Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/156

 Hall or the Public Library has since meant the same thing.

Let us now return to the point at which we left the young reformers of Bengal in 1838. In spite of the strong opposition they had to meet, they firmly held to the career they had marked out for themselves. They espoused the cause of every beneficial movement, no matter if it had been projected by the party hostile to them. For example, when the Hindu College Committee, most of the members of which were conservative Hindus of the first water, and unfriendly to them, proposed to change the infant class in the Collegiate School into a Vernacular School, they put their shoulders to the wheel, and the project owed its success chiefly to their endeavours. The foundation of the schoolhouse was laid on 14th July 1838.

Their activity was not circumscribed within the bounds of their native country. To enlist in its cause the sympathies of the English public at home they made their voices heard on the banks of the Thames.

Retaining the favourable impressions they had made on him, Mr Adam, the Unitarian friend of late Raja Rammohan Roy, of whom we have already spoken, on his return to England, organised, in July 1839, an association called the “British Indian Association,” with the object of making Englishmen familiar with the experiences of the Indians under British rule, and of pointing out to them their duties to the so-called “Gentoos.” After two years’ useful existence, in 1841, the association commenced publishing a monthly journal, named The British Indian Advocate, under the editorship of Mr Adam. Speeches were also delivered by the members of the association in different parts of England. Ram Gopal Ghosh and some of his friends used to send telling articles to The British