ivll On the Education of the Xnlirrs m Southern India. [Oct. 



im:\'j;o of Gunasoe, and tho child to be initialed is placed exactly 

 opposite to it : the schoolmaster sitting,- by his side, after haviniji,- 

 burnt incense and presented oth"rin'j,s, causes the child to repeat a 

 ])raver to Gunasee, entreating- wisdom, lie then u;uides the child 

 to write with its tinpM- in rice the mystic name ol the deity, and is 

 dismissed with a pre>ent from the parents accordinjj; to their ability. 

 The child next morninu: commenct^s the |2,reat work of his education. 



Some children continue at school only five years; the parents, 

 throiiirh povcriv ox other cireinnstances, being often obliged to take 

 them awav : and consecpiently in such cases the merest smattering- 

 of an education is obtained : where parents can afford it, and take a 

 lively interest in the eultme of tlien- chililrens' minds, they not un- 

 hecpieutly continue at school as long a? 11 and 15 years. 



The internal routine of duty for each day will be I'ound, with very 

 few exceptions and little variation, the same in all the schools. The 

 hour generally for opening school is six o'clock ; the first child who 

 enters has the name of Saras-ivattee, or the Goddess of Learning, 

 written upon the palm of his hand as a sign of honor; and on the 

 hand of the second a cypher is written, to shew that he is worthy 

 neither of praise nor censure ; the third scholar receives a gentle 

 stripe; the fourth two ; and every succeeding scholar that comes an 

 additional one. This custom, as well as the punishments in native 

 schools, seems of a severe kind. The idle scholar is flogged, and 

 often suspended by both hands to a pulley fixed to the roof, or obliged 

 to kneel down and rise incessantly, -which is a most painful and 

 fatiguing, but perhaps a healthy, mode of punishment. 



When the whole are assembled, the scholars, according to their 

 number and attainments, are divided into several classes, the lower 

 ones of which are partly under the care of monitors, whilst the high- 

 er ones are more immediately under the superintendence of the 

 master, who at the same time has his eye upon the whole school. 

 The number of classes is generally four, and a scholar rises from one 

 to the other according to his capacity and progress. The first bu- 

 siness of a child on entering school is to obtain a knowledge of the 

 letters, which he learns by writing them -with his finger on the 

 ground in sand, and not by pronouncing the alphabet, as among 

 European nations. When he becomes pretty dextrous in writing 

 with his finger in sand, he has then the privilege of writing either 

 with an iron style on cadjan leaves, or with a reed on paper, and 

 sometimes on the leaves of the Aristolochia bidica, or with a kind 



