The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c8.s1.t2.10

Language: English

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It has been already mentioned that there are four different stages in a course of Bengali instruction. The *first* period seldom exceeds ten days, which are employed in teaching the young scholars to form the letters of the alphabet on the ground with a small stick or slip of bambu. The sand-board is not used in this district, probably to save expense. The *second* period, extending from two and a half to four years according to the capacity of the scholar, is distinguished by the use of the palm-leaf as the material on which writing is performed. Hitherto the mere form and sound of the letters have been taught without regard to their size and relative proportion; but the master with an iron-style now writes on the palm-leaf letters of a determinate size and in due proportion to each other, and the scholar is required to trace them on the same leaf with a reed-pen and with charcoal-ink which easily rubs out. This process is repeated over and over again on the same leaf until the scholar no longer requires the use of the copy to guide him in the formation of the letters of a fit size and proportion and he is consequently next made to write them on another leaf which has no copy to direct him. He is afterwards exercised in writing and pronouncing the compound consonants, the syllables formed by the junction of vowels with consonants, and the most common names of persons.

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In other parts of the country, the names of castes, rivers, mountains, etc., are written as well as of persons; but here the names of persons only are employed as a school-exercise. The scholar is then taught to write and read, and by frequent repetition he commits to memory the Cowrie Table, the Numeration Table as far as 100, the Katha Table (a land-measure table), and the Ser Table (a dry-measure table). There are other tables in use elsewhere which are not taught in the schools of this district. The *third* stage of instruction extends from two to three years which are employed in writing on the plantain-leaf. In some districts the tables just mentioned are postponed to this stage, but in this district they are included in the exercises of the second stage. The first exercise taught on the plantain-leaf is to initiate the scholar into the simplest forms of letter writing, to instruct him to connect words in composition with each other, and to distinguish the written from the spoken forms of Bengali vocables. The written forms are often abbreviated in speech by the omission of a vowel or a consonant, or by the running of two syllables into one, and the scholar is taught to use in writing the full not the abbreviated forms. The correct orthography of words of Sanscrit origin which abound in the language of the people, is beyond the reach of the ordinary class of teachers.

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About the same time the scholar is taught the rules of arithmetic, beginning with addition and subtraction, but multiplication and division are not taught as separate rules—all the arithmetical processes hereafter mentioned being effected by addition and subtraction with the aid of a multiplication table which extends to the number 20, and which is repeated aloud once every morning by the whole school and is thus acquired not as a separate task by each boy, but by the mere force of joint repetition and mutual imitation. After addition and subtraction, the arithmetical rules taught divide themselves into two classes, agricultural and commercial, in one or both of which instruction is given more or less fully according to the capacity of the teacher and the wishes of the parents. The rules applied to agricultural accounts explain the forms of keeping debit and credit accounts; the calculation of the value of daily or monthly labour at a given monthly or annual rate; the calculation of the area of land whose sides measure a given number of kathas or bigas; the description of the boundaries of land and the determination of its length, breadth, and contents; and the form of revenue accounts for a given quantity of land. There are numerous other forms of agricultural accounts, but no others appear to be taught in the schools of this district. The rules of commercial accounts explain the mode of calculating the value of a given number of sers at a given price per maund;

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the price of a given number of quarters and chataks at a given price per ser; the price of a tola at a given rate per chatak; the number of cowries in a given number of annas at a given number of cowries per rupee; the interest of money; and the discount chargeable on the exchange of the inferior sorts of rupees. There are other forms of commercial account also in common use, but they are not taught in the schools. The *fourth* and last stage of instruction generally includes a period of two years, often less and seldom more. The accounts briefly and superficially taught in the preceding stage are now taught more thoroughly and at a greater length, and this is accompanied by the composition of business letters, petitions, grants, leases, acceptances, notes of hand, etc., together with the forms of address belonging to the different grades of rank and station. When the scholars have written on paper about a year, they are considered qualified to engage in the unassisted perusal of Bengali works, and they often read at home productions as the translation of the *Ramayana*, *Manasa Mangal*, etc., etc.