Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/25

Rh Indian members of his committee strongly opposed the suggestion, saying, that 'anything said or written in the vernacular tongue would be degraded and despised in consequence of the medium through which it was conveyed.' It was not till 1847 that the Vetala Panchabinsati the first book in pure Bengali was published.

The establishment of the Fort William College, of the Hindu College and of the various Missionary Schools gave a considerable impetus to the cause of education. Government, anxious to fulfil its part, inaugurated a scheme for a Sanskrit College in Calcutta, an annual grant of a lac of rupees being set aside for the revival of classical learning. Ram Mohan, convinced that it was along modern lines that the education of his countrymen must proceed if they were to grapple adequately with modern conditions, wrote to Lord Amherst, the Governor General, urging the necessity of adopting the study of western sciences through the medium of English. "If it had been intended to keep the British nation from real knowledge" he wrote, "the Baconian philosophy would not have been allowed to displace the system of the schoolmen which was the best calculated to perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner the Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in darkness, if such had been the policy of the British legislature. But as the improvement of the native population