Page:Vidyasagar, the Great Indian Educationist and Philanthropist.djvu/143

 appreciative of his merits. The schools and colleges in Bengal and elsewhere closed in honour of the deceased. The students of Metropolitan Institution, among others, went into mourning. The merchants and shopkeepers closed their places of business. Various condolence meetings were called in all important towns of India, the foremost men of the time taking the chair. It was decided to award prizes and found scholarships for students and open libraries and hospitals to do honour to the memory of the great man.

A month after a grand meeting was held in the Town Hall of Calcutta presided over by Sir Charles Elliott, the Lieutenant-Governor (1890-'95), to give expression to the general sorrow and to consider the best means of keeping up the name of the Pundit. All orders of the community were present. It was decided to erect a public monument of the first Principal of the Sanskrit College. The statue in spotless marble, which so long decorated the vestibule of the