t to visit each other at fairs,
and would see nothing absurd in locking them all up in a dungeon if rain
held off too long.

[Illustration: Fig. 41. A Kulu godling and his attendants.]

CHAPTER XI

THE PEOPLE (_continued_): EDUCATION

~Educational progress.~--According to the census returns of 1911 there are
not four persons per 100 in the province who are "literate" in the sense
of being able to read and write a letter. The proportion of literacy
among Hindus and Sikhs is three times as great as among Muhammadans. In
1911-12 one boy in six of school-going age was at school or college and
one girl in 37. This may seem a meagre result of sixty years of work,
for the Government and Christian missionaries, who have had an
honourable connection with the educational history of the province,
began their efforts soon after annexation, and a Director of Public
Instruction was appointed as long ago as 1856. But a country of small
peasant farmers is not a very hopeful educational field, and the rural
population was for long indifferent or hostile. If an ex-soldier of the
_Khalsa_ had expressed his feelings, he would have used words like those
of the "Old Pindari" in Lyall's poem, while the Muhammadan farmer, had
he been capable of expressing his hostility, might have argued that the
teaching his son could get in a village school would help him not at all
in his daily work. Things are better now. We have improved our scheme of
teaching, and of late raised the pay of the teachers, which is, however,
still hardly adequate. Till a better class of teachers can be secured
for primary schools, the best educational theories will not bear fruit
in practice. The old indifference is weakening, and the most hopeful
sign is the increasing interest taken in towns in female education, a
matter of the first importance for the future of the country.

~Present position.~--The present position is as follows:--The Government
has made itself directly or indirectly responsible for the education of
the province. At the headquarters of each district there is a high
school for boys controlled by the Education Department. In each district
there are Government middle schools, Anglo-vernacular or Vernacular,
and primary schools, managed by the Municipal Committees and District
Boards. Each middle school has a primary, and each high school a primary
and a middle, department. For the convenience of pupils who cannot
attend school while living at