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CHAPTER XII.

SCHOOLS.

ROM the commencement of Missions, schools have

received much attention, and have absorbed a large part of mission agency. These schools have been of different orders, many primary, a number secondary, and a few educating the pupils up to the University mark for degrees. I have had a great deal of experience in teaching and superintending primary and secondary schools, and I have seen something of the institutions of the highest class. I now speak of schools for boys and young men. Girls' schools will receive attention in a subsequent chapter.

I do not know any mission in Northern India where elementary education has been entirely neglected. Some have done much more in this department than others, but all have devoted to it a measure of attention and effort. We had at one time ten schools of this class in different parts of Benares. In these humble schools many have learned to read, write, and keep accounts, and have thus been fitted for discharging efficiently their secular work. Their minds have been furnished and their character improved by useful information communicated to them. Above all, Christian instruction has been imparted. The schools have been frequently visited by the

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missionary and his native assistants for the special object. of reading with the pupils portions of the Scriptures, and inculcating the lessons they contain. Thus readers for our Scriptures and Christian books have been prepared, who we may hope come to their perusal with weakened prejudice from the kindly feeling with which we are regarded. A favourable impression has thus been made on the minds of parents as well as of pupils.

I have already mentioned that these schools have been utilized for preaching-stations, and have been well adapted for this purpose. They have been carried on at small expense. The great drawback has been that with few exceptions the teachers have been Hindus. They have been of the Kaisth, the writer caste, who are as a caste less imbued perhaps with Hinduism than any other. When Christians have been available their services have of course been thankfully secured. For some years the Hindu element has been gradually withdrawn from the teaching staff. Two of the early teachers in our time. became Christians, one having been baptized in our Mission, and the other in the Church Mission at Benares.

The whole state of primary education in the NorthWest, I may say in India, is on a very different footing from what it was in 1840. Great progress in every department of education has been made since that time. Considering the vast importance of primary education, the advancement has not been so great as might have been expected, but there is every prospect of its being largely extended in the immediate future. It is hoped that one outcome of the Education Commission which is now sitting will be the gathering into schools of many thousands of the young who have been hitherto neglected.

In most Missions of any standing, even where the chief attention has been given to direct evangelistic work, some provision has been made for secondary education. A school with this object was established in our Mission in 1845. It was taught in a well-sized native house, and was afterwards transferred to a larger building. It had successive superintendents, the late Mr. Sherring, Mr. Blake, and myself. It was a longer time under Mr. Sherring than under any other, and in it he laboured very diligently and efficiently. It received the name of the Central School, as our idea was to transfer to it the best boys from what we called the Bazar schools. It was intended to allow none to enter who had not made some

progress in reading their own language, but we found this exclusion impracticable, and we were obliged to form an elementary department. English was taught, and the higher classes were introduced to geometry, algebra, history, especially Indian history, and other similar branches of a liberal education. Almost all when they Those who remained

entered were ignorant of English. a considerable time made fair progress, a few made remarkable progress; and we were happy to find that many on leaving us obtained responsible situations, which they continued to hold to the satisfaction of their superiors.

For years under successive superintendents the Head Master was a Christian, Babu Ram Chunder Basu, who is now most usefully employed as a lecturer to educated natives. His great attainments, his diligence and teach ing power, did much to promote the prosperity of the school.

In our Central school a very prominent place was given to Christian instruction. Every day Scripture lessons were given by Christian teachers; on Saturday, for years,

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a lecture was delivered to the assembled school; and on Sunday morning a service was held, at which there was a good voluntary attendance. The effect of the prominence thus given to Christian teaching was shown early in 1857, when on a plan arranged by the zealous publicspirited Commissioner of the Benares Province, Mr. Henry Carre Tucker, there was a gathering in the city of the pupils from all the schools in the province who choose to attend to submit to an examination in Scripture knowledge. Prizes in money and books were given to those who proved themselves most proficient. A great number of lads and boys made their appearance, and the high place taken by the pupils of our Central school showed how well they had been taught.

Some missions provide for taking their pupils on to the University standard. Among these the missions in the Presidency cities have held, and from their peculiar sphere must continue to hold, the first rank. I have already observed nothing interested me more, nothing delighted me more on reaching Calcutta early in 1839, than the sight of many young men and boys taught in the institutions of the Church of Scotland and of our own Mission. It was most exhilarating to see so many bright youths studying our language, introduced to Western knowledge, and, above all, led to the fountain of truth in the Word of God. Dr. Duff was not the first in establishing in Calcutta an institution for the teaching of English; he was not the first in establishing a Christian school; many were before him in this good work but he was the first in setting up an institution on a large scale on a thoroughly Christian basis, in which English was to have the first place, and in which provision was made for carrying the students on to the University standard

of Europe. In 1843 the missionaries, on account of their adherence to the Free Church, were obliged to give up their buildings in Cornwallis Square, and to seek accommodation in another part of Calcutta, where they have continued their scholastic work with great zeal and efficiency. The institution in Cornwallis Square has been conducted for many years with remarkable success by the missionaries of the Established Church of Scotland. All the missions in Calcutta have taken part in this work, and have sent forth bands of well-educated young men, who have acquired a large acquaintance with the Word of God.

Similar institutions have been formed throughout the country. As may be supposed, these vary greatly in resources and efficiency. Years ago our Central school was transferred from a rented house in the city to a large purchased house in the suburbs, where, under the name of the High School, it has continued to flourish. Many of its students have successfully passed the Entrance examination of the Calcutta University, and at considerable number have passed the First Arts examination. It has always stood high in native estimation, has had a large attendance of pupils, and is reckoned one of the best institutions of the kind in the NorthWest. The change from the Central school, with its secondary education, to the High school, with its arrangement to carry on the pupils further, was made by the late Mr. Sherring, and to his assiduous care and efficient management its success is largely due. It maintains its character under the superintendence of our friend Mr. Hewlett, who has arranged for the opening of a B.A. class.

I have mentioned the University standard. For many