# Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 3/Chapter 1/Section 20

Section XX.
Concluding Remarks.
The preceding Sections embrace all the most important information I have collected respecting the state of education, omitting many details which might have embarrassed the attention of the reader and lessened the distinctness of his impressions. For the same reason I abstain at present from entering on the results of a census of castes and occupations which was included in the census of the population, on the state of native medical practice, in the extent to which the most remarkable diseases prevail, and on the peculiar institutions and practices of the respective districts—all illustrative of the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the people, but only indirectly connected with the amount and means of general instruction.
The information now placed upon record in this and the preceding Report may be summed up in a very few words. By means of a census of the population, the amount of domestic and adult instruction has been ascertained in the city of Moorshedabad and in one thana or police sub-division of the districts of Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, Beeerbhoom, Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot respectively; and by means of educational survey, the state of ​school instruction has been ascertained in the City of Moorshedabad in one thana or police sub-division of the districts of Rajshahi and Moorshedabad in the entire districts of Beerbhoom, Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot, and, with the aid of Mr. Malet, in the entire district of Midnapore.
In so extensive a country, inhabited by so numerous a population, it would have been impossible, without far more ample means than were placed at my command, to extend the inquiry over the whole without exception, and to exhaust the subject, so as to leave nothing unexamined and unknown. The investigation therefore, with the distinct contemplation of this impossibility, has been conducted on the principle of learning something with precision and certainty; of causing the information thus acquired to embrace such an extent of space, such an amount of population, and such a diversity of conditions and circumstances as would afford the grounds of legitimate inference; and consequently of inferring from the known the unknown, from what is certain that which is doubtful. Accordingly from the state of domestic and adult instruction ascertained in one large city and in one thana of each district, I infer the same or a similar state of domestic and adult instruction in all the thanas of the same districts. The population of which an actual census has been taken to afford the basis of such an inference is 692,270, and the additional population to which the inference is made to extend is 7,332,500, together amounting to 8,124,770. In like manner, from the state of school instruction ascertained in one large city, in two thanas of two different districts, and in five entire districts, I infer the same or a similar state of school instruction in all the remaining districts of Bengal and Behar. The population of which an educational survey has been made to afford the basis of such an inference is 7,789,152, and the estimated additional population to which the inference is made to extend is 27,671,250 together amounting to 35,460,402. There is no reason to suppose that the state of domestic and adult instruction diffiers materially in the thanas in which that branch of the inquiry was carried on from its state in those to which it was not extended; nor is there any reason to suppose that the state of school instruction differs materially in the districts in which it was investigated from its state in those which the investigation did not embrace. There is probably no district in Bengal and Behar in which the amount and proportion of juvenile and adult instruction are so high as in Burdwan or so low as in Tirhoot, and we may thus assume without much danger of error that we have ascertained both the highest and the lowest existing standard of intruction in those two provinces. Actually the state of instruction of nearly eight millions of its subject is before the Government with a degree of minuteness which, even if it should fatigue, may give some assurance of an approach to accuracy, and exhibiting an amount of ignorance which demands ​the adoption of practical measures for its diminution. Virtually, the state of instruction of more than thirty-five millions of its subjects is before Government, that portion of the Indian population which has lived longest under British rule, and which should be prepared or preparing to appreciate and enjoy its highest privileges. I trust that the expense which Government has incurred in collecting this information will not be in vain, and that the hopes which have grown up in the minds of the people in the progress of the inquiry will not be disappointed.