Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/505

488 managed by a Senate which consists mainly of Government nominees? The Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University is not a paid but an honorary official and he is a “fit and proper person” nominated by the Local Government of Bengal. Should it be proper for the Government now to reject the policy and measures thoroughly discussed and supported by such a Vice-Chancellor and such a Senate? For the Government to disapprove of the mature deliberations of the Senate in this respect would imply, to say the least, an unmerited slur on the fitness and academic judgment of the Vice-Chancellor and the Senators.

Prof. Sarkar has complained “against the waste of public money by the needless creation of new departments and new branches (optional groups) of subjects of instruction”, and he has quoted figures to show that some at least of the departments of Post-Graduate studies do not attract a large number of students. This is, in the opinion of our veteran educationist of Bihar, an intolerable state of things and the “Bengali tax-payer” should not find money to run this show. A great deal of controversy and too much of ill-informed discussion have no doubt recently centred round this question. The new line of criticism which has found favour with Prof. Sarkar requires that the University need not undertake instruction in all the subjects now taught, especially in subjects which do not attract a large number of students. We must confess that such criticism is quite unintelligible to us. The importance of subjects undertaken for Post-Graduate study and research in this University has never been considered to be absolutely dependent upon the number of students that those studies may attract. Such a narrow and superficial view of the scope of activities of higher teaching cannot certainly commend itself to men of judgment and wide academic experience. And this idea which has been advocated by Prof. Sarkar, if allowed to prevail, would sweep away most of the subjects which are peculiarly suited for study and research in an