The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s3.t12.1

c4.s3.t12.1

As mentioned earlier, the number of girls attending school was very small. Leaving aside the district of Malabar and the Jeypoor division of Vizagapatam district, the girls from the Brahmin, Chettri, and Vysee castes were practically non-existent in schools. There were, however, some Muslim girls receiving school education: 56 in Trichnopoly, and 27 in Salem. The Hindoo girls who attended school, though again not in any large number, were from the Soodra and other Hindoo castes; and, according to the collectors of Masulipatam, Madura, Tinnevelly and Coimbatore, most of them were stated to be dancing girls, or girls who were presumably going to be *devdasis* in the temples. *Table 8* presents the district and caste-wise number of the girls attending school, or said to be receiving private tuition.