The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c5.s17.10

c5.s17.10

9. When the whole are assembled, the scholars according to their number and attainments, are divided into several classes. The lower ones of which are placed partly under the care of monitors, whilst the higher ones are more immediately under the superintendence of the master, who at the same time has his eye upon the whole school. The number of classes is generally four; and a scholar rises from one to the other, according to his capacity and progress. The first business of a child on entering school is to obtain a knowledge of the letters, which he learns by writing them with his finger on the ground in sand, and not by pronouncing the alphabet as among European nations. When he becomes pretty dexterous in writing with his finger in sand, he has then the privilege of writing either with an iron style on cadjan leaves, or with a reed on paper, and sometimes on the leaves of the *aristolochia identica*, or with a kind of pencil on the *Hulligi* or *Kadata*, which answer the purpose of slates. The two latter in these districts are the most common. One of these is a common oblong board about a foot in width and three feet in length. This board, when plained smooth, has only to be smeared with a little rice and pulverized charcoal and it is then fit for use. The other is made of cloth, first stiffened with rice water, doubled in folds, resembling a book, and is then covered with a composition of charcoal and several gums. The writing on either these may be effaced by a wet cloth. The pencil used is called *Buttapa*, a kind of white clay substance, somewhat resembling a crayon, with the exception of being rather harder.