Gathering the destitute child: A case study in British India

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Gathering the destitute child A case study in
British India

• Baljit Kaur
• University of Canterbury

Paper presented at the 14th Reconceptulaizing
Early Childhood Education Conference, Nov 30-Dec
4, 2006, Rotorua, NZ
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British India in the Early 19th Century

• Caste hierarchies and discrimination suffered by
  lower castes, particularly the destitute, poor
  and widows in Bengal
• Strong established religions Hinduism and Islam
  - with their own education systems
• Several languages - Change from Persian to
  English

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Resistance from Government/Company Officials

• Missionary presence a threat to the economic
  interests of the East India Company
• Secular vs. religious education debate -Infant
  education too close to the Church
• Educating young children of the poor in India not
  on the Crowns agenda

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First Infant School 1830 Calcutta

• The Lord Bishop of the diocese has established a
  native infant school, which promises interesting
  results. The children, we have heard, are those
  of the poorer classes, whom their parents have
  scarcely the means of subsisting, much less of
  educatingThere are about forty-eight children in
  daily attendance, from two years old to eight.
  The children are brought to the school about nine
  oclock in the morning, and remain until five in
  the afternoon they get a good dinner of curry
  and rice at one oclock P.M.

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Saving the Natives through their Infants

• One grand obstacle to the general and immediate
  success of any such scheme as that of Infant
  Schools, in this land, will be found in the
  hitherto almost unconquerable domestic prejudices
  of the Natives. Much however may be done among
  the Christian population.

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The Calcutta Infant School Society1833

• To bring up children, from the age of two to
  seven years, in habits of order and obedience,
  connected, so far as may be possible at so tender
  an age, with moral and religious instruction.
• To extend the plan as far as possible by
  gratuitously instructing in the Central School,
  Masters and Mistresses for other schools in
  Calcutta, and in Outer Stations.

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Indian Infant System

• Vernacular teacher assisting as an interpreter
  and translator of instruction and materials
• Training local speakers as teachers or teacher
  assistants
• Restricting the access to native Christians

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Indian Infant System

• The children, most of whom were the merest
  infants, between two and five years of age,
  presented the strongest evidence of the success
  which had attended the exertions of the master
  and mistress. They were cheerful, animated,
  intelligent, and as a soldier would say, in the
  highest state of discipline. We will undertake
  to say, that at least half the assembly left the
  Town Hall in perfect astonishment, that the
  education of the mind and control of the
  disposition might be safely and advantageously
  commenced at so early a period of life

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Hoogly Infant School 1839

• Sanctioned supported by the General Committee
  of Public Instruction
• Infants largely from Hindu higher castes
• Followed Mr. Perkins system of instruction

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Points to Ponder

• What do these case studies tell us about the
  making of history?
• Why study history of education/early childhood
  education?
• Why has it largely fallen out of favour today?