Page:A General Biography of Bengal Celebrities Vol 1.djvu/20

 HIS CHARACTER AND IDEAS; It

"If the object of female education, he used to say, be to make the household happy, there was far greater happiness in the Hindoo home under the old than under the new system. Nevertheless he did not refuse aid to female schools. He was a staunch advocate of the freedom of the press, and held that the best vindication of the paramountcy of the British Power in the East was the concession of this privilege to the people of this country, and he was deeply grieved when Lord Lytton's Press Act was passed. He greatly valued the pilgrimage of Indian youths to the temples of Knowledge in Europe and America, and as a proof of his own earnestness in the matter, he sent to England his only son, Babu Grish Chandra Mitter, alas! now no more, for the completion of his education. Being in the front-rank of the community, his purse was as a matter of course open to works of public usefulness, but the greatest and most useful charity which he founded was the maintenance of about 80 poor students whom he gave their "daily bread." He was one of the Honorary Secretaries to the Native committee of the District Charitable Society in which he contributed a fund called after his name, the proceeds of which are applied to the support of some twenty poor persons every month. His private charity to distressed relatives, friends, and dependants, was also large."

Such, in brief, were the main features of the character of this great and noble man. But the most conspicuous and valuable trait of his character was the indomitable energy, patience and perseverance with which he worked his way up from a very small beginning. It was in the dull drudgery of the early part of his career, that he laid the foundation of his future greatness and success. Possessed of strong physic, as Babu Kristo Das told us, Degumber worked hard in early life amidst many adverse circumstances. We have already alluded to the fact that Babu Degumber, while holding the office of a Tehsildar in a Khas