Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/514

1925] examinations, and of these 28 appointments Bengal has secured as many as 8. Is this “very poor result” for Bengal? This year also two Bengalee students have been successful in the I.P.S. Examination. We have no desire certainly to flatter ourselves on these results, but Prof. Sarkar’s suppression of facts must not be allowed to pass unchallenged. It may not be irrelevant to point out here that even now the governing bodies of colleges and Universities all over Northern India prefer to recruit the graduates of this much-maligned University to their teaching staff inspite of a persistent campaign of calumny conducted by certain ponderous Professors with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. When the Professor, who is so much disgusted with the “sneaks, sluggards and sycophants of the Calcutta University and their methods”, wants serious and competent students as his research assistants, he invariably turns to youngmen of this University subjected, according to him, to a method of “intellectual and moral poisoning”, and cruelly ignores the claims of those generations of sound scholars whom the talented Historian of has so laboriously and conscientiously trained for the last quarter of a century.

Prof. Sarkar, perhaps carried away by his zeal to advocate the “reform” of this University, has expressed his sentiments in language so choice that we cannot but include some specimens in this reply, though the assertions are indefinite and unsupported by any evidence :

“If the governing body of the University once makes up its mind to discourage sneaks and sycophants, it can get rid of sham scholars in a day.” “the reckless creation of new posts in a spirit of megalomania”. “Helping the University and the student community to enter into a fool’s paradise”. “But the Calcutta Senate majority have not evidently succeeded in overwhelming the boards of examiners for all-India competitions like the I. C. S., I. P. S. and Finance service; there the examiners are not internal teachers and their notes have no charm”. “The bad system of teaching and the ridiculous methods and