ABSTRACT

The four series of vernacular reading books, which the Committee was called upon to revise had their roots in the very foundations of modern education in Bombay. Mountstuart Elphinstone, although convinced of the necessity of teaching English and admitting that its diffusion would accelerate the progress of knowledge ten-fold, was by no means willing to make its cultivation the primary object of all educational agencies. An offer to contribute the matter required was received from Rao Bahadur H. D. Kantavala, a well known Gujarati educationalist and late Director of Vernacular Instruction in the Baroda State Elphinstone further initiated an enquiry into the state of indigenous education in the Presidency with a view to eliciting what elements in the native system might be adopted into the new British one. A Committee of the Society therefore recommended the preparation and publication of books both for the elementary and more advanced stages of education among the natives.