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Abstract
Contrary to the widely accepted belief that no early childhood education provision was evident until the twentieth century, archives date the advent of infant schools in India to the 1830s in Bengal, contemporaneous with developments in England. The Church Missionary Society's infant schools aimed to educate children (and women) from the lower castes and classes or those in dire circumstances. The main objective was their moral rescue through the spread of Christianity along the lines suggested by Wilderspin. However, the Hooghly Infant School, started with Government backing after much debate, attracted boys from more privileged backgrounds. Despite continued social resistance in India well into the twentieth century to the institutional education of young children, the idea appealed to educated and wealthy Indians, who willingly sent their boys to infant school. This article, drawing on hitherto undocumented sources, tells the story of infant education in India between 1830 and 1851.
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