ress up to the present time has been made in high and middle than in primary education. While there is no disposition on the part of the government to check or hinder such progress, it is submitted that the means by which elementary education may be extended and improved should be their principal care.

In the investigation which lasted from the 10th of February, 1882, to the 16th of March, 1883, the commission embraced every grade of instruction and all classes of schools as well as the particulars of administration, finance, and legislation.

In the endeavor to collate the mass of information obtained, the commission divided the questions before it into six principal branches, as follows: (1) Indigenous and primary education; (2) secondary and collegiate education; (3) the internal administration of the education department, including the system of inspection and examinations; (4) the external relations of the education department, including grants in aid and the withdrawal of government in favor of native management of colleges and schools; (5) the education of special classes of the community requiring exceptional treatment; (6) educational legislation.

A series of propositions was drawn up on each of these subjects by the committee intrusted with its consideration. These propositions were then discussed and adopted, rejected, or modified by the commission. The conclusions arrived at were embodied in 222 specific recommendations which are to be accepted as the deliberate decisions of the commission.

It would be manifestly impossible to embody in this place a detailed abstract of the report, in which the commission sets forth the information brought to light by its labors and the conclusions formed. I shall only attempt to give a brief summary of the present condition of education in India as shown in the report of the commission, with certain of the conclusions and recommendations with reference to elementary schools and female education.

The report deals with nine provinces of India, viz, Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the Northwestern Provinces and Oude, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, Assam, Coorg, and Haidarabad assigned districts, commonly called Berar. Regret is expressed that the commission was not able to visit the outlying province of Ajmir-Mhairwara, but the report contains information of the status of education in this province derived from the administration report of the same for 1881-82.

British Burmah is not included in the report, nor are those native states of India which, unlike the feudal states of Bombay, either administer their own systems of public instruction or else leave education entirely to private effort, without any assistance from the state.

The area of the nine provinces specified, together with Ajmir, according to the educational census of 1881, is 897,608 square miles; the total male population is 104,432,229 and the total female population 100,661,146. Speaking generally, it is stated that the governments of Bombay, the Northwestern Provinces, the Punjab, Central Provinces, Coorg, and the Haidarabad assigned districts have worked mainly on the departmental system, i. e., the establishment of new schools by direct departmental agency. The total population of these provinces amounts to more than 99,000,000, or not far short of one-half the whole population whose educational systems are under consideration of the commission.

The provinces in which primary education has been largely, if not exclusively, built upon the indigenous or aided schools are Madras, Bengal, and Assam, with a population numbering 105,500,000. In the report of the commission the phrase "public schools" includes departmental aided, as well as unaided but inspected, schools, while the phrase "departmental" is applied to schools supported by local fund committees and municipalities, as well as those which are exclusively managed by the officers of the department.

Primary schools.-The primary schools, comprising schools maintained by government, local, and municipal funds, aided schools, unaided but inspected schools, and

primary classes in high and middle schools, and in colleges in 1881–282 numbered, for the nine provinces, 82,916, attended by 2,061,541 pupils (as against 16,473 schools, attended by 607,320 pupils, in 1870-71). Thus it appears that 1.02 per cent. of the entire population in the nine provinces were under instruction, or if the schoolgoing population of both sexes be estimated at 15 per cent. of the whole population, then 6.78 per cent. of them were in primary schools. But these figures do not take into account the primary classes of higher schools in Bengal and Assam, which were giving instruction to about 100,000 pupils, nor yet the attendance in the indigenous elementary schools outside the state system. Assuming (says the report) that altogether there were some 2,520,000 pupils under instruction in 1881-82, this estimate, which is the most liberal that we are justified in making, would give only 8.29 per cent. of the population of schoolgoing age in the primary schools or classes of India in that year. If, again, the male population be separated from the female, then there were under primary instruction 15.48 per cent. of the male schoolgoing population, and .81 of 1 per cent. of the female schoolgoing population; while 12.55 of the male children and .80 of 1 per cent. of the female were in the primary schools recognized by the state.

As regards race or creed, the pupils in the primary schools aided or inspected by the department were distributed as follows:

The number of pupils presented for examination from primary schools in 1881-82 was 447,479, viz, 428,171 boys and 19,328 girls. Of these, the number who met the requirements was 262,431, viz, 251,010 boys and 11,421 girls.

The standards represented in these examinations vary considerably. The lowest required that candidates should be able to read at sight with facility a moderately easy book in a vernacular language, to write to dictation from the same, and to apply the first four rules of arithmetic in simple and compound numbers.

The highest standard required reading the seventh departmental book (inclusive of the lessons on the history of ancient and modern Europe and on natural history and elementary physics); syntax, prosody, and etymology; explanation and recitation of 600 lines of classical vernacular poetry; composition; complete arithmetic, with native accounts and book-keeping; geography; history of India, and sanitary primer. There are also, as optional subjects, drawing and field instruction in agriculture.

