Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1.djvu/441

 of the disappointment was attributed to me that I was drawing him away from the sole duty of a student—confinement to books. I always felt that the days of one’s education at school or college ought not to be wholly devoted to book-lore and that there should be strenuous efforts in acquiring knowledge and laying in ideas and judgments which in after-life would help the personality to develop in different directions. It is interesting how a student occupied in a diversity of pursuits passed his examinations and went up to the highest class without the least hitch. In the B. A. he topped the list in English in the whole of the Northern Circars and was awarded the MacDonald Gold Medal. In Telugu, he was known to be, of course as may very well be expected of a member of Mokkapati family, a Telugu scholar. With him Telugu scholarship was a hereditary acquisition and not a personal accomplishment. We all know how his family is noted for scholarship in these parts and a grand-uncle of his had the renown of being cyclopaedic in Sanskrit lore.