ABSTRACT

The native inhabitants of Calcutta who are most distinguished for their support of every benevolent design, are those who have drunk deepest of our English literature. It is difficult to get qualified native teachers to go to places even in the neighbourhood of Calcutta for less than one hundred rupees a month. English must become a much more common acquirement than it is at present, before much attention will be paid to the vernacular languages. The vernacular language has been adopted in all the Revenue offices in the Upper Provinces, and exactly the same causes which led to the Persian letters being applied to that language, may be expected to introduce the general use of the Roman letters. Persian was the language of education, and the vernacular language, therefore, naturally came to be expressed in the Persian character.