, grammar, geography, history and science"! we may wonder how young girls between the ages of 6 and 11 or 12 are to learn all this. The Secretary's own reports testify that girls leave school just at the age of 11 or 12; and does he expect the public to be simple enough to believe that the long list of subjects he gives in his Deed is got up even by rote at that early age, or does he feel in the heart of his heart that he unflinchingly passes a most impudent piece of deception upon the public? We leave him to choose the alternative. It may be argued that the list of subjects is prospective, and will obtain currency when the schools become developed. If so, why is instruction at the schools ordained to be "through the medium of the vernacular language exclusively"? The schools may in time be so developed as to admit of an English education without the least difficulty, and why should the Association exclude it by rendering the barbarous Hindoo language the "exclusive" medium of instruction to the girls? We know what the girls are really taught: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and reduction and the rule of three in some cases; crotchetknitting in its commonest forms, and sewing; doggerel-chanting, and reading some four Gujarati books of elementary instruction. As for useful knowledge, and industrial occupations and arts, and the rest, they are talismanic words, to delude the public. Geography they know as cleverly as that China is APPENDIX B. north of India, and England south of Bombay, and principles of morality are taught by youngsters on 15 and 20 rupees a month, so tersely as soon to enable them to write billets doux! We are sorry to speak so harshly of the Association and their system; but our words were as harsh in 1860, when we first took up the cudgels against them, as they are in 1863. Female education ought now to be fully developed among the Parsees; in the beginning the means were small, and the task was in the hands of the young men of our College-all honour to them! -who made a commencement only after begging girls and instructing them morning and evening -their leisure hours. The thing was new, with Old Bombay arrayed against it. Now, we have the Association of the most influential and wealthy gentlemen of Bombay, and the funds accruing; and in adventitious circumstances like these it is the duty of the Secretary to at once proceed to impart English education. There is now no prejudice against female education, and there are young gentlemen who, if only courteously asked, would be ready to devote their leisure in imparting a knowledge of the English language and science to Parsee girls. What objection, then, can the Association have to inaugurate measures for the amelioration of Parsee females? Surely none. But the unwillingness and objection lies not with the Shetias, who are simpleminded, and as easy to be won to one side as to the other, but with the very gentlemen whom we should 383 584 pect to be active. The fact is, there is in Bombay a sort of semi-barbarous delinquent, who, with notions as old as thirty years past, with an inkling of English education, obtained thirty years ago, presents a queer appearance in every subject of importance. He has had a little of English enlightenment, and he cannot therefore be wholly orthodox; he likes reform; but he has not been of the modern generation, so that he hates thorough reform, and stops at those half measures, which make him ridiculous in the eyes of the young-born of the age, and contemptible in those of the orthodox generation. This semibarbarous delinquent has been in intimate,contact with the Girls' Schools Association, and it is he who arrests its progress. It may be said that the Association has not funds sufficient to carry out a scheme of English education. We have hinted that there are to be found voluntary teachers, and the difficulty of the funds might be thereby obviated. But yet we ask, what right had they to ordain the education of the Parsee girls to be in the vernacular exclusively, now, and henceforth? They have made several prospective regulations : what is it then but misguidance not to form any prospective resolve for English education? If they could provide for contingencies in the future, they ought as well to provide for English education, should circumstances admit. Here we have two clauses for future contingencies: "Seventeenth. That the education imparted in the schools of 385 APPENDIX B. the said Association shall for the present be gratuitous without any charge; but if at any time the income of the Association be insufficient to meet the expenditure necessary for conducting and maintaining all or any of the said schools with efficiency; or otherwise, if at any time the said Committee of Management may consider it expedient or necessary, they shall be at liberty to charge school fees at such rates and under such rules or restrictions as they may think desirable. 66 Eighteenth. That the said Committee shall be at liberty to purchase such lands or houses, or erect and build such house or houses, in such locality or localities, in the Island of Bombay, or elsewhere in the Presidency of Bombay, as they may think fit, for the use of the schools of the said Association; and the Trustees shall, in such cases, at the request of the said Managing Committee, invest the funds of the said Association (other than the permanent investments and endowments mentioned in sections twenty-five and twenty-six of these presents) in the purchase of such lands or houses, and in the erection of such house or houses; and such lands, houses and buildings shall be deemed personal estate, and part of the capital of the said Association, and shall be conveyed to and vested in the Trustees of the said Association; and the said Committee shall have the power of selling such lands, houses, and buildings, or any of them, or any part thereof, whenever they may deem it advisable so to do, either by public auction or private contract; and upon every such sale the Trustees shall, by the direction of the said Committee, duly convey and assure the property sold to the purchaser or purchasers thereof." In imitation of these clauses, the Association could have made the education of their schools vernacular for the present, if they chose; but, as they have now resolved, they have decided on being barbarous for fifty years to come! |