Professional

Education. The Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics and the Government Law School had a larger number of students than in the previous year and a new Engineering College attached to the D. J. Sind College, Karachi, was opened.

Education in Art.-The number of students at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, increased by 47 to 390 and the numbers in the Reay Art workshops by 12 to 143. The Painting Classes in the School deserve special mention, in view of the endeavours which are being made to create there a National School of Indian Painting.

Technical and Industrial Education.-The number of students attending Technical and Industrial schools in British districts was 2,286, against 1,829 in the previous year. The total expenditure was Rs. 5.5 lakhs.

Secondary Education (General).-Public Secondary Schools decreased by 2 to 665 but the number of pupils rose by 2,153 to 104,686, the total expenditure being 68 lakhs, an increase of Rs. 3 lakhs.

High Schools. High Schools for boys increased by 4 to 193 and the attendance by 2,468 to 64,210. The number of High Schools for girls increased by 1 to 49, but the number of pupils decreased by 104 to 8,082.

Middle Schools.-Middle Schools for boys decreased by 5 to 380 and the number of pupils in them by 211 to 29,256. Girls' Schools decreased by 2 to 43 but the number of pupils remained stationary, viz. 3,138.

Primary Schools.—In British districts the primary schools for boys decreased by 132 to 10,972 but the number of pupils rose by 12,269 to 700,248. The decrease in the number of schools occurred entirely in Sind and is due to a large decrease in the number of recognised Mulla Schools. This decrease is due to two causes: (1) a large number of inefficient schools have been struck off the aided list; (2) some schools have refused grants owing to the Khilafat movement. The Presidency proper, however, showed an increase of 187 schools with 20,148 pupils. The total number of girls under instruction in primary schools in British districts was 160,481, a decrease of 552. In Indian

States primary schools increased by 80 to 3,162 and the attendance in them by 7,268 to 205,842.

The total expenditure on primary education in British districts. rose from Rs. 1484 lakhs to Rs. 1574 lakhs. Of this Government contributed Rs. 99'6 lakhs, District Local Board funds Rs. 9'7 lakhs, Municipal funds Rs. 30 lakhs, fees Rs. 5.2 lakhs, and Endowments, etc., Rs. 127 lakhs. In Indian States the expenditure on primary education rose from Rs. 18 lakhs to Rs. 19 lakhs.

for

Training Institutions.-There were 22 training institutions men, with 1,591 pupils, and 21 for women, with 1,015 pupils. Of the training institutions for men, 20, with 1,492 pupils, were in British districts-17 with an attendance of 1,428 under public management and 3 with 64 pupils under private management. Two training institutions, with 99 pupils, were maintained by Indian States. Of the Women's training institutions, 20 were in British districts.

Muhammadans.-The total number of Muhammadans under instruction in recognised institutions in British districts decreased by 5,000 to 153,000, of whom 20,500 were in institutions for females.

Intermediate Classes. The total number of pupils under instruction increased by 6,000 to 348,000 of whom 84,000 belong to the Maratha community proper, 162,000 to the Koli, Kunbi, and other cultivating classes, 38,000 to the Artisan classes including the Chaturth Jains, and 64,000 are Lingayats.

Aboriginal and Hill Tribes.-The total number of pupils increased by 440 to over 12,000.

Depressed Classes.-The number of pupils of the depressed classes increased by 3,700 to nearly 42,000.

Reformatory Schools.-There are 4 institutions, with 655 pupils, three under the Educational Department and the fourth under the Jail Department. Every inmate is taught a trade or craft, with the object of providing him with the means of earning an honest living after his discharge.

YERAVDA REFORMATORY

Forty-one boys were admitted during the year of whom thirty-seven had been convicted of theft or similar offences, one

of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, two of causing voluntary hurt, and one of counterfeiting coin.

The number of boys in the Reformatory was 164.

The behaviour of the boys was, on the whole, satisfactory. The total number of offences was 29 involving 39 boys and consisted mainly of breaches of discipline, possession of prohibited articles such as bidis, etc.

The number of boys on license, at the end of 1921, was 10, and during the year under report 10 new licenses were issued. The work and conduct of the licensees was constantly watched by the Superintendent, who had frequent interviews with the employers, saw the boys at work and gave them advice from time to time. There were 23 monitors at the end of the year and generally they behaved well. Their main duty is to assist in supervision in the various factories and to maintain order inside the dormitories at night. The average number of boys who earned gratuity was 112 while the average earnings per boy per annum was Rs. 3-0-3 as against Rs. 2-2-3 the previous

year.

