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to increase the grant for primary schools from Rs. 1,30,000 to Rs. 5,30,000 a year, and to find funds to pay for the additional native inspecting agency required. In the Chapter of the present year's Report on Education it will be seen that doubt hangs over the question whence the means for continuing this grant is to come. However that may be, the grant has been made and can be made for another year or two to come from the provincial funds now in hand, if they are not otherwise exhausted.

District officers entrusted with the

primary school scheme.

The second point to be decided was the agency by which the new primary school grant could be spent to the best advantage. An Inspector of Schools, with a circle of ten districts, containing a population of 14 millions, could hardly direct and manage the village schools of his whole circle; and moreover an Inspector could not have influence over or know the zemindars, townsfolk, and villagers, without whose co-operation no effectual reforms of this kind could be carried out. It seemed best to place the administration of the primary school funds in the hands of the District and Sub-divisional Officers, who were to be aided and advised by regularly constituted district school committees. The District Officers were to improve existing village schools and establish new ones by giving either a monthly grant or a capitation allowance, and to evoke the liberality of landholders or others by giving a small Government grant to any primary school they might successfully establish. At the same time the Court of Wards, in its capacity as trustee of Ward's estates, and Government for its own estates (khas mehals), set an example to other landholders by devoting a small annual sum for the support of village schools.

In regard to the style of Type of schools and schoolmasters

required.

schools and the teaching to be given, it was explained that the object was "that the money should be used to encourage and develop in rural villages proper indigenous education, that is, reading and arithmetic in the real indigenous language and character of each province." It was said that it would not be "necessary to employ highly trained masters on considerable salaries," but that it would be preferable "to give the money as a grant-in-aid to men of the purely indigenous schoolmaster class; provided each keeps up in a place where it is required, and among a population of cultivators and labourers, a school efficient according to native standards, and submits it to inspection and examination." It was expected that in ordinary cases a Government grant of Rs. 2 or Rs. 3 a month to each village school would suffice, inasmuch as the total earnings of a Bengalee village schoolmaster rarely exceed from Rs. 5 to Rs. 8 a month. Much discretion was left to District Officers, acting with the advice of their committees, in carrying out these orders. They were asked to "ascertain what indigenous means of indigenous education existed; to enlist the people and their leading men as much as possible in favour of simple education, and to develop by small grants according to the circumstances of each case." It was enjoined that in Mahomedan districts a fair share of village schoolmasterships should be given to Mahomedans if they proved competent.

When the duty of extending and promoting primary education was thus made over to district officers Addition to the native inspecting agency. who already hold in their hands so many other threads of district administration, it became necessary to allow each district chief a special agency to help him in his educational duties. There had previously been in Bengal a certain number of Deputy Inspectors of Schools, who were native gentlemen of some education, and whose duty was to inspect aided schools and patshalas. These Deputy Inspectors were on salaries ranging from Rs. 80 to Rs. 200 a month, and the majority of them were attached to the twelve head-quarter districts wherein the old school scheme had been carried. The circles within which Inspectors and Deputy Inspectors had worked did not correspond to the administrative divisions and districts; and the first step was to make educational jurisdictions conterminous with Commissionerships and districts. Next it was arranged that to the head-quarters of each district should be attached a well-paid Deputy Inspector, who would be quite competent to inspect middle-class schools as well as patshalas, and who would be the right hand of the district officer and of the district committee in educational matters. Seeing how very large most Bengal districts are, the Lieutenant-Governor attached a Sub-Inspector to each sub-division of a district, whose function would be to administer the educational funds and to inspect the primary schools of the sub-division under the direction.of the Subdivisional Officer. To all classes of inspecting officers is granted a sufficient travelling allowance to cover the expenses of their inspection journeys. There has thus been organised a subordinate inspecting agency consisting of about 50 Deputy Inspectors and about 120 Sub-Inspectors, who will cost (for salaries and travelling allowance) about Rs. 1,60,000 a year. Out of this sum at least Rs. 1,00,000 may be taken to be the cost of inspecting and directing primary schools.

teachers.

