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

Society being viewed more as curiosities than as instruments of knowledge. That Society has now established an agency for the sale of it publications at Bauleah, hence works of instruction will probably in time spread over the district. Not only are the printed books not used in these schools, but even manuscript text-books, are unknown. All that the scholars learn is from the oral dictation of the master; and although what is so communicated must have a firm seat in the memory of the teacher, and will probably find an equally firm seat in the memory of the scholar, yet instruction conveyed solely by such means must have a very limited scope. The principal written composition which they learn in this way is the Saraswati Bandana, or salutation to the Goddess of Learning, which is committed to memory by frequent repetitions, and is daily recited by the scholars in a body before they leave school all kneeling with their heads bent to the ground, and following a leader or monitor in the pronunciation of the successive lines or couplets. I have before me two versions or forms of this salutation obtained at different places; but they are quite different from each other, although described by the same name, and both are doggrels of the lowest description even amongst Bengali compositions. The only other written composition used in these schools, and that only in the way of oral dictation by the master, consists of a few of the rhyming arithmetical rules of Subhankar, a writer whose name is as familiar in Bengal as that of Cocker in England, without any one knowing who or what he was or when he lived. It may be inferred that he lived, or if not a real personage that the rhymes bearing that name were composed, before the establishment of the British rule in this country, and during the existence of the Mussalman power, for they are full of Hindustani or Persian terms, and contain references to Mahomedan usages without the remotest allusion to English practices or modes of calculation. A recent native editor has deemed it requisite to remedy this defect by a supplement. 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 276