Five trades continued to be taught in the Reformatory School. Twenty-nine boys were engaged in carpentry, 15 in smithy, 23 in painting, 15 in book-binding and 77 in gardening and agriculture. All the manufactories were busy in executing outside orders for making or repairing furniture, building or repairing carriages, painting and varnishing motors, etc., and binding books and registers. Book binding work was secured from the Yeravda Prison Press and from the public.

The average cost per boy was Rs. 268.

There was provision for primary education up to Marathi and Gujarati 5th standard, but there were no pupils in the Gujarati 4th and 5th standards. The Deputy Educational Inspector and his Assistants inspected all the classes and found the general progress of the pupils to be good. Moral and religious instruction was regularly imparted on Saturday afternoons, and the boys collected every morning and evening to recite devotional poems. On the Ramzan and Bakri-Id holidays, the Muhammadan boys were taken to a mosque to join in public prayers; similarly on the Mahashivaratra holiday the Hindu

boys were taken to a temple. On Christmas Day the Christian boys attended Divine Service in the Church at Kirkee.

There was a marked improvement in all the games and the boys seemed to have realized the importance of playing games in their proper form. On holidays, the boys were taken out for sight-seeing and sometimes in small batches to the river for swimming. "All this, All this," says the Superintendent in his concluding remarks, "proved effective in breaking the monotony of the school routine and making the boys realize that they were in a school and not in a prison.'

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

In discussing the Vernacular literature of the Presidency for the year 1922 Mr. H. G. Rawlinson, Principal of the Deccan College, Poona, says :—

"The literature of the Presidency for the period under review has been on the whole of a disappointing character. It has presented few, if any, novel or interesting features, and shows little sign of inspiration or originality. There has been no literary Renaissance in Western India to compare with that which has arisen in Bengal in the last fifty years. The lack of originality referred to above is conspicuous in every department, particularly in Drama and Fiction. People harp upon the same old themes-Sivaji and his contemporaries, the tales of the Rajput chiefs as given in Tod's Rajasthan, the stories in the Ramayana and Mahabharata-in a slavish mechanical way, and never try to strike out a line of their own. Many dramas are mere translations or adaptations of Sanskrit or of Tagore. These, together with social reform, non-cooperation and abuse of the Government, make up the entire stock-intrade of the average writer. There is no clever novel dealing with phases of contemporary life as in Bengal, no poet of the calibre of Rabindranath Tagore, no Bose in Science. Another disappointing feature is the lack of wit or humour of any kind. India has yet to produce her Bernard Shaw. The school of Marathi prose founded by Chiplunkar and Agarkar seems to have died a natural death, and in poetry there are few signs of a new life stirring in the dead bones of classical

convention.

The number of books published during the year was 1,758, of which nearly one-third, 564, were in Gujarati. Other languages used were Marathi (356), English (184), Sindhi (181), Hindi (67), Kanarese (55), Classical languages (72), Konkani and other dialects (79) and Urdu (42), while 158 were in more than one language. There were also 1,074 issues of periodical publications, magazines, etc., as distinct from newspapers. Miscellaneous works formed nearly half of the total production, the next popular subject being Poetry and Religion.

NEWSPAPERS

At the end of 1922 there were in the Presidency 174 newspapers treating of current political topics. Fifty-one newspapers started during the year and 39 ceased publication. Out of these 174 newspapers, 49 were published in the City of Bombay, 25 in the Northern division, 37 in the Central division, 26 in the Southern division, 29 in Sind, and 8 in the Indian States. Sixty-seven or about 39 per cent. were edited by Brahmins. Other Hindus were responsible for 67, Jains for 2, Parsis for 14, Muhammadans for the same number, and Christians for 10. Seven per cent. were published in English, 33 per cent. in Marathi, 15 per cent. in Gujarati, 2 per cent. in Hindi, 4 per cent. in Kanarese, 2 per cent. in Urdu and 13 per cent. in Sindhi, while about 24 per cent. were bi-lingual or tri-lingual newspapers.

The largest circulations are found among the weekly papers. Whereas 2 of these in 1921 had a circulation of approximately 30,000, last year the highest circulation recorded was 27,000 and the next highest 16,000.

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY

The Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had 518 resident and 172 non-resident members at the close of the year 1922-23. The issues of books and periodicals during the year amounted to nearly 59,000, of which 12,500 were new books, 18,600 periodicals and 27,800 old books. The largest issue, about 22,000, was under fiction, while miscellaneous stood second 2,300 and biography stood third 2,100. During the year 1,493 volumes were added to the Library of which