द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

XIX COLLECTOR, BELLARY TO BOARD OF REVENUE: 17.8.1823 (TNSA: BRP: Vol.958 Pro.25.8.1823 pp.7167-85 Nos.32-33)

1. The delay of my Amildars, in furnishing the requisite returns, has hitherto prevented my submitting to you the enclosed statement called for in your orders of the 25th July 1822, and 19th of June last.
2. The population of this District is specified in the enclosed statement at 9,27,857 or little less than a million of souls. The number of schools is only 533 containing no more than, 6,641 scholars, or about twelve to each school, and not seven individuals in a thousand, of the entire population.
3. The Hindoo scholars are in number 6,398, the Mussulman scholars only 243, and the whole of these are males, with the exception of only sixty girls, who are all Hindoos exclusively.
4. The English language is taught in one school only. The Tamil in four, the Persian in twenty-one, the Mahratta in twenty- three, the Teloogoo in two hundred and twenty-six, and the Carnataca in two hundred and thirty-five. Besides these, there are twenty-three places of instruction, attended by Bramins exclusively, in which some of the Hindoo sciences, such as Theology, Astronomy, Logic and Law, are still imperfectly taught in the Sanscrit Language.
5. In these places of Sanscrit instruction in the Hindoo sciences, attended by youths, and often by persons far advanced in life, education is conducted on a plan entirely different from that pursued in the schools, in which children are taught read- ing, writing, and arithmetic only, in the several vernacular dialects of the country. I shall endeavour to give a brief outline of the latter, as to them the general population of the country is confined, and as that population consists chiefly of Hindoos, I shall not dwell on the few Mussulman schools in which Persian is taught. 186