Page:A History of the Brahmo Samaj.djvu/31

8 HISTORY OP THE BRARMO SAMAJT 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 1829-183010 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 education to the higher classes were attended by such unpleasant results, the state of popular education was at its lowest ebb. The majority of the male population of the province, together with its whole womanhood, were living in the darkness of ignorance. The little education that wa3 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,