the fact that the possession of a degree in medicine or engineering does not by itself qualify for the higher grades of Government professional service without special training in England, nor does the mere possession of the degrees, without other guarantees of competence, command the confidence of the public. In oriental languages and literature—a degree conferred only by the Punjab University-there have been only 27 graduates in the ten years, while the same university conferred in the same period 1,352 degrees in arts. The University of Madras has had 4,965 and the University of Calcutta 4,573 graduates in arts in this period, the two together accounting for about two-thirds of the M. A.'s and B. A.'s of India.

During the same period 55,651 undergraduates were enrolled, of whom 42,258 were entered for the arts course. It seems therefore that in these ten years but 35.7 per cent of the undergraduates attained to the possession of degrees.

Special instruction.-The schools for special instruction extend over a wide range of subjects. Training schools for school masters and mistresses enroll 6,838 and 1,683 students, respectively, and the other special schools and the numbers attending them are:

Stages of instruction.-The condition and stages of education of the boys and girls in public institutions on the 31st of March, 1905, are exhibited in the figures below:

Private institutions.-Besides the "public" colleges and schools to which reference is made in the preceding paragraphs, there are the "private" institutions, as follows, with the numbers under instruction:

Other private schools, not conforming to departmental standards.

Private institutions apparently can not supply the demand for advanced education, but the number receiving elementary instruction in them has increased.

Provincial progress.--The figures below indicate the extent to which the people of each province sent their children to educational institutions in 1904-5, and the rati of the scholars to the population of the school-going age (which is taken at 15 per cent of the total population):

Burma takes the lead educationally, Bombay, Madras, and Bengal coming next in succession. The other provinces are still very backward, the United Provinces and the Punjab presenting the worst records.

Races and creeds.-Turning to the classification of scholars by race or creed, the following are the numbers as they stood on March 31, 1905:

Female education.-The United Provinces stand lowest on the list as regards female education, as they do in regard to male instruction, the ratio of girls to boys under instruction being only as 1 to 18.5. In Bengal also the ratio is not high, being as 1 to 9.9, though this is higher than the ratio in 1903-4 (1 to 10.7). In the Central Provinces it is about as 1 to 11.8; in the Punjab 1 to 8.4; in Burma 1 to 5.8; in Bombay 1 to 5.7; and Madras stands highest with a ratio of 1 to 5.5.

Until 1900-1901 the races or creeds of the scholars were not differentiated by sex, and therefore there were no means of ascertaining the relative proportion of female education in each community. The figures for 1904-5 indicate that the proportion of girls to boys is as follows:

In Bengal, where the Mohammedans at school approximate to half the aggregate of the denomination at school in all British India, the number of girls to boys is disproportionately small, being only as 1 to 14.48.

Cost of education. The expenditure on education has steadily increased each year, amounting in 1904-5 to $16,054,984, being 27.58 per cent greater than the expenditure five years before, in 1899-1900. The direct expenditure on colleges and schools in 1904-5 was $11,595,894, the difference between that sum and the total expenditure being classed as indirect expenditure on the universities-direction, inspection, scholarships, buildings, etc. The direct expenditure was thus divided:

The sources from which the total expenditure was met were:

Provincial revenues..

Local funds.....

Municipal funds.

Fees.....

All other sources..

4, 608, 165 312, 307 610, 988

$4, 705, 134 2,553, 414

633, 230 4,719, 932

3, 433, 317

The expenditure on education is met to the extent of 49 per cent from taxation (provincial revenues and contributions from district boards and municipalities), and about 30 per cent is met from fees.

Reformatory schools.-There are seven of these schools, with a population which at the end of 1904 numbered 1,127, compared with 1,168 at the end of the previous year. There were 245 admitted in the year, and 279 discharged. About 67 per cent of the boys are Hindus and 24 per cent Mohammedans, which proportions correspond closely with the proportions of Hindus and Mohammedans in the population of the country. Of the 1,127 remaining at the end of the year, 1,036 were illiterate, leaving only 91 as the number who were able to read.

Of the boys discharged in the three years preceding 1904, 25.9 per cent were following occupations taught them in school, and of these agriculture engaged 13 per cent. The percentage of those following occupations not taught in the schools was 29.2. Of 8 per cent unsatisfactory reports were received, while 36 per cent were unemployed, were with friends, had died, or had disappeared from observation.

The net expenditure on the schools was $45,196 in 1904, the average annual expenditure in the preceding five years having been $38,696.

Two of the schools are in Bengal, and there is one each in Madras, Bombay, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, and Burma.

Printing presses and publications.-The number of registered presses increased in the ten years ending 1904–5 from 1,906 to 2,252, an increase of 18 per cent.

