The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1896, Page 31

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

31

A School in India.

In our picture you see boys in India being
instructed in writing by their school-master.
They are learning to write the letters of their
alphabet in the sand or dust. After they
have learned this, they will pass to a higher
school, for not all schools in India are like
the one you see in our picture. <A mission-
ary, writing of the schools in that country,
says:

‘tA village school in India does not cost
much. Except in the rainy season, it is held
under the trees behind the school-master’s
house, and there are neither desks, benches,
slates nor books. ‘The boys sit upon the
smooth, hard ground, and the school-
master upon a mat smoking his pipe.

‘*The school is divided into four
classes, which are named after the writ-
ing material used by each. The lowest
is called the chalk class, and sometimes
the floor class, the pupils of which learn
‘to write with chalk upon the trodden
‘ground. The next is called the palm-
leaf class, as the pupils. write upon
palm-leaves, a material which is said to
be much better for the purpose than our
slates, as it never breaks, is very light
and costs nothing. The third is called
the plantain-leaf class; and the highest
of all, the seniors of the institution,
write on paper, and are called the paper
class.

‘For years the boys spend most of
their time writing. ‘There are fifty let-
ters in many of the Indian alphabets,
and these are joined and compounded
in numberless ways. Their system of
enumeration, also, is complicated and
requires practice to use readily.

‘*A boy going to school in the morn-
ing carries under his left arm a bundle
of twenty clean palm leaves. A pen of
reed is behind his ear, and he carries in
hig hand a rude ink-pot of clay. As he spends
most of the day in writing upon these leaves
With ink, and rubs out his mistakes with his
hand or his wrist, he comes home at night
pretty well smeared and spattered. This is
reckoned honorable to him; and the blacker
he is, the more his parents praise him for his
diligence at school.

“They have one practice which is familiar
to all who are in the habit of passing by our
Own country school houses; the children recite
4 great deal together. After writing most of
the morning, the whole school says in chorus
the letters, the diphthongs, and the hundred
numerals. Then, in the afternoon, when they
are all tired of writing, they recite together in
4 sing-song way the multiplication table up
to twenty times twenty.

“It is so dificult to write their language that
2 boy will spend some months in writing the
names of the boys in the school, and of the
inhabitants of the village. From names and

words they advance to very short sentences, |

and at length begin to compose letters.

‘Letter writing is a great art with them;
and even the addressing of.a letter is a matter
of much difficulty. India is the land where
the idea of rank has been most developed.

**An old-fashioned native of Bengal can not
conceive of our notion of ‘human equality,’
and he looks upon every inhabitant of his
teeming peninsula to be either above him or
below him. There are hundreds of ways in
which men are to be spoken to, or addressed
in writing, so as to properly recognize their
rank.

“Tf a boy writes to his father, he must use a
certain prescribed, invariable form expressive

A SCHOOL IN INDIA.

of the profoundest respect. When he ad-
dresses his uncle, he must use another form,
and there is a different form for a paternal
and a maternal uncle. For cousins, second
cousins, acquaintances and friends, there are
special forms, as there are for all grades of
the magistracy, priesthood and nobility.

“The school hours seem to us intolerably
long. Morning school from seven, and after-
noon school from three until sunset.

‘The teacher receives from each pupil about
three cents a month in money; but besides
this, every boy is expected to bring to after-
noon school a small present of tobacco or
something of the kind; and once a month
each brings a few pounds of rice, a proper
quantity of seasoning to go with it, such as
oil, mustard and salt. ;

«With all his perquisites, however, the vil-
lage school-master would be very poor if he
did not generally cultivate a small quantity
of land, which he manages to do by taking 2

partner who does the work. The boys, also,
are very glad to perform menial labors for
him, and it is considered a great privilege to
fill and light his pipe.

‘Now this would all be well, if teachers and
pupils also knew the Gospel, but this is only
taught in the schools of the Christian missio-
naries.’”

— +

Infidelity and Family Worship.

A Christian gentleman’ had occasion to
travel through a new and thinly settled part
of the western States. His traveling com-
panion was a gentleman of intelligence, but
of infidel principles, who- was fond of dis-
cussion, and tried to beguile the way
by urging arguments against the truth
of the Christian religion. The thinly
peopled portion of the country through
which they were passing was inhabited
by people of various characters, and it
had been rumored that travelers had
sometimes suffered fatal violence, when
thrown within their power. As regular
inns were unknown, our travelers were
compelled to trust to the hospitality of
those of whom they could not but enter-
tain a secret fear.

On one occasion as the evening closed
in, they sought a lodging-place in a
log-cabin, far remote from other habi-
tations. They anticipated but little com-
fort, and were induced to believe that
it would be a measure of safety toswatch
alternately through the night. As they
were about to retire to their rude bed,
their host, whose exterior had excited
‘their distrust, proceeding to a shelf,
took down an old and much worn Bible,
and informing his visitors that it was
his custom to worship God in his family,
he read and prayed in so simple and
sincere a manner as to secure the es-
teem of the travelers. They retired to
rest, slept soundly, and thought no more of
alternate watching.

In the morning the Christian requested his
infidel companion to say whether the religious ©
exercises of the preceding evening had not
dispelled every particle of distrust of their
host’s character, and had not enabled him to
close his eyes in the most confident security.
He was evidently embarrassed by the question,
but at length candidly acknowledged that the
sight of the Bible had secured him a sound
night’s rest.

Here was a testimony extorted to the influ-
ence of the religion which he sceptically as-
sailed. He could not harbor a fear of violence
from one who was in the habit of daily bending
his knee before God. ‘The very erection of
the family altar rendered the house a secure
asylum. — Olive Leaf.

———2 +1 oa o

‘tDyina grace shall be given when the dyin
hour comes, for He has promised.”’