212 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [June, 



lated into Uriya, but even the School Book Society could not ven- 

 ture to undertake it on their own account, and the Government at 

 last had to advance, I think, some two or three thousand rupees to 

 help the publication. The map, however, fell still-born from the 

 press, and almost the whole edition is, I believe, now rotting in the 

 godowns of its publisher. Let but Government introduce the Ben- 

 gali language in the schools of Orissa, and the Uriyas, instead of 

 seeking grants-in-aid from Government and private individuals for 

 occasionally bringing out solitary new books, will have the whole 

 of our Bengali publications at their disposal without any cost, and 

 would be united with a race of thirty millions with which they have 

 so many things in common. 



Nor is the fusion of their language into ours at all impracticable. 

 The experiment has already been tried and found to be completely 

 successful. Some twenty years ago when the district of Midnapur 

 was transferred from the Oommissionership of Cuttack to that of 

 Burdwan, the language of the courts there and of the people was 

 Uriya. The new Commissioner, for the sake of uniformity in all 

 his districts or some other cause, suppressed Uriya, and introduced 

 the Bengali language, and nearly the whole of Midnapur is now be- 

 come a Bengali speaking district, and men there often feel offended 

 if they are called Uriyas. That similar measures in Balasore, Out- 

 tack and Puri would effect a similar change, I have no reason to 

 doubt. 



I fear I have already occupied the time of the meeting a great 

 deal too long, but I must crave your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, 

 for one more remark. It has been said that if the Uriya, like the 

 other vernaculars, is not fit for a University Course, it would suffice 

 for the elementary education of the people, and that is what is 

 most urgently needed. To support this view, it has been pointed 

 out by a learned gentleman, himself a university scholar, that ele^ 

 mentary mass education is preferable to high class education, and 

 inasmuch as the cost for every boy in a Government College would 

 si i Hi ce for 40 boys in a vernacular school, we should prefer to have 40 

 to 1. The education in the Colleges, it is needless to say, is at least 40 

 times superior to that in the vernacular schools, but the latter never- 

 theless is said to be more desirable. The gentleman has evidently 



