THE PEOPLE (_continued_): EDUCATION
~Educational progress.~--According to the census returns of 1911 there are
not four persons per 100 in the province who are "literate" in the sense
of being able to read and write a letter. The proportion of literacy
among Hindus and Sikhs is three times as great as among Muhammadans. In
1911-12 one boy in six of school-going age was at school or college and
one girl in 37. This may seem a meagre result of sixty years of work,
for the Government and Christian missionaries, who have had an
honourable connection with the educational history of the province,
began their efforts soon after annexation, and a Director of Public
Instruction was appointed as long ago as 1856. But a country of small
peasant farmers is not a very hopeful educational field, and the rural
population was for long indifferent or hostile. If an ex-soldier of the
_Khálsa_ had expressed his feelings, he would have used words like those
of the "Old Pindárí" in Lyall's poem, while the Muhammadan farmer, had
he been capable of expressing his hostility, might have argued that the
teaching his son could get in a village school would help him not at all
in his daily work. Things are better now. We have improved our scheme of
teaching, and of late raised the pay of the teachers, which is, however,
still hardly adequate. Till a better class of teachers can be secured
for primary schools, the best educational theories will not bear fruit
in practice. The old indifference is weakening, and the most hopeful
sign is the increasing interest taken in towns in female education, a
matter of the first importance for the future of the country.
~Present position.~--The present position is as follows:--The Government
has made itself directly or indirectly responsible for the education of
the province. At the headquarters of each district there is a high
school for boys controlled by the Education Department. In each district
there are Government middle schools, Anglo-vernacular or Vernacular,
and primary schools, managed by the Municipal Committees and District
Boards. Each middle school has a primary, and each high school a primary
and a middle, department. For the convenience of pupils who cannot
attend school while living at home hostels are attached to many middle
and high schools. Fees are very moderate. In middle schools, where the
income covers 56 p.c. of the expenditure, they range from R. 1 (16
pence) monthly in the lowest class in which they are levied to Rs. 4 (5
shillings) in the highest class. In rural primary schools the children
of agriculturists are exempt because they pay local rate, and others,
when not exempt on the score of poverty, pay nominal fees. Besides the
Government schools there are aided schools of the above classes usually
of a sectarian character, and these, if they satisfy the standards laid
down, receive grants. There is a decreasing, but still considerable,
class of private schools, which make no attempt to satisfy the
conditions attached to these grants. The _mullah_ in the mosque teaches
children passages of the Kurán by rote, or the shopkeeper's son is
taught in a Mahájaní school native arithmetic and the curious script in
which accounts are kept. A boys' school of a special kind is the Panjáb
Chiefs' College at Lahore, intended for the sons of princes and men of
high social position.
~Technical Schools.~--In an agricultural country like the Panjáb there is
not at present any large field for technical schools. The best are the
Mayo School of Art and the Railway Technical School at Lahore. The
latter is successful because its pupils can readily find employment in
the railway workshops. Mr Kipling, the father of the poet, when
principal of the former, did much for art teaching, and the present
principal, Bhai Rám Singh, is a true artist. The Government Engineering
School has recently been remodelled and removed to Rasúl, where the
head-works of the Lower Jhelam canal are situated.
[Illustration: Fig. 42. A School in the time preceding annexation.
(_From a picture book said to have been prepared for the Mahárája Dalíp
Singh._)]
~Female Education.~--Female education is still a tender plant, but of late
growth has been vigorous. The Victoria May School in Lahore founded in
1908 has developed into the Queen Mary College, which provides an
excellent education for girls of what may be called the upper middle
class. There is a separate class for married ladies. Hitherto they have
only been reached by the teaching given in their own homes by missionary
ladies, whose useful work is now being imitated by the Hindu community
in Lahore. There is an excellent Hindu Girls' Boarding School in
Jalandhar. The Sikhs and the body of reformers known as the Dev Samáj
have good girls' schools at Ferozepore. The best mission schools are the
Kinnaird High School at Lahore and the Alexandra School at Amritsar. The
North India School of Medicine for Women at Ludhiána, also a missionary
institution, does admirable work. In the case of elementary schools the
difficulty of getting qualified teachers is even greater than as regards
boys' schools.
~Education of European Children.~--There are special arrangements for the
education of European and Anglo-Indian children. In this department the
Roman Catholics have been active and successful. The best schools are
the Lawrence Asylum at Sanáwar, Bishop Cotton's School, Auckland House,
and St Bede's at Simla, St Denys', the Lawrence Asylum, and the Convent
School at Murree.
~The Panjáb University.~--The Panjáb University was constituted in 1882,
but the Government Arts College and Oriental College, the Medical
College and the Law School at Lahore, which are affiliated with it, are
of older date. The University is an examining body like London
University. Besides the two Arts Colleges under Government management
mentioned above there are nine private Arts Colleges aided by Government
grants and affiliated to the University. Four of these are in Lahore,
two, the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic and the Diál Singh Colleges, are Hindu
institutions, one, the Islámia College, is Muhammadan, the fourth is the
popular and efficient Forman Christian College. Four out of five art
students read in Lahore. Of the Arts colleges outside Lahore the most
important is the St Stephen's College at Delhi. The Khálsa School and
College at Amritsar is a Sikh institution. The Veterinary College at
Lahore is the best of its kind in India, and the Agricultural College at
Lyallpur is a well-equipped institution, which at present attracts few
pupils, but may play a very useful rôle in the future. There is little
force in the reproach that we built up a super-structure of higher
education before laying a broad foundation of primary education. There
is more in the charge that the higher educational food we have offered
has not been well adapted to the intellectual digestions of the
recipients.
~Education in N.W.F. Province, Native States, and I Kashmír.~--The Panjáb
Native States and Kashmír are much more backward as regards education
than the British Province. As is natural in a tract in which the
population is overwhelmingly Musalmán by religion and farming by trade
the N.W.F. Province lags behind the Panjáb. Six colleges in the States
and the N.W.F. Province are affiliated to the Panjáb University.