Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/109

 wrote to the Chief Justice to strike out his name. Another meeting was held on the 21st of the same month, at which it was finally resolved that the Hindu College should be established; and a new Committee was formed, with ten Englishmen and twenty Hindus. Lieutenant Irving and Babu Baidyanath Mukerjee were its joint-secretaries. The Hindu College began its work on 20th January 1817. Another school was founded at Chinsurah, by Rev. Robert May, of the London Missionary Society, in 1814, with only sixteen boys. But the number soon increased. At length Mr Forbes, Commissioner of Hughli, gave to the school a part of the Dutch fort at Chinsurah. There was soon such a large influx of students that Mr May was compelled to open several branch schools. The total number of pupils in all these institutions was 951, and Mr Forbes, satisfied with their efficiency, secured for them Government aid amounting to 600 rupees a month.

The Serampur College was founded by the Baptist Missionaries in 1815. Besides this they, with the help of Rammohan Rai and Dwarkanath Tagore, opened many schools here and there in other parts of Bengal. The former had a great dread of purely secular education. He knew the wholesome influence of religious training, and that was the reason why he helped the missionaries so much in their educational work. It was for this reason too that Alexander Duff afterwards found a friend and coadjutor in him.

In 1814 a rich Hindu of Benares, Jagatnarain Ghoshal by name, at his death bequeathed to the London Missionary Society 20,000 rupees, with the condition that it should support an English school. The London Missionary Society accepted the trust. The school has now been raised to the status of a college, but it is no longer