​There are some amazing colonial reports about such rural education​ institutions. The most famous and striking is Adam's Reports:

​@Book{leit-hist,

  author =    {Leitner, Gottlieb William},

  title =     {History of Indigenous Education in the {Panjab} Since Annexation and in 1882},

  year =      {1982},

  publisher = {Amar Prakashan},

  address =   {Delhi},

  location =  {Oxford},

  note =      {First Published in Calcutta: Government printing, 1882.},

  timestamp = {2010.03.16}

}​

​Reading these reports, I first realized the sheer scale of the traditional educational establishment in India ​that the British Indian government dismantled through the dissolution of Trusts and the redirection of taxation to Calcutta.  After destroying the village-level education system, they worked on the principle that apex educational institutions in Calcutta would have a trickle-down effect, seeding new institutions across Bengal, the Panjab and beyond.  We all know how well that worked.   Adam's reports in particular make very sad reading.  Adam pleaded for the protection and strengthening of indigenous education, and gave excellent reasons for doing so.  But Adam's enlightened recommendations were swept aside by the benighted policies Macaulay and Bentinck.