Page:A General Biography of Bengal Celebrities Vol 1.djvu/45

 36, LIFE OF MR, WOOMES CHUNDER BONNERJEE, a great great-grand-daughter of that famous learned savant of Bengal. Babu Pitambur Bonnerjee had considerable property at Khidderpore and within the Metropolis itself, but all these he lost afterwards not from his prodigality but for his inordinate expenses in charity and religious perfor- mances. Grees Chunder Bonnerjee, the father of Mr. W.C. Bonnerjee, was «n alumni of the old Hindu College, and died in the year 1868 at the early age of 45. He was an Attorney of the Calcutta High Court, and had four sons of whom Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee is the second, and Satya Dhone Bonnerjee, who is a Master of Arts in Sanskrit of the Calcutta University, the youngest, the other two having died while young. Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee was first sent to a patshalla at Simla in Calcutta; and having learnt his mother-tongue there, he was sent for English education to the branch school attached to the Oriental Seminary, the alma mater of Kristo Das Pal and Shumbhoo Chunder Mukerjee. From the branch he went to the main school, and from the Oriental Seminary, Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee took his admission into the Hindoo School and read there under Babu Mohesh Chunder Bonnerjee and Mr. Carnduff. In 1 861 he was in the first class of that school, but did not appear even at the Matriculation Examination. The boy, as we have already said, used to work by fits and starts while at school, and never shewed any predisposition to win his spurs in the University oj Calcutta. Capricious as he was, he did not make any considerable advancement in his scholastic career, though, it is on record, that he used to get sometimes double promotions for his high proficiency. In him we see an example of a boy whose school- day career did not at all indicate that the indifferent, theatre-loving and run-away student would once again apply himself to the study of law, literature, science, and politics, and take his stand among the greatest men