^53 On the Education of the Xattves in Southern India. [Oct. 



havan-Kunkauya Grrrnja-kuUana, Unahhavatnoorfa , Chrnua, Bu~ 

 aavaswara Poorana, Junlagooloo, S^-c., whicli arc all coiisi(lon'(l sa- 

 cred, and are stiulicd wilh a \ icw of subservinii- their scvi'i al rcli*' ious 

 creeds. 



The lighter kind of storit s which arc read for amusement arc 2,cne- 

 rally the P unchntant ra Bhatnlapunchavnnsnteey Punklcc-Sooj^oo- 

 ktahullrr, Mahantarunrfrncc. The books on the principles of the 

 vernacular languages themscKes. are the scv(Mal dictionaries and 

 grammars, such as the Xighnntoo, Umara, Subdamumbnicr, Shuh- 

 deemunee Durpnna, Vi/acurna, A nd rndcfpccva , A ndranamusnn- 

 graha, ^c. iiC , hut these last, an<l similar hooks which are most 

 essential, and without which no accurate or extensive knowledge of 

 the vernacular languages can he atlidned, are, from the high price 

 of manuscripts and the general poverty of the masters, of all books 

 the most uncommon in the native schools, and such ©f them as arc 

 t'uund there are, in consequence of tlie ignorance, carelessness and 

 indolence of copyists in generid, full of bhiuders, and in every way 

 most incorrect and impertect. 



The whole of the books, however, in the Teloogoo and Carnatic 

 schools, which are by far the most numerous in this district, whe- 

 ther they treat of religion, amusement or the principles of th(>se lan- 

 guages, are in verse, and in a dialect quite distinct from that of 

 conversation and business. The alphal)ets of the two dialects are 

 the same, and he who reads the one can read, but not understand, 

 the other also. The natives, therefore read these (to them unin- 

 telligible) books to acquire the power of reading letters in the com- 

 mon dialects of business ; but the poetical is quite different from 

 the prose dialect which they speak and write ; and though they read 

 these books, it is to the pronunciation of the syllables, not to the 

 meaning or construction of the words, that they attend. Indeed 

 few teachers can explain, and still fewer scholars understand the 

 purport of the numerous books which they thuslevirn to r(;peat from 

 memory. Every schoolboy can repeat verbatim a vast number o^" 

 verses, of the meaning of which he knows no more than the parrot 

 that has been taught to utter certain vrords. Accordingly, from 

 studies in which he has spant many a day of laborious but fruitless 

 toil, the native scholar gains no improvement, except the exercise of 

 memory and the power to read and wr^te on the common business 

 of life; he makes no addition to his stock of useful knowledge, and 

 acquires no moral impressions. He has spent his youth in reading 

 syllables, not words, and on entering life he meets with hundreds 



