The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c10.s4.32

c10.s4.32

On the other hand, you appear to think that the number of schools is a guide to literacy percentages. I agree that that would be a natural conclusion, but, on the other hand, as has been pointed out in the census, a number of Indian schools in the past did not aim at literacy, and more recently the Education Committee of the Indian Statutory Commission, of which I was Chairman, pointed out that in the ten years 1917 to 1927 the number of primary schools in Bengal was increased by nearly eleven thousand, and the number of pupils by nearly 370,000 whereas in Class IV, the lowest class in which permanent literacy is likely to be attained under existing conditions, the number of pupils had actually diminished by nearly 30,000. I am afraid that I am altogether unable to accept your conclusions with regard to the history of literacy in Bengal during the past 100 years, of which there remains a good deal to be said.