Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c8.13

c8.13

An account given by William Ward in his *View of the Hindoos* presents us with a similar picture of these indigenous schools in Bengal.¹ ‘Almost all the larger villages in Bengal contain common schools, where a boy learns his letters by writing them, never by pronouncing the alphabet as in Europe. He first writes them on the ground; next with an iron style or a reed on a palm leaf; and next on a green plantain leaf. After the simple letters he writes the compounds, then the names of men, villages, animals, etc., and then the figures. While employed in writing on leaves all the scholars stand up twice a day with a monitor at their head, and repeat the numerical tables, ascending from a unit to four, and from four to twenty, from twenty to eighty, and from eighty to 1280; and during school hours they write on the palm leaf the strokes by which these numbers are defined. They next commit to memory an addition table and count from one to a hundred; and after this, on green plantain leaves, they write easy sums in addition and subtraction of money; multiplication, and then reduction of money, measures, etc. The Hindu measures are all reducible to the weight, beginning with *rattīs* and ending with *manas* (maunds). The elder boys, as the last course at these schools, learn to write common letters, agreements, etc. The Hindu schools begin early in the morning and continue till nine or ten o'clock; after taking some refreshment at home the scholars return about three and continue till dark. Masters punish with cane or rod, or a truant is compelled to stand on one leg holding up a brick in each hand or to have his arms stretched out till completely tired. Masters are generally respectable Śūdras, but occasionally Brāhmans.’