The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c8.s1.t4.2

c8.s1.t4.2

No institutions can be more insignificant and useless, and in every respect less worthy of notice, than these Arabic schools, viewed as places of instruction; but, however worthless in themselves, they have a certain hold on the Native mind, which is proved by the increased respect and emoluments as Mollas, expected and acquired by some of the teachers on account of the instruction they give; the expense incurred by others of them in erecting school-houses; and by the general employment by the Mussalman population of those who receive and communicate the slender education which these schools bestow. In the eye of the philanthropist or the statesman no institution however humble, will be overlooked, by which he may hope beneficially to influence the condition of any portion of mankind; and it is just in proportion to the gross ignorance of the multitude that he will look with anxiety for any loop-holes by which he may find an entrance to their understandings—some institutions, which are held by them in veneration and which have hitherto served the cause of ignorance, but which he may hope with discretion to turn to the service of knowledge. I do not despair that means might be employed, simple, cheap, and inoffensive, by which even the teachers of these schools might be reared to qualify themselves for communicating a much higher grade of instruction to a much greater number of learners without divesting them of any portion of the respect and attachment of which they are now the objects.