Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/80

 was that whatever the English did, was good. Most surely, the English possess many good qualities, but they are men, and have their faults too. In their endeavours to imitate the English and other Europeans, the students of the Hindu College failed to imbibe any of their good qualities, but merely copied their frailties and evil practices. They forsook their national customs, and took to European manners in many respect. They cast aside Dhuti and Chadar, their national dress, and dressed themselves in trousers and coats. They even took pride in drinking wine and spirits, and in eating beef, the restricted food of the Hindus. They considered their fathers no better than barbarians, and treated them accordingly. They were thus an eyesore to the orthodox Hindu community, who were deeply pained at this state of things, and yearned for a school, where Hindu boys might obtain a decent education, without losing their nationality. Thus originated the Sanskrit College, and, perhaps, this was one of the reasons, which led the orthodox Hindu, Thakurdas, to alter his mind, and forego his former design of sending his son, Isvar Chandra, to the Hindu College.

Isvar Chandra was admitted to the third form of the Vyakaran (Grammar) class of the Sanskrit College. Sanskrit grammar is the door to Sanskrit knowledge. Without a perfect mastery of this subject, one can have no sound knowledge of the Sanskrit literature. It is, therefore, that a