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

CHAP. VI.] OFFICIAL CRITICISM. 321

to your system of inspection and teaching. You have brought into practice theories and recommendations which we are constantly hearing debated in evidence. You have an inspectress, and none but female teachers. What is the use of discussing & priori the question of the possible advantage of employing female teachers and inspectresses when we are able here to see how the system works? You attribute much of your success to this measure, and I believe you are right. Then, again, I call attention to your course of primary instruction. The Commission has been told in other parts of India that anything more than the barest instruction in the three R’s is impractical and unsettling. Well, you who are practical men carry the primary instruction of your daughters up to grammar, original composition, geography, history, arithmetic, and general knowledge of natural objects. If this extended curriculum unsettled the minds of your children, you would not have this room crowded with children, The fact is that the demand for education in Bombay will not rest content with the pedantic definition of primary instruction which suits some other provinces of India. The people of Western India have outgrown the standards which in Bengal, I am told, are still sufficient to satisfy the requirements ot primary education, The same reflection is suggested by the fourth point which I notice in your memorial. In other parts of India, nay, even in this Presidency outside the cities, little girls are not actually bribed to come to school, but undoubtedly they would not care if fees were charged. You, on the other hand, charge a rupee or eight annas a month, and your schools are filled to overflowing. In short, female education in this so-called backward province has a value, and parents are prepared to pay for it. There is no more practical test of the existence of a real demand for education than the fact that people will make a pecuniary sacrifice to secure it. I doubt if any State school would continue to exist if girls were charged the fees which here are readily paid, and I accept this fact as another proof of the confidence which the Parsi community feels in an institution which is managed by their own selected committee. It seems to me that this institution teaches us the only road to success in developing female education. Whatever opinions may be held

VOL. I. My