. Table 4 indicates this data more clearly.
AGE OF ENROLLMENT, DAILY TIMINGS, ETC.
As mentioned earlier, the data varies considerably from district
to district. Many of the collectors provided information regarding
the age at which boys (and perhaps girls too) were admitted to
school, the usual age being five. According to the collector of
Rajahmundry, ‘the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of
the boy’s age is the “lucky day” for his first entrance into school’,
while according to the collector of Cuddapah, the age for
admission for Brahmin boys was from the age of five to six and
that for Soodras from six to eight. The collector of Cuddapah
further mentioned two years as the usual period for which the
boys stayed at school. Nellore and Salem mentioned 3 to 5 or 6
years, while most others stated that the duration of study varied
from a minimum of five to about a maximum of 15 years. While
some collectors did not think much of the then current
education in the schools, or of the learning and scholarship of
the teachers, some thought the education imparted useful. The
collector of Madras observed: ‘It is generally admitted that before
they (i.e. the students) attain their 13th year of age, their
acquirements in the various branches of learning are uncom-
monly great.’^40