II. Madras. withdrawn; we did not think it necessary to send you an estimate of the repairs proposed to be made, because it involved a delay which seemed desirable to avoid, they were made therefore at once from the existing funds and finished without the aid we sought for it. With reference to para. 6 of your letter under reply, I beg to remind you that I explained in person that a school-room for both sexes with a dormitory above was the plan I wished to adept, and which I sketched in pencil. No plan or estimate could be furnished you except by the engineer, who has never had time to make one, and which if made would exceed by two-thirds the sum we should require if the funds were entrusted to the committee instead of a contractor. Para. 7 of your letter informs me that you did not examine the children in the Bible, which is the only book, with its kindred subjects, the rules of the foundation require to be taught, and if they failed "in every subject" as you report, and that it was "general," it is clear that the failure was in those things in which they had no master to instruct them, and to provide for which was the sole object of my application for a grant-in-aid. (signed) John Griffiths, Chaplain of Vizagapatam. ORDER thereon, No. 1165, dated 19 August 1857. No. 2. Para. 15. Extract Minutes Con. 1857. ADVERTING to the orders of Government marginally noted (page 87, Selections of Government, No. XLI), the Chaplain at sultation, No. 616, dated 14th May Vizagapatam explains at length the circumstances of the schools, in view to a modification of the resolution of Government not to contribute to their support at present. Vizagapatam. "The Orphan schools here are in so unsatisfactory a condition that no grant is recommended." 2. These circumstances, the origin, &c., of the school and other points, are not stated with sufficient perspicuity, but the following, in compiling which a reference to former correspondence with the archdeacon and others has been necessary, is gathered to be the state of the case. 3. The schools were established about the year 1830, as an asylum for the children and descendants of the men of the European Veterans at the station. A local subscription was raised, and the fundamental object of the institution was declared to be that the children should be clothed and fed, and instruction imparted to them in the Bible and Church Catechism. Other elements of a homely education were afterwards added. The trustees (who are the chaplain and the lay trustees of the Church) appointed a master at 30 rupees, and a matron at 50 rupees a month. This continued till the year 1855, when the master and mistress were summarily dismissed, the first for misconduct, the second for inefficiency, and the chaplain applied to the Director of Public Instruction for a grant-in-aid. 4. This application led to a visit from Lieutenant Macdonald, Inspector of Schools. His report was most unfavourable, and in consequence the Government concurred with the director in his opinion that no grant could be sanctioned. 5. To this decision the reverend chaplain demurs on the grounds, that the children were not examined in the Scriptures, in a knowledge of which they excel; that the fact of the school being left without competent superintendence is excuse enough for its short-comings, and that the Government have, in a measure, already pledged themselves to support it, by yearly donations out of Wooley's Fund." 66 6. In reply, the Government have to observe that as the children are shamefully backward in the rudiments of a general education, their proficiency in an acquaintance with Scripture may be reasonably doubted. It is not the aim of the system of grants-in-aid to do more than assist those who assist themselves. In regard to any pledge on their part to support the school, the Government find that a grant of 1,000 rupees was given in 1848, and a promise held out of further annual donations, provided the benefactions of the community did not decrease, and the school continued in an efficient state. Whether the first of these conditions continues it is not stated; that the second has not been maintained, is not denied. II. Madras. 7. The offer made by the reverend chaplain at the close of his letter to sell to Government certain property with which the school has been endowed, will be referred to the collector for his report. Consultation, 8th 20. PAPERS referred to in Madras Public Despatch (Educational), dated 6 October 1858, No. 5, paragraphs 64 to 66. EXTRACT Public Letter from Fort St. George, dated 24 December, Para. 36. UNDER date the 10th July last, the director submitted his scheme for the improvement of village schools, on which his attention has been long engaged. The novelty of the subject, the necessity of forming an acquaintance with the chief systems established or tried in other Presidencies, the startling want of vernacular school books and the thorough inefficiency of the present race of teachers, are described among the principal causes for the delay which has occurred in propounding a final opinion on this interesting and important question. The absence, indeed, of suitable books and properly qualified instructors is a difficulty which, even now, has only been partially removed. A small stock of books, sufficient for a commencement, has, however, been provided, and some twenty students at the normal school, who have been for some time under special instruction, will, it is thought, be enough advanced by the close of the year to form the first body of trained masters for vernacular training schools. On the whole, therefore, the time has now come when the subject can be advantageously discussed. 