The number of newspapers increased in the same period from 613 to 713, an increase of about 16 per cent.

The number of periodical publications (other than newspapers) increased from 463 to 747, an increase of about 61 per cent.

The number of books published in English, or in some other European language, increased from 1,124 to 1,321, being at the rate of 17 per cent. There has been slower progress in the publication of books in the Indian languages, whether modern or classical, which increased by about 4 per cent, but their number (7,023), however, is still about five times as large as the number of books printed in English.

The provincial distribution in 1904-5 of the productions of the printing press in the principal provinces is as follows:

The fertility of the Bengal presses is noticeable as regards the production of books, whether printed in English or in the Indian languages, which greatly exceed in number those produced in any other province. In the number of newspapers, however, Bombay stands first, followed by the Punjab.

In the subjects of the books religion is conspicuously prominent, poetry and the drama taking second place, but a long way behind:

The languages in which the books are written are extremely diverse. The following list states the number published in the principal languages:

And smaller numbers in 23 other languages, besides 722 bilingual, 54 trilingual and 5 polyglot books.

The languages employed in the composition of bilingual publications are mainly Sanskrit, English, Arabic, Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi, Sanskrit being in most common

SPECIAL EFFORTS FOR THE PROMOTION OF RURAL SCHOOLS AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

While the foregoing statement presents a very complete summary of the educational provision in India, there are two features of the work not brought out in the summary which deserve further notice. These features are the rural schools and technical schools. The official reports make no distinction between rural and urban schools, but it is enough to recall the vast preponderance of the rural population and of agricultural pursuits to realize the importance of rural education as a distinct problem. According to the census of 1901, the urban population of British India was 29,244,221, or less than one-tenth of the total population of 294,361,056. More than half the population (191,692,000) were at that date reported as living by agriculture, either as workers or as their immediate dependents. The frequent famines and the widespread misery which they entail furnish a sufficient motive for the great interest manifested by the government in the improvement of rural schools and the extension of their courses of instruction to include notions of agricultural science and practical methods of treating the soil and cultivating and harvesting crops.

In pursuance of the purpose expressed in the resolution of 1904, competent specialists have been appointed to make careful investigations of the actual state of education in different divisions of British India or in respect to certain parts of education which the government seeks to foster. The results of these investigations will be embodied in a series of special reports issued from the office of the director-general of education. The first report of the series relates to rural schools in the Central Provinces, the investigation in the case having been entrusted to Mr. H. Sharp, M. A., inspector of schools for the above-named provinces. This report combines, with a brief view of the system of education in this administrative division, an intimate view-a living picture, as it were of the rural schools to which it relates. The novel conditions here brought to view, and the vividness and sympathetic appreciation with which they are set forth, make this one of the most interesting reports ever prepared on an educational topic.a

The report on rural schools.-The kind of school which the country child in India attends and the ceremonial respect paid to the English inspector by the village officials are graphically described in the following extract from the report mentioned: The village. Let us imagine ourselves to be approaching a typical village containing a typical school. The village consists of a straggling cluster of mud huts, irregularly grouped along a street, with outlying hamlets for the lower castes. It possesses from 600 to 800 inhabitants. The majority of these are cultivators, and our approach is made between fields of young wheat and pulse. The school is primary and of the ordinary rural type, affording instruction to the children of the village in which it is situated and to such as care to walk a mile or two from surrounding hamlets.

The

The school committee. Our visit is expected, and some quarter of a mile from our destination we perceive a little group awaiting our arrival. This is the school committee, composed of the village elders. The malguzar, or landlord of the village, steps forward to greet us and introduces the panch-log (committee) one by one. tall gentleman of somewhat military aspect is the rajput proprietor of a neighboring village, which, having no school of its own, sends its children here; the stout member whose ears are encircled by two strings of gold plaques and whose bright yellow cap is set rather rakishly on whitening locks is the local bania, or merchant, whose duties in connection with the school are to teach the boys the mysteries of cashbook and ledger; he of the black garb and spare features is the village accountant or Patwari,

a Occasional Reports, No. 1, Rural Schools in the Central Provinces, by H. Sharp, M. A., inspector of schools. Issued from the office of the director-general, in India.

Additional reports of the series already issued are No. 2, Vernacular Reading Books in the Bombay Presidency, by J. G. Covernton, M. A., educational inspector, Northern division, Bombay Presidency. No. 3, The Educational System of Japan, by M. H. Sharp, professor of philosophy, Elphinstone College, Bombay. No. 4, Furlough Studies: (i) Modern Methods of Teaching English in Germany, by J. Nelson Fraser; (ii) Educational Studies at the St. Louis Exposition, by H. Sharp; (iii) Physical Laboratories in Germany, by G. W. Küchler.