Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/24

4 Rs. 10 per mensem. But though he was thus called upon to waste his abilities in the cramping atmosphere of vernacular school-life, he never neglected his duties nor did he abandon his favourite pursuit of knowledge. All his leisure was devoted to the study of Mathematics, Sanskrit and Marathi; and his mastery over the several branches of these subjects enabled him to bring out two books, the one on Trigonometry and the other on Marathi Grammar. But neither the scholarship of Gangadharpant nor his conscientious discharge of duties could make his superiors forget or overlook his stern sense of personal independence. The inevitable consequence followed: he was neglected in official preferment. It was only after full 17 years of service, when his claims could not with decency be set aside, that he was rewarded with the much-coveted post of an Assistant Deputy Educational Inspector and was transferred to Poona (1866).

The intensely religious vein of the mother and the stem sense of personal independence of the father reflected themselves in the wilful nature of the boy, a characteristic which has played no insignificant part in his future career. This delicate child of a delicate mother was not put to school before he was 11, not certainly for want of facilities—Ratnagiri was a District town—but evidently because, the father, himself a school-master, intended to give his son a good grounding in Sanskrit and vernacular in the unfettered freedom of home-life. Bal proved wonderfully responsive to his father's instructions. He loved his childish plays no doubt, but, eveN at that age the ponderous volumes