37. The systems tried in this country may be generally classed under four heads. A. Mr. Thomason's scheme, in the North West Provinces. B. The hulkabundee. C. The plan prevailing in the Talooks of the Sub-Collectorate of Rajahmundry, and identical in its main features with the Hulkabundee. D. The system tried in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency. 38. The plan adopted in the first of the above was to establish at the headquarters of every talook, a Tahsilee school, conducted so as to present a model for imitation in all subordinate schools. These last were periodically inspected, and those whose progress was most marked, rewarded by grants-in-aid. 39. The plan was considered so unequivocally successful that, in 1853, its extension to other parts of India was earnestly commended by the late Governor General. Recent inquiries, however, have tended to show that the stability of schools could not be depended on under the system pursued. It was shown, in fact, that a bad havest, a change in the headship of a village, and other such causes, were commonly fatal to the existence of the little seminary; that, in fine, no less than one-third of these indigenous schools annually died out. It was to remedy this want of permanency that the hulkabundee system, or the maintenance of one substantial school for every circle of villages, so as to give the farmers of three or four hamlets, in lieu of one, an interest in its prosperity, was devised. Every success has attended the change in the North West Provinces, and the system has been introduced, by the energetic endeavours of Mr. G. N. Taylor, into operation in the delta talooks of the district of Rajahmundry, where the villages are held, as in the North West of India, on joint rent tenures. 40. The 40. The main features of the scheme is the assessment among the renters themselves of a fixed rate for each village, the proceeds of which are to cover the salary of the schoolmaster, the cost of supervision being paid for by the State. These voluntary rates are collected in Rajahmundry by the Tahsildars along with the kists payable by the village, and are disbursed by them under report to the sub-collector, who is looked up to as the patron and head of the whole undertaking. It is obvious, therefore, that the work of supervision is no light one, and that the labour would be regarded by officers, possessing less enthusiasm in the subject, as a very onerous addition to the current duties of their office. To this it may be added that the conspiring testimony of the inspector, Captain Macdonald, and of Mr. J. D. Robinson, who succeeded Mr. Taylor in the charge of the sub-collectorate, goes far to induce the belief that the contributions described as "voluntary" can hardly be so considered; that, in short, the zeal of the head of the district, extending itself to subordinates, not always over scrupulous, has occasionally resulted in the application to the apathy of the ryots of a pressure more or less unadvisable. Above all, it is a system which could only answer with joint rents, and would be altogether inapplicable, as the director has justly remarked, where the revenue is farmed, or in a ryotwar community. 41. In Bengal four systems appear to have been tried, viz., 1. Mr. Thomason's original plan of inspection and reward; 2. The appointment of qualified teachers to inspect and improve circles of schools, supported by private contributions and the fees of the pupils; 3. The establishment of scholarships; 4. The establishment of new schools by grants-in-aid of local subscriptions. 42. In this Presidency, besides the operations in Rajahmundry, there has been an uniform scheme introduced, at the instance of the Rev. J. Richards, late Inspector, Southern Circle, among the village schools of the two great Missionary Societies in Tinnevelly; and it is partly from this and partly from a scheme proposed by Captain Macdonald, Inspector, Northern Circle, that the director has drawn the proposal he has laid before us. Mr. Thompson, another inspector, has also offered his scheme, but it is one involving so great an increase to the taxation of the country, that it carries its own condemnation with it, and does not need to be separately discussed. 43. Of the two schemes amalgamated by the director, the details alone differ. The principle in each is the same, viz., The master of every school, on his qualifying by a certain standard, is to have a certain amount of assistance extended to him, according to the number of pupils he may have. The school, of course, is to be periodically inspected. 