History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP, VI.] LORD FALKLAND. gil

then opened for a period of two years, at the expiration of which time it was thought “the public would not willingly let them die.”

The benefits arising from these schools were within a short period fully appreciated by the Parsis, and the number attending them in the second year of their establishment greatly exceeded that im the first year. The European residents of the place also began to take a warm interest in the undertaking. Men like the late Sir Erskine Perry, the indefatigable President of the late Board of Education, and many other influential gentlemen, not only interested themselves in the promotion of the object by presenting liberal donations but greatly contributed by their advice and encouragement to complete the success of the scheme.

In the second year of their foundation these schools were already viewed in the light of valuable public institutions. Their progress and success were watched with peculiar interest, and the care and prudence with which their affairs were managed by the original society afforded an additional security towards the accomplishment of the great end for which they were brought into being. In the year 1851 the Government of Lord Falkland regarded the spontaneous institution of these schools “as an epoch in the history of education in the Bombay Presidency, from which, it was hoped, would in due