EDUCATION.
At the close of twenty years we find that the number of village schools
had risen to 155 with 5,118 boys and 1,004 girls. In the Seminary
there were 151 boys, and in Uduvil Girls’ Boarding School 98 girls.
[n this year—i.e., 1836—the Society spent about £725 for village schools,
£622 for the Seminary, and £289 for Uduvil,—a total of £1,636 (say
Rs. 16,360) for educational purposes alone. Very little was collected
in fees from the pupils.

3

Since 1836 the history of the Mission has not been one of
unbroken prosperity. There have been periods when funds
were not forthcoming, and when parts of the work had to
be temporarily discontinued. But it is satisfactory to learn
that these difficulties have been overcome. Of the present
state of the educational work of his Mission Mr. Hastings
writes s—

At the close of 1902 we report as follows :—Jaffna College,* with
101 students, all boarders, from a Pre-entrance Class up to and
including B.A. classes ; one training school for boys with 59 pupils,
and one for girls with 12 ; two girls’ boarding schools with 150 pupils ;
one girls’ English boarding school with 43 pupils ; one industrial school ;
and 132 English and vernacular grant-in-aid schools with 7,548 boys
and 2,757 girls.
The total number under instruction, excluding the industrial school,
is 7,708 boys and 2,962 girls—or 10,670 all told—in 138 schools. The
school fees collected in 1902 amounted to Rs. 12,892.
It was in connection with the higher education of Colombo
that the interest of Government in education first took a
practical shape. The first important Government institution,
the Colombo Academy, which still exists under a changed
name as the Royal College, dates from 1835. It is perhaps
more than a coincidence that this is the year of Lord
Macaulay’s famous Minute, which marks the decision of the
Supreme Council of India in favour of a European type of
education. The question had been in the air for some time,
and though the Government of Ceylon had no official
connection with India, the Governor was doubtless aware of
the discussions which had taken place in Calcutta. But the
actual establishment of the Academy has more the appearance
 of a happy accident than of a deliberate act of
policy. The Rev.J. Marsh, M.A., had come out to Ceylon as
classical and mathematical tutor to the Cotta Christian institution
 under the Church Missionary Society. He had, however,
 left that institution and had come to Colombo, where he
acted as Colonial Chaplain at St, Paul’s Church, and in 1835
started a private school for the sons of the upper classes
among the Ceylonese. The school met a want that had been
felt for some time, and the leading Ceylonese residents at

* First Grade College affiliated to Calcutta University