schools of the Rev. J. Long, south of Calcutta, have made neat globes out of cocoa-nuts, with paper pasted on them.

HISTORY.

It is well known that the Hindus have no history, properly so called. Professor Cowell has the following remarks on this subject:-

...

"The Hindu mind turned away from all the sympathy of life and its objects, to lose itself in a past which never was a present. Hence we have no such thing as Indian history. The very word history has no corresponding Indian expression. In the vernaculars derived from the Sanskrit we use the word itihás—a curious compound of three words, iti, ha, ása, which almost correspond in meaning to our old nursery phrase, 'There was once upon a time.' In Sanskrit authors, the name means simply a legend. From the very earliest ages down to our own day, the Hindu mind seems never to have conceived such an idea as an authentic record of past facts based on evidence. It has remained from generation to generation stationary, in that condition which Mr. Grote has described so vividly in the first two volumes of his History of Greece.' The idlest legend has passed current as readily as the most authentic fact, nay, more readily, because it is more likely to charm the imagination; and, in this phase of the mind, imagination and feeling supply the only proof which is needed to win the belief of the audience."*

The study of history is valuable as a correctivo to this state of things. The history of India properly written, would tend to promote good feeling between the two races and inspire loyalty towards our Government. The Imperial Review remarks:

"The unpopularity of English rule in India is a cause of much wonder and speculation to people who have no personal acquaintance with the East. They are fond of contrasting the equity of our rule with the oppressiveness and rapacity of the extinct dynasties; but they overlook the fact, that the present generation of our Eastern subjects have not the means of instituting such a comparison. The greater part of them have had no experience of any dynasty but our own, and are not possessed of any historical information, wherewith to supply this lack of knowledge.'

A good history would show the great blessings the British Government has conferred upon the people of India.

Much dissatisfaction has been expressed of late with regard to School Histories in England. Huxley says, "We must have History, treated not as a succession of battles and dynasties; not as a series of biographies; not as evidence that Providence has always been on the side of either Whigs or Tories; but as the

* Inaugural Lecture, pp. 10, 11.

development of man in time past, and in other conditions than

our own."*

Herbert Spencer says:

Scarcely any of the facts set down in our school histories, and very few of those contained in the more elaborate works written for adults, give any clue to the right principles of political action. The biographies of monarchs (and our children commonly learn little else) throw scarcely any light upon the science of societies. Familiarity with court intrigues, plots, usurpations, or the like, and with all the personalities accompanying them, aids very little in elucidating the principles on which national welfare depends. We read of some squabble for power, that led to a pitched battle: that such and such were the names of the generals and their leading subordinates; that they had each so many thousand infantry and cavalry, and so many cannon; that they arranged their forces in this and that order; that they manoeuvred, attacked, and fell back in certain ways; that at this part of the day such disasters were sustained, and at that such advantages gained; that in one particular movement some leading officer fell; while in another a certain regiment was decimated; that after all the changing fortunes of the fight, the victory was gained by this or that army; and that so many were killed and wounded on each side, and so many captured by the conquerors. And now, out of the accumulated details which make up the narrative, say which it is that helps you in deciding on your conduct as a citizen ?"

He adds:

Only now, when the welfare of nations rather than of rulers is be coming the dominant idea, are historians beginning to occupy themselves with the phenomena of social progress. That which it really concerns us to know, is the natural history of society. We want all facts which help us to understand how a nation has grown and organized itself."

The relationship of the so-called Mlechchas and Hindus should be shown. Max Muller says::

"The terms for God, for house, for father, mother, son, daughter, for dog and cow, for heart and tears, for axe and tree, identical in all the Indo-European idioms, are like the watch-words of soldiers. We challenge the seeming stranger; and whether he answer with the lips of a Greek, a German, or an Indian, we recognize him as one of ourselves. There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks, and Italians, the Persians and Hindus, were living together within the same fences, separate from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races."+

History confirms the following sensible remarks made by a

* Lay Sermons, p. 59. Sanskrit Literature, p. 14,

Bengali, Mr. Monomohan Ghose, at a recent meeting of the Bethune Society, Calcutta :

"He (Mr. Ghose) felt a legitimate pride in the ancient civilization of India; but he was forced to say that an undue and exaggerated veneration for the past was doing a great deal of mischief. It was quite sickening to hear the remark made at almost every public meeting that the ancient civilization of India was superior far to that which Europe ever had, Even if this assertion was based upon well ascertained facts, which it was surely not, it was only calculated to fill the speaker's mind with sorrow and shame, having regard to the present state of the country. It must be admitted by all who had carefully studied the ancient literature of India, that the much-vaunted civilization of India was of a peculiar type, and that it never could bear any comparison to what we call modern European civilization. Whatever might have been the case in ancient times, he thought that this frequent appeal to an ancient civilization could serve no good purpose at the present day, while it was simply calculated to, make the Bengalis more conceited than they were."

Sir Henry Elliott's Muhammadan Historians of India would be valuable for the period of which they treat. Macaulay's graphic sketch of the ravages of the Mahrattas might be turned to account, e. g.

