were seminaries of Sanskrit learning at Nadia and other places, but the knowledge of Vedic literature was unknown to them, and they confined themselves chiefly to teaching a few elementary branches of grammar, rhetoric, belles-letters, law and logic.

people such educa

The blessings of a good English education which has produced such marvellous results in subsequent times, were unknown. The necessities of the new struggle for existence pressing upon men had taught them that a partial knowledge of the English language was essential for their worldly prospects. Accordingly, there was at that time, an ever-increasing demand for English education; but it formed no part of the policy of the Indian Government to impart to the tion. The lakh of rupees set apart by the Directors of the East India Company in 1813 for the encouragement of learning was being exclusively used, for many years, for the re-printing of old Sanskrit and Arabic books,Lord William Bentinck, generally considered one of the most benevolent governorsgeneral India has ever known, had just taken in hand the reins of government. Lord Macaulay whose famous minute on English education finally decided a long-standing controversy that had raged for upwards of twenty years, had not yet arrived. Lord William Bentinck's celebrated Education Decree of the 7th March, 1835, was still in the

womb of the future. In the absence of government support a large number of English-teaching schools, very defective in their management and mode of training, had sprung up in different parts of Calcutta and its neighbourhood to meet the popular demand. All that most of them aimed at was to teach a number of English words and phrases without any regard for grammar or syntax. The only effort in the direction of a good English education consisted in the opening of the Hindu College in 1817. But the first effects of imparting high English education to the youth of Bengal were far from being encouraging. Many of those who were the first fruits of that education openly professed atheism at that time and, to the great dismay of their Hindu relations, were imbibing many of the vices of modern civilization. In fact at the time of the opening of Ram Mohun Roy's church, the Hindu College was a seething cauldron of a new revolutionary spirit. There was in its staff of teachers a remarkable young man, named H. V. Derozio, a Eurasian by birth, who, though a youth of nineteen or twenty himself, was influencing the thoughts and aspirations of the students of the College in a manner the like of which has seldom been witnessed in the case of any other teacher. He was their guide, philosopher, and friend. Together with the senior

students he had established in the year 1829 a society called the Academic Association, where the utmost freedom of discussion was allowed on all subjects, sacred or profane; as a consequence, a new and fervent spirit which aimed at revolutionising society had been evolved. Once roused it went beyond all bounds of moderation intended by its progenitor. Mr. Derozio had received his education under one Mr. David. Drummond, a Scotch adventurer, who had drunk deep the spirit of the French Revolution, and had left his country and his kith and kin on account of theological differences. The teachings of Mr, Drummond had made a deep and lasting impression on the mind of his gifted pupil, who carried the same fire into the Hindu College. The influence of his teachings on his pupil-friends was highly moral in its character. He taught them above all to be honest in their speech and conduct, laying great stress on the value of independence and moral courage; but the contagion of free thinking extended over a far larger area than the sphere of personal influence of the teacher; and many who had never seen or heard him professed his views. With this thoughtless portion of young Bengal, independence meant open defiance of the authority of their elders and moral courage meant contempttuous reviling of the ancient faith, together with

the undisguised profession of infidelity. "The junior students," writes the biographer of David Hare, "caught from the senior students the infection of ridiculing the Hindu religion and where they were required to utter mantras or prayers they repeated lines from the Iliad." The committee of the college, where the Hindu element preponderated, passed repeated resolutions during the years 1829-1830 to warn the students as well as the teachers, but to no purpose; till at last towards the beginning of 1831, the whole orthodox Hindu community of Calcutta were so much alarmed, that they rose as one man and under the leadership of Babu Ram Kamal Sen, the grandfather of Keshub Chunder Sen, brought such pressure to bear on the committee of the college that they were obliged to secure the resignation of Mr. Derozio.

Whilst the efforts for imparting higher educa-tion to the higher classes were attended by such unpleasant results, the state of popular education was at its lowest ebb. The majority of the malepopulation of the province, together with its whole womanhood, were living in the darkness of ignorance. The little education that was imparted to those who carried on the ordinary business of the nation was of the most rudimentary kind. It was accounted no shame even by a Brahmin to be unlettered. There was no literature of the people,

so to say, and its absence was supplied by a number of poetical works, composed during the previous two or three centuries, many of which, however, were highly demoralising in their teachings. The inner life of society was still more deplorable. With the decay of national life, frightful social evils, that pressed hard on the life of almost all classes, had sprung up; the rules of caste, though partly slackened by the influence of Mahomedan education and also by the altered circumstances of social life, consequent upon the establishment of British rule, were still very stringent. Almost all the agencies that in subsequent times have so largely contributed to partially break down the barriers of ages,-such agencies, for instance, as a common western education, which has opened up a new channel of communication, the uniformity of circumstances of political life that is drawing closer the bonds of sympathy between different parts of the country, cheap postage, which carries with wonderful rapidity and regularity the thoughts of one province to another, a net-work of railways, that takes no account of caste, but rather helps in breaking it down by promoting the intercourse of the races,-were not then in existence. Men were exclusive, unsympathetic and jealous of their class privileges, so much so that it was seriously argued by the orthodox