"It was soon seen that, in addition to these primary schools, the establishment of boarding schools was extremely desirable, for the purpose of separating the pupils from the influence of idolatry. The attempt was made, but proved to be attended with difficulties which would have appeared to many insurmountable. In the first place, the natives were suspicious, not conceiving that strangers could undertake such toil, trouble, and expense, without an interested object. The more positive difficulty was connected with caste, with the reluctance of parents to permit their children to associate with those of a lower rank.
"'This the missionaries overcame, not so much by inveighing against the absurdity of such distinctions as by practically ignoring them, except wherever expediency or necessity required their recognition. In all other cases where the customs and prejudices of the Tamils were harmless in themselves, or productive of no inconvenience to others, they were in no way contravened or prohibited; but as intelligence increased, and the minds of the pupils became expanded, the most distinctive and objectionable of them were voluntarily and almost imperceptibly abandoned.
"'When the boarders were first admitted to one of the American schools at Batticotta, a cook-house was obliged to be erected for them on the adjoining premises of a heathen, as they would not eat under the roof of a Christian; but after a twelvemonth's perseverance, the inconvenience overcame the objection, and they removed to the refectory of the institution. But here a fresh difficulty was to be encountered; some of the high caste youths made an objection to use the same wells which had been common to the whole establishment; and it was agreed to meet their wishes by permitting them to clear out one in particular, to be reserved exclusively for themselves. They worked incessantly for a day, but finding it hopeless to draw it perfectly dry, they resolved to accommodate the difficulty, on the principle, that having drawn off as much water as the well contained when they began, the remainder must be sufficiently pure for all ordinary uses.'"
"In addition to these primary and boarding-schools, the American Mission, in 1830, established schools for teaching English, and for elementary instruction of a more advanced description. These were all under a discipline avowedly Christian, yet the missionaries found that they were able not only to enforce the fee demanded, but to maintain their regulations without loss of numbers.
"'And it is a fact,' says Sir Emerson Tennent, 'suggestive of curious speculation as to the genius and character of this anomalous people, that in a heathen school recently established by Brahmans in the vicinity of Jaffna, the Hindoo Community actually compelled those who conducted it to introduce the reading of the Bible as an indispensable portion of the ordinary course of instruction.'"
"This does not seem so strange to us. The shrewd Tamils, as we collect from other observations in the work before us, perceived how the Bible-reading children had improved in demeanor, conduct, and success in life. For these same reasons, and possibly in some cases from a deeper feeling never yet avowed, the Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland, before the introduction of the National System of Education, and previously to, and, in many cases, long after, the expressed hostility of their priesthood, anxiously sent their children to the schools of the Kildare-place and the Hibernian Bible Societies.
"The other missionaries, we need hardly say, were as active as the Americans. After some years of further experience, they all felt the necessity of founding educational institutions of a still more advanced description for the instruction of the natives in their own language. It became plain to them that, from physical as well as moral causes, the conversion of the natives could be only hoped for through the medium of their well-taught and well-trained countrymen. The niceties of the language and their modes of thought presented difficulties of a most serious character to others; the very terms of the ordinary address of a missionary suggested ideas altogether different from what he intended. Thus, when God is spoken of, they probably understand one of their own deities who yields to every vile indulgence; by sin, they mean ceremonial defilement, or evil committed in a former birth, for which they are not accountable; hell with them is only a place of temporary punishment; and heaven nothing more than absorption, or the loss of individuality. Under these impressions each of the missionary bodies at Jaffna formed for themselves a collegiate institution, in which the best scholars from their other schools were admitted to a still more advanced course, and taught the sciences of Europe. That of the Church Missionary Society of England was established at Nellore, but subsequently removed to Chundically; the Wesleyans commenced theirs in the great square of Jaffna; and that of the Americans was founded at Batticotta, in the midst of a cultivated country, within sight of the sea, and at a very few miles distant from the fort."
"'It was opened in 1823, with about fifty students chosen from the most successful pupils of all the schools in the province; and the course of education is so comprehensive as to extend over a period of eight years of study. With a special regard to the future usefulness of its alumni in the conflict with the errors of the Brahmanical system, the curriculum embraces all the ordinary branches of historical and classical learning, and all the higher departments of mathematical and physical science, combined with the most intricate familiarization with the great principles and evidences of the Christian religion.
"'The number which the building can accommodate is limited, for the present, to one hundred, who reside within its walls, and take their food in one common hall, sitting to eat after the custom of the natives. For some years the students were boarded and clothed at the expense of the mission; but such is now the eagerness for instruction that there are a multitude of competitors for every casual vacancy; and the cost of their maintenance during the whole period of pupilage is willingly paid in advance, in order to secure the privilege of admission.
"'Nearly six hundred students have been under instruction from time to time since the commencement of the American Seminary at Batticotta, and of these upwards of four hundred have completed the established course of education. More than one-half have made an open profession of Christianity, and all have been familiarized with its doctrines, and more or less imbued with its spirit. The majority are now filling situations of credit and responsibility throughout the various districts of Ceylon; numbers are employed under the missionaries themselves, as teachers and catechists, and as preachers and superintendents of schools; many have migrated, in similar capacities, to be attached to Christian missions on the continent of India; others have lent their assistance to the missions of the Wesleyans and the Church of England in Ceylon; and amongst those who have attached themselves to secular occupations, I can bear testimony to the abilities, the qualifications, and integrity, of the many students of Jaffna, who have accepted employment in various offices under the Government of the colony.'"