Training of teachers. The training of teachers has always been recognized by the department as an important branch of the work. According to statistics of 1881-'82, the total number of teachers (excluding pupil teachers) employed in the departmental and aided schools of India was 66,552. Of these, 12,243, or 18.39 per cent., were certificated. In this connection the term certificated has a somewhat wide meaning. In Bombay and the Central Provinces the certificate is only awarded to those

1 From information received up to the time of the preparation of the report, a table was presented setting forth the number of scholars in elementary schools outside the influence of the department as 253,344. The statistics supplied from the Punjab, being defective, were not included. A return subsequently received and passed by the commission shows 13, 19 indigenous schools, with 133,384 pupils in the Punjab.

who have gone through a 2-year or a 3-year course in a high class training college. In some of the other provinces the term implies that the teacher has gained a pupil teacher's certificate in a primary school.

The number of training colleges in the several provinces for the same year was 106, viz: for men, 91; for women, 15; the total number of students on the rolls on March 31, 1882, was 3,886: men, 3,371; women, 515; the number of students who left with training certificates of various grades was: men, 1,551; women, 42; the expenditure on the schools was: for men, 328,636 rupees, and for women, 71,601 rupees, or a total of 400,237 rupees. (A rupee is 39 cents.)

Expenditure on primary education.— From a table setting forth in detail the expe.diture on primary education in the years 1870-'71 and 1881-'82 it appears that in the former year the total cost was 3,527,420 rupees and in the latter 7,909,940 rupees. With reference to this subject the commissioners observe:

The first subject which demands notice in Table 7 is the contrast between the funds available for extending primary education in 1870-'71 and in 1881-82. In the first year, Bombay, the Northwestern Provinces, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, and the Haidarabad assigned districts were the only provinces of India in which local and municipal funds bore any part of the burden of educating the masses. We have seen the importance which the secretary of state and the government of India attached to the levy of local rates for primary education. The advantages of ass.ciating the development of this branch of public instruction with local taxation were both financial and administrative. One argument was supplied by the inability of the imperial exchequer to find sufficient funds for so great and increasing a task; the other was suggested by the political advantage of intrusting to local boards, administering local resources, a branch of administration in which local interest and supervision could alone secure full efficiency and economy. Accordingly we find that in 1881-82 there was no province of India, except Bengal, which had not cordially accepted the policy recommended by superior authority. The total expenditure from provincial, rural, and municipal funds in 1881-82 on primary education was 4,263,070 rupees, of which 60 per cent. was raised locally by urban or rural boards, while 40 per cent. fell upon provincial revenues. In 1870-71 49 per cent. of the expenditure liad been paid by local rates, while 51 per cent. was furnished from provincial revenues. But the difference between 59 per cent. and 49 per cent. is not the only measure of the success that has attended the imposition of local rates. In 1881-'82 the provincial expenditure had increased over that of 1870-'71 by 33 per cent., while the local and municipal grants to primary education had increased by 105 per cent. The local fund revenue has, therefore, been vastly more elastic than the provincial grant, and this elasticity is likely to continue in future years. This comparison fails, however, to exhibit the results in the most striking light. In Bengal there are no local educational rates, and the local rates levied in Assam were imposed after the separation of the province from Bengal and long after 1871. Excluding, therefore, Bengal and Assam from the present review, it appears that in the remaining seven provinces 56 per cent. of the public expenditure on primary education in 1870-'71 was provided by local rates and 44 per cent. by imperial, or, as they are now termed, provincial revenues. In 1881-82 the local rates contributed 69 per cent. and the provincial funds 31 per cent, of the public expenditure. In the same period the provincial grant had increased by only 12 per cent, and the local rates by 99 per cent. Thus it is evident that the extension of primary education since 1870-71 in seven of the provinces has almost entirely depended on local resources; and it must be remarked that if its history were traced throughout each year between 1871 and 1882 it would be found that, whereas the provincial grant has varied with financial disturbances caused by war and famine, the local fund income has remained comparatively secure.

Under the head of "primary education" many special topics are discussed, as moral training, physical training, &c. With reference to the place of English in primary schools the commissioners observe:

Considerable conflict of opinion prevails as to the proper place which the study of English should occupy in primary schools or classes. Variations of practice depend to a large extent upon differences of system. In provinces where the pupils destined for higher education are separated at the earliest age from the great bulk of primary pupils and commence their education in a middle or high school, the general tendency is to begin English as soon as possible, and in some cases English is taught before the child can read or write his own vernacular. Thus, in the Bengal High School English is generally employed as the medium of instruction and is taught

