408
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
turies of the past. Seated under a tree or in the veranda of
a hut, the children learned to trace the letters of the alphabet
with their fingers in the sand, or recite in monotonous tones
their spelling or a multiplication table which extends far beyond
the twelve times twelve of the English schoolroom. Simple
mensuration and accounts and the writing of a letter are the
highest accomplishments at which this primitive course of
instruction aims.
The Mu- In former times the higher education of Muhammadans was
hammadan in the hands of men of learning who devoted themselves to the
instruction of youth. Schools were attached to mosques and
shrines, and supported by state grants in cash or land, or by
private liberality. Individual instructors of merit were also
aided by the state, and landholders and nobles vied with each
other in supporting scholars of repute. Several towns in India,
such as Gopamau and Khairabad in Oudh, and Jaunpur in the
Province of Agra, have from time to time been famous seats of
learning, to which students flocked from all parts of India, and
even from Afghanistan and Bokhara, to attend the lectures of
renowned specialists. The course of study in a Muhammadan
place of learning included grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology,
metaphysics, literature, jurisprudence, and science. The classes
of the learned instructors have been replaced by madrasas or
colleges of a more modern type founded by the liberality of
pious persons.
Elementary classes were included in the schools attached
to mosques, but ordinary education was, as a rule, imparted
at home. Householders of means engaged the services of a
teacher to instruct their children in reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Persian was the medium of instruction, and letter-
writing and penmanship were highly prized accomplishments.
The children learned to write on oblong boards, in appearance
like a large edition of the horn-book, which could be washed
clean at the close of the lesson. Less affluent neighbours were
invited or allowed to send their children to the class, which
sometimes attained the proportions of a small school. The
schools were known as domestic vmak/abs, and the teachers
were called ' maur'i s:ahib' or ' minzshi sa/hib.' The profession
was followed by both Muhammadans and Hindus. The old
Indian pedagogue is the hero of many a folk-tale, in which he is
sometimes depicted as a tyrant whom it was the pride and
delight of the bolder spirits among his pupils to outwit, and at
other times as the good-natured but lettered fool who fell into
every trap that was laid for him. The pupils were bound to
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