Tale of Christian missionaries in TN, Schwartz scheme, & its Thanjavur connect

Thanjavur played a key role in Tamil Nadu’s history. Often referred to as the ‘rice bowl of the state’, the place was celebrated for other reasons as well. It was from this district that the foundations of a modern education system in the state was first laid, largely due to the efforts of the Christian missionary Christian Friedrich Schwartz (1726-1798).

Schwartz’s scheme for a “modern, state-subsidised public system of schools in India began with the rajahs of Thanjavur, Shivaganga, and Ramnad”, wrote Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor of history and south Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, in the journal International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

According to Frykenberg, high schools that he established so impressed the East India Company’s resident at Thanjavur that the company’s directors in London and its government at Fort St George in Madras, were persuaded to subsidise them, even though none of these schools lay within the company territory.

“Maratha Brahman youths who would eventually fill uppermost rungs of civil service positions within the entire Madras presidency flocked to these schools. The curriculum, combining biblical and Christian texts with principles and sciences of the enlightenment, included English literature and European philosophy,” pointed out Frykenberg. The contribution of the Christian missionaries in taking education to all sections of the society  in Thanjavur and the state of Tamil Nadu has never come under such an attack as it has now.

The Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School established by Christian missionaries in the district of Thanjavur, the epicentre from where modern education began, has now come under attack for alleged conversion activities. After the suicide of a class 12 girl, the state BJP unit headed by former IPS officer K Annamalai, has been trying to give a communal colour to the tragedy and continued to make scathing remarks about the school.

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This is the chance the followers of the saffron party and other Hindutva groups were waiting for. They are raking up the “conversion” bogey against the Christian missionaries  and alleged that all the schools set up by the missionaries were actually involved in conversion under the guise of education.

But history tells a different story. The state of Tamil Nadu wouldn’t have had western education if not for the missionaries. It should be noted that around 1852, the Christian missionaries were running 1,885 schools in Tamil Nadu and most of these schools were located along the Coromandel coast, which included the districts of Trichy, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam.

About 38,000 students studied in these schools, said an article written by Rajagopalachari (not to be confused with C Rajagopalachari, former governor-general of India) on the state of education in India published in the magazine Senthamizh in 1906.

‘Good-for-nothing, rote-learning parrots’

Before the arrival of the Christian missionaries, boys (girls were not allowed to study then), mostly from the Brahmin community, received their education through ‘Tinnai Pallikkoodam’ (Tamil for ‘verandah schools’).

They were taught ancient moral texts, some writing and basic calculations by Brahmin men. This system however was found inadequate by East India Company officers and Indian reformers as well.

In her book, Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South India, author Bhavani Raman said that “the imperfections of the ‘tinnai’ school appeared particularly glaring to Company officers, missionaries, and, in turn, Indian reformers, because it invariably fell short of the new markers of a successful education that associated writing skills with the ability to compose grammatical prose”.

Her claim on ‘tinnai’ schools is based on the report of the then Bellary district collector Alexander Campbell, who undertook a survey of his domain in response to Governor Thomas Munro’s call for a review of the state of education in Madras Presidency. His report on ‘tinnai school’ education system said:

“Every schoolboy can repeat verbatim a vast number of verses, the meaning of which he knows no more than the parrot that has been taught to utter certain words. Accordingly… the Native scholar gains no improvement except the exercise of memory and the power to read and write from the common business of life, he makes no addition to his stock of useful knowledge and acquires no moral impressions… (I)t is no surprise that in writing a common letter, orthographical errors, and violations of grammar may be met with almost every line written by a Native”.

Raman too pointed out the verandah school generated good-for-nothing “rote-learning parrots”, incapable of explaining what they read, and unable to write a letter.

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Education through printing

Christian missionaries in Tamil Nadu have also inadvertently contributed their mite to Tamil literature as well, said educationists. Majority of the books first printed in Tamil were done by the missionaries

It was the Portuguese missionaries who first stepped into the state, and it was the first European missionary Henrique Henriques (1520-1600), who moved to Punnakayal in Thoothukudi district after a few years in Goa, and mastered the Tamil language.

“He strongly believed that books of religious doctrines should be in local languages and to this end he wrote books in Tamil. His efforts made Tamil the first non-European language to be printed in moveable type. Hence, he is sometimes called the ‘Father of the Tamil Press’,” said Dr M Maaravarman, assistant professor in History, Presidency College, Chennai, in his 2021 paper ‘Christian contribution to Tamil Literature’.

A portion of his works in the Tamil language have not survived. However, he wrote a book on punctuation, a word reference, a booklet for confession and a book on religious history from the Creation to the Ascension, pointed out Dr Maaravarman.

In fact, Henriques was probably the first missionary in the then Madras Presidency to start a modern school at Punnakayal in 1567. After Portuguese missionaries, came German, the Danish missionaries, Bartholomeaus Ziegenbal, who produced the first Tamil Bible and Henry Plustschau.

G Vennila, assistant professor, The Standard Fireworks Rajaratnam College for Women, Sivakasi in her paper on the missionaries’ role in the field of education in India, wrote that they had established an institution in 1716 AD to train teachers to be employed in charity schools.

The charity schools were opened for children who became Christians, she added. The missions also started separate schools for children of the Muslim community and the missionaries indirectly brought good results to the natives, said Vennila.

The missionaries also sought the help of the native teachers to teach in the schools founded by them. And these native teachers taught under the able guidance of these missionaries, she said.

“The native teachers learned systematic methods of teachings and western methods of education were slowly imbedded,” wrote Vennila in her paper.

Contribution to women education

Besides starting schools and colleges, the missionaries also made a significant contribution towards empowering women through education. In the first half of the 19th century, the missionaries started promoting women education.

K Balasubramanian, a research scholar, department of History, Annamalai University, while writing about the contribution of missionaries to women education in pre-Independent India, said the first attempt by the missionaries to open a school for Indian girls was made in Madras in 1821.

“The Church Mission Boarding Schools in Trichy (1837), the Free Church Day School in Tirunelveli (1845), the Native Female Education Society Central School in Madras (1845) and the Wesleyan Mission Boarding School, Madras (1849) were some of the earliest schools,” he said, quoting the report submitted to the Education Commission in 1882 by the Madras Provincial Committee.

The second women’s college in the country, Sarah Tucker College, was opened in Palayamkottai in 1895. The Zenana Mission, a part of Protestant missionaries made inroads in Muslim community and opened separate schools for Muslim girls as well.