Primary Education and Indigenous Schools

Now that, within a month or so, Dr. Hunter, the President, and the other members of the Bombay Committee of the Education Commission will hold their sittings, and examine the local witnesses in regard to the present state of public instruction in this Presidency, it is time that we should pass in review the various systems of elementary education which have been in operation in different parts of British India during the last 25 years, and, by contrasting their results, furnish the ground-work of fact on which the authorities, more directly concerned with the practical working of this Department, may be expected to proceed in its future reorganization consequent on the labours of the Education Commission. In the words of the Government of India’s Resolution appointing this Commission, the main object of this inquiry is to ascertain "the present state of elementary education throughout the Empire, and the means by which this can everywhere be extended and improved".