Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/148

94 brains, these potations enabled them to discuss with keener intellects and greater zest the important questions of the day. The young men were all actuated by an ardent desire for knowledge, and Ram Gopal Ghosh’s sitting-room was invariably their reading-room. Nor were they unmindful of the intellectual needs of others. They edited for some time two journals, called the Gyananameshum (Search after knowledge) and The Bengal Spectator, which contained columns both in English and Bengali, and established a circulating library and an Epistolary Association. The former consisted of good books bought with the money raised among themselves, and according to the rules of the latter they communicated to one another by letters the gist of what they had read during any particular period.

Not content with these arrangements, they started a club, in 1838, the object of which was the acquisition of knowledge and the promotion of brotherly feelings among themselves. This club intended to work in a more general and comprehensive way than the “Academic Association,” still extant under the presidency of David Hare. We here mention one of its rules which shows how earnest the young men were. It was that a member, nominated as the leading speaker in any future meeting, but failing to keep the appointment, without sufficient cause, should be subject to a fine. The club was named the “Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge”; and, the inaugural meeting was held on the 12th of March, in the Sanskrit College hall, lent by Babu Ram Kamal Sen, then secretary to the college, with Babu Tara Chand Chakravartti in the chair. To give the reader a fair idea of the subjects generally discussed in the association we place before him the following list of the topics at different times handled by some of the leading speakers:—