Every region which was not subject to their rule was wasted by their incursions. Wherever their kettle-drums were heard, the peasant threw his bag of rice on his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with his wife and children to the mountain or the jungle, to the milder neighbourhood of the hyæua and the tiger. Many provinces redeemed their harvest by the payment of an annual ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still bore the imperial title stooped to pay this ignominious black-mail. The camp-fires of one rapacious leader were seen from the walls of the palace of Delhi; another, at the head of his innumerable cavalry, descended year after year on the rice-fields of Bengal."

Three School Histories of India are required. A sketch of about one hundred pages for Village Schools, a volume of about double that size for Town Schools, and a still larger text-book in English. Histories for Colleges may be left to private enterprize.

The History for Village Schools should include only the salient points It should not be condensed too much so as to be dry; but should rather omit events of less importance.

General History.-In the majority of primary schools the only history that can be taught will be that of India. Some of the pupils in the better class of schools will be able to take up another work on history. In some respects the History of England has the next claim; but, on the whole, a sketch of General

History, with a large proportionate space to England, seems preferable. It should be rather brief graphic sketches of the principal periods than connected narrative.

Isaac Taylor says:

"We should present in succession and actually pictured as well as verbally described-the Egyptian Pharaoh, and his magicians-the Persian Magi, and the Cyrus (the Shah of three thousand years ago); then the heroes of Homer's Romances, and the real warrior statesmen of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Macedon. Next in solemn procession come the Ptolemies, and the Antiochuses; along with the Jewish Pontiff and the Rabbis. The consuls, the dictators, the orators, and the emperors of Rome, first western, and then eastern, bring up the train of dramatis personæ of ancient history. In more lively and picturesque guise, advance the troop of European actors, including the popes, the abbots, the monks, the bishops, the barons, and the Scandinavian chiefs; the knight of the crusades, and the Templar, with his companion Saracen; the bard and troubadour, the pilgrim, the bourgeois, the buccaneer; and the more modern representatives of each." The progress of civilization should receive special notice.

Stream of History.-A chart of this description, to be hung up in schools, would be of great value.

ARITHMETIC.

The Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission says of Arithmetic:

"The demand of the parents for thoroughly good arithmetic appears to us to be one which must be satisfied, whatever else has to give way to it. Both for its utility and for its educational power, nothing else can stand in its place. It has not of course the breadth which belongs to the study of language. But it has still greater power of exercising the reasoning faculties, and it is the gate-way, not only to all natural science, but to a very large part of men's dealings with each other." p. 29.

Of the three R's, arithmetic is most valued by the people of India. The popularity of a school depends largely upon the success with which it is taught.

What

Our system of teaching arithmetic is not appreciated, and rightly so. It deals too much with abstract numbers. may be called catch questions are often put, as 205002 x 1010, which scarcely ever occur in practice, while those which would be of use in every day life are neglected. The instructions to English inspectors as to examinations in arithmetic justly remark: "It is doubtful whether large numbers which never occur in the range of their daily experience suggest any idea to the children

of our public elementary schools; they belong to the statistician and the astronomer."*

The native arithmetic has serious defects but it affords some quick methods of solving many questions which are of frequent occurrence in the bazaar. The following description is given of the arithmetic taught in indigenous schools in the North-West Provinces:

"The book-keeping of retail dealers, and the forms of banking business, which include the writing and reading of letters of advice and other correspondence, and agricultural accounts, which involve the measurement of land, the calculation of rent, the modes of recording demands, receipts and balances, and the other duties of the Patwari, form the utmost extent of learning imparted. In almost every school the Bunniah's system of accounts is taught first, and as the foundation of the rest; to this, when they are required, are superadded the Mahajan's forms of business; and village accounts are generally confined to the smaller villages in the country, where they are required for Zemindars' children, or for others who are likely to have charge of any landed concerns."+

The following remarks by the Hon. W. Seton Karr deserve attentive consideration :

"These (indigenous) schools do supply a sort of information which ryots and villagers, who think at all about learning to read and write, cannot, and will not do without. They learn there the system of Bunneah's accounts, or that of agriculturists; they learn forms of notes-of-hand, quittances, leases, agreements, and all such forms as are in constant use with a population not naturally dull and somewhat prone to litigation, and whose social relations are decidedly complex. All these forms are taught by the guru from memory, as well as complimentary forms of address. On these acquirements, the agricultural population set a very considerable value. I think that we ought not too much to consider whether such attainments are really valuable. All I know is, that they are valued; and it is the absence of such instruction as this which, I think, has led to the assertion, with regard to some districts, that the inhabitants consider their own indigenous schools better than those of Government.

"I would have all forms of address and of business, all modes of accounts, agricultural and commercial, collected, and the best of their kind printed in a cheap and popular form to serve as models. I would even have the common summons of our Criminal or Revenue Courts printed off."t

Pattison says of the teaching of arithmetic in elementary schools in Germany:

66

Setting sums to work in abstract number is to be done as little as

* Report of Committee of Council on Education, 1871-72, p. cxv. Muir's Report on the Indigenous Schools of Futtehpore, 1846, p. 10. Records of Bengal Government, No, XXII, p. 43.