Gathering the destitute child: A case study in British India

Baljit KaurUniversity of Canterbury

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

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

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 Crown’s agenda

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 educating…There are about forty-eight children in daily attendance, from two years old to eight. … The children are brought to the school about nine o’clock in the morning, and remain until five in the afternoon; they get a good dinner of curry and rice at one o’clock P.M.

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.’

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.

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

Indian Infant SystemThe 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

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

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?