44. Under Mr. Richards' plan, village schoolmasters wishing to qualify themselves according to a fixed standard of attainments, are to be furnished with the necessary books and maps at cost price, and also with directions for using them, and on their passing a satisfactory examination on the several subjects prescribed, are to receive a monthly grant of two rupees, on showing that they have 25 bona fide pupils. The objection entertained to this is the multiplicity of small money payments, and it is further apprehended that there is not inducement enough to the masters to improve themselves, or enlarge the school beyond the terms required to entitle to the grant. 45. Similar in principle, Captain Macdonald's plan proposes a grant, not of money, but of books and maps to the value of two rupees. Then, at the end of a year, the school would be inspected, and two annas and one anna for each lad allowed (according to the degree of proficiency exhibited) per mensem. This grant, too, would be in books, which the master would be at liberty to sell among his pupils at the rates marked, and thus realise an addition to his fees, Teachers qualifying by a still higher standard would gain honorary certificates, and be eligible for employment as junior masters of talook and other schools; and to enable industrious teachers thus to qualify themselves, normal classes should be attached to each provincial, zillah, and talook school, and stipends allowed to those under instruction. 46. We concurred with the director that, experimental as any first attempts must necessarily be in the cultivation of this untried field, the suggestions here offered afford reasonable hope of success, and he was accordingly authorised to 186 (II.)-Sess. 2. II. Madras. II. Madras. carry them out; the expenditure being met, as proposed by him, out of the fund for scholarships and that for sub-deputy inspectorships. Should payment in books prove inadequate, part of the donation might be given, as suggested, in money. 47. Mr. Arbuthnot has concluded his report by observing that no larger plans can be expected, pending the general imposition of a special tax for educational purposes. Within what period this may be looked for, it is not now necessary to inquire. The present scheme will not be unfruitful, if, among the rising generation, some few thousand shall be numbered at once the grateful recipients of the benefits it is designed to convey, and the pioneers of those improvements in the social condition of the masses, to which the ryots' ignorance and apathy are now the chief obstacles. No. 15. Fort St. George Public Consultation of 8 September 1857. Read the following letter from A. J. Arbuthnot, Esq., Director of Public Instruction, to the Acting Chief Secretary to Government, Fort St. George, dated Palmanair, 10 July 1857, No. 656. Sir, I HAD hoped to have been able at a much earlier period to submit, for the consideration of the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, some definite proposition for the extension of sound elementary education among those classes of the community, for whom instruction must be provided either in, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, their own villages. Various causes have tended to delay the preparation of such a scheme. First, the great difficulty of the subject rendered me unwilling to recommend the expenditure of public money in experimenting upon any of the various schemes which had been brought into operation in other parts of India, until I had been able to satisfy myself, by an attentive study of their details and by some observation of their working, whether any of them were suited to the circumstances of this Presidency. In the second place, two important wants had to be supplied, both of which were more or less essential to the bringing into operation any measure that might be determined on for the education of the masses. 1st, the provision of suitable vernacular school books; 2d, a staff of trained native teachers who might be put in charge of vernacular training schools or classes in which the teachers of village schools and candidates for those situations might be instructed and trained. 2. In my letter of the 26th January 1856, I addressed Government at some length with reference to the course of elementary instruction for which provision would have to be made in the several languages of this Presidency. The labours of the Rev. Mr. Pope at Tanjore, aided by Vencatacharry, one of the Deputy Inspectors of Schools, whose whole time has been devoted to the preparation of school books, and those of the Professor of Vernacular Literature in the Presidency College, have already supplied our most pressing wants, so far as the Tamil language is concerned. The completion of the work in Tamil and translation of the Tamil school books into the other languages of Southern India, is progressing, and before the close of the official year, which has just commenced, I have every expectation of being in a position to report that a tolerably complete series of the books requisite for imparting a sound elementary education in each of the four principal vernacular languages of this Presidency has been supplied. Much revision and frequent additions to the stock will no doubt be required; but I am of opinion that so far as books are concerned, enough progress has already been made to admit of our commencing any measures that may be determined on for the improvement and extension of elementary education. 