Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/120

Rh Thakurdas heard of the incident, he ran to the scene, and laid the dust of the vanquished pundit's feet on Isvar Chandra's head, because the latter was much younger in age.

While still-reading in the Nyaya Class, he was appointed for two months as officiating second teacher of Grammar on a monthly salary of forty rupees. He placed the whole of the eighty rupees of his first earning into the hands of his father, and requested him to go on a pilgrimage, which the father very gladly did. When he returned from the pilgrimage, he found that his son, Isvar Chandra, had won one hundred rupees as first prize for the Nyaya examination, a further sum of one hnndredhundred [sic] rupees, as prize for the best poetical composition, twenty-five rupees as prize for proficiency in Law, and eight rupees for good hand-writing, making in all two hundred and thirty-three rupees. This sum the devoted son made over to his father, who paid it off to clear a part of his debts.

When Isvar Chandra passed the final examination of the Sanskrit College, he won the title of Vidyasagar from the College. He was then only twenty years old. How many are there who can attain to such eminence at such an early age? Surely, Isvar Chandra must have been uncommonly gifted. Every one of his teachers, from the village schoolmaster, Kalikanta Chattopadhyay, to the professor, of the College, was