EDRISI, a Nubian geographer who visited the court of Sid Rai Jye Singh, the ruler of Anhalwara. Puttun, A.D. 1094 to 1145. Edrisi states that Jye Singh was then a Buddhist. Edrisi lived A.D. 1099– 1186. Ile mentions porceLain, and tho fine cotton fabrics of Coromandel, the pepper and cruxlamonts of Malabar, the camphor of Sumatra, nutmegs, the lemons of Mansura (near tho old course of the Indus, N.E. of Hyderabad), on the Mekran (Indus), tho asafcetida of Afglainistan, and cubebs, as an bnport of Aden. Ile names tho Konkans as the country of Saj, i.e. of the e.ag or teak tree. 3Iarsden says that Edrisi is improperly called tbo Nubian geographer, that Ile dedicated his work to Roger, king of Sicily, in the middle of the 12th century, and that he describes the island of Al-Rami ; but the particulars so nearly corre spond with those given by the Arabian traveller, as to show that the one account was borrowed from the other.—Mararlea's Suntatra, p. 4. EDUCATION.
Erzlehung, . . I Ellucacion, . . . . SP.
Edueazione, . . . IT. I Terblyat, . . .
Education in tho village schools of India is usually conducted In the verandah of a house, or in the open air. Schools for children are frequently held under trees in Bengal, and children who are beginning to learn, write the letters of tho alphabet in the dust. This is the old oriental custotn, and is alluded to in John viii. 6, when Jesua stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. A general mode in India of teaching writing, is to write with a pencil of soapstone on a wooden board, or on thick pasteboard stained black. The writing board in Sind, called a furahi, is a thin board made of hard fine-grained wood, stained red, black, green, or yellow. The ink contains no mineral substance, and is there fore easily washed off, the board being smeared with a thin layer of clay and water. When tho pupil has become somewhat skilful in the manage ment of his pen, he lays asido the board, and uses a papier-mach6 material called daftari. It is made of several sheets of writing paper pasted together, smeared with a composition of verdigris, and glossed with a mohro, which is a polishiug instru ment made of steel, so that it may be washed when dirty (Burton's Scinde, p. 89G). In tho
Peninsula of India, the ground, the writing-board, and the pasteboard are written upon, in the schools. but the ordinary material is the clay or dried pahn-leaf, which is written on with an iron style. The education of the Brahmans of India in the vernacular of their district, has usually been con ducted along with a knowledge of Sanskrit. Since the middle of the 19th century, many of them have acquired a knowledge of English. The lower caste Hindus have restricted their acquire ments to the vernacular languages of their district. Numbers of them know English ; .very few know Sanskrit. The Mahoinedans throughout India learn Arabic, Persian, and. a small number know English. The Lubbai Mahomedan has the Koran in the Tamil tongue. Some of the Tamil women have been learned, one was an authoress, and many of their girls aro now being sent to school. On the 29th July 1859, the Bethune School for Native Girls was founded at Calcutta. The English East India Company resolved to introduce a national system of educa tion in a despatch front the Board of Coutrol 19th July, No. 49 of 1854. The most important feature in the despatch was the ineasure of grants in-aid. It offered to all schools, already existing, or that might hereafter be established, provided they were found efficient, pecuniary aid to an amount in each case not exceeding the sums !wiring from local sources, subject to conditions that in no way interfered with the perfectly free action of the managers of such schools, and only requiring that they should be submitted to Government inispee tion, with a view to ensure the secular in.struction therein furnished being of a satisfactory character. It in fact threw open the field of Indian education to any one who chose to cultivate it, offering on the part of the Government to bear half the expense. The tnissionaries, with few exceptions, received the proffered aid, submitting without a I • dissentient TOICe to the conditions imposed.