from the lowest class, but in middle schools its study is discouraged until the boy has passed the third standard. In the ordinary village school of Bengal English is very rarely taught. In Madras not only is English taught as a language from the lowest class of a middle school, but it is also studied in the primary schools from the third class upwards; in other words, before the pupil has entered on the upper primary standard. The demand for English instruction in the south of India is so strong that the large attendance in primary schools is said to be due in no small measure to the popular demand for English. In Bombay, on the other hand, the department has systematically resisted every attempt to introduce the study of English until a boy has completed standard IV and reached the point where secondary education commences. Even then an English class is not attached to a purely primary school unless those who require it are prepared to pay for the extra cost. As the strictly primary course, according to the definition of the government of India, is then completed, boys who study English in a class attached to a primary school are classified as under secondary instruction. There are no primary classes attached to middle schools in Bombay, and therefore it follows that in Bombay no pupils under primary instruction are returned as studying English. The Bombay department not only believes that many good vernacular schools are liable to be spoiled by the introduction of English into the primary course, but it also argues that the preservation of the vernacular in the course of all classes of schools is required, in order that the mental progress of the scholar may be reflected in his increased power to make use of his own language. It is urged in the report of the provincial committee for Bombay that the despatch of 1854 contemplated that the vernaculars would be enriched by translations of European books or by the compositions of men imbued with the spirit of European advancement, and that the only method of thus bringing European knowledge within the reach of the masses is to give to every pupil a thorough grounding in the ver nacular and to keep his attention upon it even up to the college course. In pursuance of this policy English is rigidly excluded from the primary school course. With such a variety of practice we found it impossible to lay down any rule upon the subject of English instruction which would suit the circumstances of every province. The extent to which English is at present taught to children under primary instruction in each of the large provinces of India will be seen in the table given below. But it must be noted that, owing to the peculiarities of the Bengal system already described, we are unable to show the number of pupils in the primary classes of secondary schools who are learning English. The figures given for Bengal are those of pupils in strictly primary schools. For the other provinces the figures in column 3 give the number of pupils both in primary schools and in the primary classes of secondary schools who are learning English. All that can be said regarding Bengal is that out of nearly 140,000 pupils in secondary schools more than 94,000 are in primary classes, and would in any other province of India, except Assam, be returned as primary pupils. Of them all in the primary classes in high schools are learning English, as well as some proportion of those in middle schools.

Statement showing the number of primary pupils learning English in each of the larger provinces of India.

a The figures for Bengal exclude the primary classes in middle schools.

Female education.-On the 31st of March, 1882, the schools for girls in the nine provinces numbered 2,697 and were attended by 127,066 pupils, or .85 of 1 per cent. of the female population of school age.

During the year 1881-82 the number of girls presented for prescribed examinations was as follows: In collegiate institutions, 5; in secondary institutions, 678; in primary institutions, 18,991; in normal institutions, 128; total, 19,802. Of these, 11,652, or 58.84 per cent., passed; 40 of these secured teachers' certificates.

The contributions from local and municipal funds for female education in all India in 1881-82 were 107,889 rupees, the total expenditure being 847,971 rupees. With reference to the work accomplished in this respect by other than public agencies, the commissioners observe:

The commission has not before it returns showing the increase of girls' schools under native management, but there is every reason to believe that the number has largely augmented of late years. The missionaries are also extending their operations, and endowments are from time to time made by wealthy natives for the promotion of female education. The total expenditure from these and other sources, unconnected with the provincial revenues or with local or municipal funds, amounted in 1881-82 to 442,665 rupees. This sum is more than one-half of the total expenditure on female education, excluding, of course, schools for Europeans and Eurasians, which do not come within the purview of the commission.

Native associations and mixed committees of natives and Europeans interested in the cause of female education are gradually springing up. For example the Arya Mahila Samaj of Poona, composed chiefly of Maratha ladies of position, may be expected to exercise an important influence in the capital of the Deccan. Associations of natives and Europeans for the promotion of female education on a secular basis form one of the hopeful signs of the times.

From all information obtained the commissioners are forced to the conclusion that female education is still in an extremely backward condition and that it needs to be fostered in every legitimate way.

Their opinions as to the kind of effort that will prove effectual are very clearly set forth in their recommendations upon the subject, which are given hereafter.

Secondary schools. In 1882 the secondary schools (middle and high) numbered 3,916, attended by 214,077 pupils, as follows: 1,363 government schools, with 62,525 pupils; 1,863 aided schools, with 111,018 pupils; and 690 unaided schools, with 40,534 pupils. Of these schools there were 81 for girls, with an attendance of 2,071.

The number of secondary schools is not, however, as accurate a measure of the progress of female education as the test by the number of pupils. In Bombay, for example, the secondary schools for girls are so large that, although few in number, they contain more pupils than those of any other province. The numbers of girls returned as being in the secondary stage of instruction in every province of India are here given: Madras, 389; Bombay, 555; Bengal, 211; Northwestern Provinces and Oude, 68; Punjab, 8. These figures are, of course, subject to whatever corrections may be necessitated by the different range of what is known as secondary education in different provinces.

The total expenditure for the secondary schools reported was: For the government schools, 1,893,441 rupees; for the aided schools, 1,706,576 rupees; for the unaided, 427,181 rupees; total, 4,027,198 rupees. These sums represented an average expense for each pupil in the three classes of schools as follows: For the first, 32 rupees 3 pice; for the second 16 rupees 12 annas 1 pice; for the third, 12 rupees 8 annas 11 pice. The number of pupils from these schools who presented themselves for examination was 25,200, of whom 11,716 met the requirements.

As regards race or creed the pupils in the secondary schools were distributed as follows: Hindoos, 176,306; Mahometans, 23,279; Sikhs, 564; Parsees, 2,722; native Christians, 5,526; Europeans and Eurasians in schools for natives of India, 775; others, 1,547; total, 210,719.

The total number of scholars learning English in the high and middle schools was 130,541.