Then again, though there was a large class of indigenous schoolmasters, yet their modes of teaching Normal schools for training village were primitive and possibly in some respects clumsy; and our object is not only to extend, but also to improve, the primary schools of the country. To do this it was necessary to give some training to the younger men of the present schoolmaster class, and to organise some training for the village schoolmasters of the future. There were previously in Bengal four expensive normal schools costing about Rs. 15,000 a year a-piece; and there were also twenty-three less expensive normal schools costing about Rs. 4,000 a-piece.

On the recommendation of the Director it was decided that vernacular only should be taught at normal schools, and that there should be a high class normal school, costing on the average Rs. 6,500 a year, at the head-quarters of each Commissionership, and a second class normal school, costing about Rs. 3,000 a year, at the head-quarters of each large district, and a third class normal school, costing Rs. 2,000 a year, at the head-quarters of each small district. The first class normal schools were to train teachers for middle vernacular as well as for primary schools; the second and third class schools were to train teachers for primary schools only. Nearly half the cost of these

normal schools is on account of the stipends which will have to be allowed to the teachers, or embryo teachers, who may be under training. The total cost of the normal schools, being 46 for all Bengal exclusive of the petty hill districts, will be about Rs. 1,65,000 a year, or very nearly the same sum that used in former years to be spent on 27 normal schools. Of this sum about Rs. 1,30,000 will be spent on preparing masters for village schools only, and may be considered as part of the expenditure on primary education.

Primary school scholarships.

Government scholarships were in former years given to boys who did well at the University examinations, and at minor examinations held by the educational department in each district. No scholarships were set aside for boys at primary schools (patshalas), and it rarely happened that a patshala boy could gain a scholarship and so secure the means of prosecuting his studies beyond the course of a petty village school. By the orders of 1872 a sum of Rs. 29,520 have been granted annually to provide 410 patshala scholarships of Rs. 3 a month, tenable for two years, at any middle class English or Vernacular school. A certain number of these scholarships have been allotted to each district, in proportion to the number of its primary schools. During the past year competition for these scholarships has been very keen; and as the primary school scheme is developed, a larger share of the scholarship grant will have to be allotted to patshala scholarships.

The whole system of scholarships is now so arranged, that a specially gifted and deserving boy may by this means be lifted from one grade of schools to another till he reaches the highest place of education and is there educated at the public expense.

The total funds now allotted to

Total grants for primary education. primary education in Bengal are thus

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or considerably more than one-third of the net grant for education in

Note.-The gross grant for education

in Bengal for the year is Rs. 28,89,400,

and the receipts from fees, &c., are Rs. 3,96,500.

an advance on what went before,

Bengal for the year 1873-74. This expenditure is no doubt exceedingly small for the primary schools of so great and populous a country, but it is and a beginning has been made.

The primary education scheme sketched above only came into full operation in 1872-73; but the district officers and committees, one and all,

Results attained up to August 1873.

took the matter up most heartily and energetically. By the 15th

August 1873, the latest date for which returns are available, 10,787 village schools, old and new, had been brought within the operation of the Government scheme, and at these schools there were 255,728 scholars. 2,950 of the schools, principally in the Orissa, Midnapore, 24-Pergunnahs, Dinagepore, Rungpore, and Bhaugulpore districts, receive a capitation grant. The remainder receive a monthly grantin-aid ranging from Rs. 5 to Re. 1-8 per school per month, the average grant being a little over thirty-six rupees for each school per annum. In some districts the whole of the primary school grant had not been spent when the last returns were received, and further village schools were still to be opened. It is believed, however, that they are now rapidly approaching the full number. It will be seen from the Chapter on Education in the annual Report that the primary school scheme of 1872 has in the main been extremely popular, and has taken root among the people in a remarkably short space of time.

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