The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c10.s4.12

c10.s4.12

In Bombay, which came under British rule after the fall of the Peshwas in 1818, a Report of the Bombay Education Society for 1819 observes:— ‘There is probably as great a proportion of persons in India who can read, write, and keep simple accounts, as are to be found in European countries.’ The same Report for the following year notes:— ‘Schools are frequent among the natives, and abound everywhere.’ In April, 1821, Mr Prendergast, member of the Executive Council of the then Government of Bombay, notes in a Minute on an application for 2 English schools in Thana or Panwell Talukas:— ‘I need hardly mention what every member of the Board knows as well as I do that there is hardly a village, great or small, throughout our territories, in which there is not at least one school, and in larger villages more; many in every town and in large cities in every division where young natives are taught reading, writing and arithmetic, upon a system so economical, from a handful or two of grain, to perhaps a rupee per month to the schoolmaster, according to the ability of the parents, and at the same time so simple and effectual, that there is hardly a cultivator or petty dealer who is not competent to keep his own accounts with a degree of accuracy, in my opinion, beyond what we meet with among the lower orders in our own country; whilst the more splendid dealers and bankers keep their books with a degree of ease, conciseness, and clearness I rather think fully equal to those of any British merchants.’ (Cp. Commons Report, 1832, p.468).