he was of the view that teaching in Canara could not be termed
‘public education’; as it was organised on a somewhat
discontinuous basis by a number of parents in an area by
getting together and engaging the services of a teacher(s) for the
purpose of teaching their children. The major difficulty for the
collector, however, seemed to be that ‘the preparation of the
necessary information would take up a considerable time’; and,
that even if it were collected, no ‘just criterion of the actual
extent of schools as exist in this zillah could be formed upon it.’
He hoped, therefore, that his letter itself would be considered as
a satisfactory reply. It may be added here that Canara (from
about 1800 onwards, and till at least the 1850s), even more than
the northern areas of coastal Andhra, was the scene of continual
opposition and peasant resistance to British rule. Besides, it also
generally happened that whenever any such data was ordered to
be collected (and this happened quite often) on one topic or
another, the quality and extent of the information supplied by
the collectors varied a great deal. To some extent, such differ-
ences in these returns arose from the varying relevance of an
enquiry from district to district. A more important reason, per-
haps, was the fact that because of the frequent change of collec-
tors and their European assistants, many of them (at the time
such information was required) were not very familiar with the
district under their charge. Furthermore, quite a number were
for various reasons, too involved in other more pressing
activities, or, mentally much less equipped to meet such
continual demands for information.
The information from the districts, therefore, varies a great
deal in detail as well as quality. While the data from about half
the districts was organised taluka-wise, and in some even parga-
na-wise, from the other half it was received for the district as a
whole. Three districts—Vizagapatam, Masulipatam and
Tanjore—added one further category to the prescribed form
provided by Government, viz. the category of Chettris or Rajah
scholars between the columns for Brahmin and Vysee scholars.
Further, while some of the collectors especially of Bellary,
Cuddapah, Guntoor and Rajahmundry sent fairly detailed
textual replies, some others like Tinnevelly, Vizagapatam and
Tanjore left it to the data to tell the story. A few of the collectors
also mentioned the books used in the schools and institutions of
higher learning in their districts. The collector of Rajahmundry,
being the most detailed, provided a list of 43 books used in
Telugu schools. He also identified some of those used in the
schools of higher learning, as well as in the schools teaching
Persian and Arabic.