Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/28

Rh as Principal of the Sanscrit College. He worked with characteristic energy and zeal; established schools for boys and girls in the four districts; and also superintended the work of the Sanscrit College and of the Normal School in Calcutta. It is characteristic of Vidyasagar's generous nature that he induced and almost forced his literary rival, the talented Akhay Kumar Datta, to accept the appointment of Head teacher of the Normal School.

In the midst of all these labours Vidyasagar never forgot his partiality to literature; and towards the close of 1854 he published his great Bengali work, Sakuntala, an adaptation from the well-known Sanscrit Drama of the same name. And three years after appeared his greatest work, Sitar-Banabas, a Bengali adaptation of another equally well-known Sanscrit play. In some respects the position of Iswar Chandra and Akhay Kumar in Bengali prose literature is unique. The earlier prose of Ram Mohan Rai and his contemporaries was somewhat crude, though forceful and expressive; and it is no exaggeration to state that the modern elegant prose literature of Bengal has been created under the formative touch of Iswar Chandra and Akhay Kumar. The services they have rendered to their country may be aptly compared to those of the writers of Queen Anne's time, who shaped modern English prose, and