Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/81

Rh occupied with his office work, it was not possible for him to devote the attention to Ramtanu's education that he wished, and from the first it had been his great desire to get him admitted as a free student into the institution which was then known as the Society's School, but which afterwards bore and still bears the name of the Hare School.

David Hare, a Scotsman who had come out to Calcutta as a watchmaker in 1800 at the age of twenty-five, had become one of the pioneers of education in Bengal. A man of no great education himself, he had become firmly impressed with the belief that a sound English education was essential to the real intellectual development of Bengal. Associated with some of the leading Bengali gentlemen of the day, among whom one of the foremost was Ram Mohan Ray, he succeeded in starting an English school for Indian students in the centre of Calcutta. The Hindu College was opened on the 20th of January, 1817, and in the following year a society was formed for opening English and Vernacular schools in various parts of Calcutta. Selling out his business, he bought a piece of land sufficient for his support, and being thus free from worldly cares, he was able to devote his whole attention to his pet scheme of education. Under his energetic guidance other schools were soon founded in various parts of Calcutta and so great was Mr. Hare's interest in their welfare that it was his practice to go round to visit them in his