increased from 3: 5 in 1881 to 8 per cent in 1931 and
only to 14 per cent in 1941.
On the other hand in 40 years, U.S.A. has raised
the percentage of literacy in the Philippines from 2 to
55 per cent. And Russia with its patriotic govern-
ment has raised literacy from 20 per cent to more
than 93 per cent in 20 years. If India only had a
government of its own during the last 20 years!
H. V. Hampton of Indian Education Service says:
"It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the Indian
high school is much the same as it was in 1904 and but
little changed from what it was as far back as 1884."
Literacy is very uneven even as it is. Only 120
out of a thousand are now 'literate' in our land. From
the point of literacy, Travancore occupied the highest
place in India with 47.9 per cent. Cochin comes next
with 35.4, Delhi has 25.7 and Baroda 23. Among the
provinces, Madras, Bombay and Bengal, have per-
centages of 13, 19.5 and 16.1 respectively.
NO MONEY FOR EDUCATION
Public expenditure on education is disgracefully
low. We spend only Rs. 90 million annually on edu-
cation, from all sources. On the other hand a very
conservative estimate of the total recurring (apart
from capital) expenditure on a national primary edu-
cation alone will be about Rs. 350 million.
Our per capita public expenditure at present is
less than Rs. 10. In 1938-39, U.K. spent for education
Rs. 33-2-0 per head and India only Rs. 0-8-9 per head.
We were 66 times worse than United Kingdom from
an educational point of view!
The Wood despatch of the Board of Directors over
92 years back stated: "The importance of female edu-
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