boys in school being at 35.1% is truly astonishing.^57 Even
amongst the Vysees, the Soodras and the other castes in
Malabar, the proportion of girls to boys was fairly high at 15.5%,
19.1% and 12.4% respectively; the proportion of the totals being
18.3%. That two such widely separated areas (Malabar on the
west coast while Jeypoor Zamindary being in the hilly tracts on
the southern border of Orissa) had such a sociological similarity
requires deeper study.
V
The undertaking of the survey was welcomed by London in May
1825, when it wrote to Madras: ‘We think great credit is due to
Sir Thomas Munro for having originated the idea of this enquiry.’
However, after receipt of the survey information and papers, the
reply Madras received ridiculed and altogether dismissed what
had been reported to be functioning. In the public despatch of
16 April 1828, Madras was told that ‘the information sent’, while
lacking in certain respects, was ‘yet sufficiently complete to
show, that in providing the means of a better education for the
natives, little aid is to be expected from the instruments of
education which already exist.’
ADAM’S REPORT ON INDIGENOUS EDUCATION IN
BENGAL AND BIHAR
Thirteen years after the initiation of the survey in the Madras
Presidency, a more limited semi-official survey of indigenous
education was taken up in the Presidency of Bengal. This was
what is known as the celebrated Adam’s Reports, or to give the
full title Reports on the State of Education in Bengal 1836 and
1838.^58