3. The provision of the second of the two wants, to which I have adverted, viz., a staff of trained masters competent to conduct training schools or classes for the instruction and training of village schoolmasters, is of necessity a more tardy process than that of compiling school books. Books when once compiled may be multiplied rapidly. Teachers can only be trained gradually, and although the labour of the training master may be simultaneously applied to several II. several pupils, the number of the latter must be comparatively limited, and for each class the same process has to be gone through. The question as to what would be the best means of providing for the training of vernacular teachers was one of the first which engaged my attention on my appointment to my present office. The great difficulty was to find persons combining the necessary attainments and skill in the art of teaching with such a knowledge of the vernacular language as would be required for the instruction and training of persons ignorant of any language but their own. The conclusion at which I arrived, after very careful consideration of the subject, was, that in order to provide the requisite staff of training masters, it would be necessary to establish at the Presidency a normal school under the management of a thoroughly welltrained English training master, in which native students who had made some progress in the subjects usually embraced in an English education should be trained in the art of teaching, continuing at the same time the study of their vernacular languages so as to qualify them for imparting, through the medium of their own languages, the knowledge acquired by them in the normal school through the medium of English. This arrangement having been proposed and sanctioned, the normal school, as his Lordship is aware, was opened on the 3d March 1856. Twenty students are now under training, some of whom by the end of the present year will, I trust, be found well qualified to take charge of vernacular training schools. 4. In anticipation, then, of the provision of a skilled agency of this character, and on the ground that the necessary supply of school books will, ere long, be forthcoming, it appears to me that the time has come for determining the manner in which this agency is to be applied towards the improvement and extension of elementary education. 5. Before proceeding to discuss the proposition which I am about to make, it may be well that I should briefly advert to the various experiments which have been attempted or projected in other parts of India, as well as in this Presidency, with the view of carrying out this important object. 6. These measures may be shortly stated as follows: 1st. The system organised in the North Western Provinces for the improvement of indigenous schools by means of inspection and the distribution of rewards to deserving teachers and scholars, comprehending the establishment, at the head quarters of each tahsildar, of a Government tahsil school which is intended to serve as a model for the surrounding village schools. 2d. The system of hulkabundee schools, as it is designated, by which is meant the establishment of schools in circles of villages, which are supported by a rate voluntarily raised by the inhabitants. 3d. The very similar system organised by Mr. G. N. Taylor in the subdivision of the Rajahmundry district. 4th. The measures which have been introduced experimentally in the Lower Provinces of Bengal. 7. Each of these measures is based upon the principle that the main expense of elementary education must be borne by the people themselves, the aid of Government being limited to the establishment of model schools, the provision of an inspecting agency, and to the disbursement of a limited sum in distributing rewards to the most deserving schools. 8. The system originally organised in the North West Provinces by the late Mr. Thomason, may be shortly described. In each of the districts selected for the experiment, an officer was appointed under the designation of zillah visitor, whose duty it was, aided by three subordinate inspecting officers, to visit the indigenous schools in the district, provide the masters with suitable school books when they were willing to accept them, and periodically to distribute rewards to the most deserving masters and pupils. They were also to give instruction to the masters in the best methods of teaching, to point out to them how the books were to be used, and generally to do what they could towards making them better teachers. In each district a certain number of schools were established by Government under the designation of tahsil schools, which were intended to Madras. The plan originally organised in the North West Pro |