The census shows that only 386,000 natives in the whole of India possess a knowledge of English, and this number includes all the girls, boys and young men under instruction.

[Illustration:  AUDENCE chamber of the mogul—­palace—­Agra]

The Parsees and Jains are more eager for learning than the Hindus, and are taking an active part in educational affairs.  The Mohammedans are also realizing the importance of modern schools, and there is now quite an energetic movement among that sect.  There is a school connected with almost every Jain temple.  We visited one at Delhi.  There were no benches or desks.  The children, who were of all ages, from 4 years old upward, were squatting upon the floor around their masters, and were learning the ordinary branches taught in common schools, with the exception of one class over in a far corner of the room, which was engaged in the study of Sanskrit.  It was explained to us that they were being trained for priests.  Everybody was bare-footed and bare-legged, teachers and all, and every boy was studying out loud, repeating his lesson over and over as he committed it to memory.  Some of the youngsters made their presence known by reading in very loud voices.  A few of them had ordinary slates.  Others used blocks of wood for the same purpose, but the most of them wrote their exercises upon pieces of tin taken from cans sent over by the Standard Oil Company.  We went into a school one day where, for lack of slates and stationery, the children were copying their writing lessons in the sand on the floor.  It was a new idea, but it answered the purpose.  With little brushes they smoothed off a surface and formed letters as clearly as they could have been made upon a blackboard.

Bright colors are characteristic of the Hindus.  Their garments are of the gayest tints; both the outer and inner walls of their houses are covered with rude drawings in colors; their carts are painted in fantastic designs; and their trunks are ornamented in a similar way.  They are not always done in the highest form of art, but you may be sure that the colors are bright and permanent.  Some people paint the hides of their horses and bullocks, especially on holidays, and their taste for art, both in design and execution, is much more highly developed than their knowledge of letters.

The present Indian educational system is about fifty years old, but popular education, as we use that term, was not introduced in a practical way until during the 80’s.  Up to that time nearly all the schools were conducted by missionaries and as private institutions.  In 1858, when the government was transferred from the East India Company to the crown, there were only 2,000 public schools in all India, with less than 200,000 pupils, and even now with a population of 300,000,000 there are only 148,541 institutions of learning of all kinds, including kindergartens and universities, with a grand total of 4,530,412 pupils.  Of these 43,100 are private institutions, with 638,999 pupils.