University of Calcutta

“ The graduates of the Calcutta University are showing very poor results in the I.C.S., I.P.S., and Finance examinations. There is no 74.2 p.c. of passes, no eleven first class men to every third class man for them there, for these are all-India competitions where they all are not examined by their own post-graduate lecturers but by an independent board. ”

“ You may found prizes, scholarships, professorships, and the time may come when even a College may owe its origin to the enlightened liberality of some educated Hindu. It was remarked the other day by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta, himself one of the brightest living ornaments of his own University, that to found a College was a means of transmitting to distant posterity the memory of a name which otherwise would soon have passed away. ”

“ Those who have followed the career of The Modern Review and the trend of its opinions are best able to judge of the truth of the charge which the Calcutta Review brings against it. The M. R. sincerely believes, and has adduced facts from time to time to prove that its belief is not blind bias, that the Calcutta University is not run on anything like ideal lines, that it is controlled by a clique of inner men who have brought higher education in Bengal to a state of uselessness and high-sounding ignorance, in order to feed, let us say, only their sense of achievement. ”

“ The University of Calcutta grants degrees and affiliates to itself the colleges whose students are preparing for the university examinations. Besides the university there are medical, law and technical schools which draw young men from the entire country. The position taken by Lord Curzon in the matter of higher education aroused so much opposition among the native population that an association was formed two years ago for the purpose of raising money to defray the expenses of students desiring to study abroad. ”

“ On his return to Calcutta in 1875 he endeavoured to induce the university of Calcutta to extend its curriculum in physical sciences and to curtail the study of metaphysics. In the same year he acted for a month as principal of the presidency college at Calcutta, but in September he was appointed to officiate as director of public instruction in Bengal, and he succeeded definitely to the post on the death of William Stephen Atkinson in January 1876. ”

“ If the Calcutta University wants to stand in the rank of first class Universities and to place its workers in the foremost rank of the world’s thinkers, then the Post-Graduate Councils, Executive Committees and Boards of Higher Studies must be purged of its packed majorities and entirely reconstituted. ”

“ Thus, after the original sin against truth at the Matric examination, the Calcutta University by a vicious automatic process goes on promoting a huge number of unfit students to the B.A. and M.A. classes, with results which we see around us.
Since Sir Ashutosh gained control of the University, this “futility and sorrowful mockery” of sham degrees has attained to scandalous proportions. He himself presided over practically every board and his will was law to his subordinates. ”

“ No residential non-affiliating university has resources of so vast a magnitude.
Any tall talk of what the University in England are doing must be futile mockery, when we contrast the average national income per head in England and India. Prof. Chakrabarti refers sarcastically to the fact that though Prof. Sarkar has criticised the education given in the Calcutta University, he takes his research students from that very university, who, by the by, are only three in number in five years. ”

“ But I have found that the direct influence which the Calcutta University wields over our language is not strengthening and vitalising but pedantic and narrow. It tries to perpetuate the anachronism of preserving the Pandit-made Begali swathed in grammar wrapings borrowed from a dead language. It is every day becoming a more formidable obsctacle in the way of our boys' acquring that mastery of their mothertongue which is of life and literature. ”

“ The moral effect of the present-day Calcutta examination methods can be best judged from the frank conversation of the student community.
The question is whether the Calcutta University is going to make an honest effort to stop such frauds upon the public, now that it is no longer hypnotised by Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee. Facts will supply the best answer. ”

“ Above all, a course of higher degree teaching tested by a written examination of the ordinary type (which the Calcutta M. A. is in reality) differs essentially from research work (which requires the production by each student of a highly specialised original thesis) . The former requires a fairly large number of students in each class for discussion and seminar work without which the M. A. teaching degenerates into a bigger undergraduate teaching. In Pali M. A., Calcutta, there are only eight students in all,—in spite of its ambitious ramification of special “groups.” ”

“ It would be uncharitable to affirm it is altogether absent, but it would be shutting one's eyes to potent facts to suppose it furnishes the greater part of the motive power. Owing to various causes, such as the want of opportunity, of capacity, and diligence, the great majority of students do not aspire higher than the Entrance examination; but even to pass this successfully is considered a great feat, and many are proud of achieving it. The Calcutta University has a high standard for degrees, and those who acquire them are entitled to be considered well-educated men. ”

“ It is not desirable that the Government should be allowed to come into the field of University management, nor is it fair that the Government should allow the University to be controlled by vested interests and cliques. It is necessary that the Government pay for the advancement of learning; but they should see that things are done properly. We are not suggesting official management of the University. The scholars of the nation should control the University, but in this kingdom of scholars there must be democracy and not oligarchy or tyranny. ”

“ The members of a Board shall be teachers of, or examiners in, or other persons who have a special knowledge of, the subject or subjects with which the Board is concerned. The best way of removing the present anomalous system and duplication is to ask the Faculty of Arts to co-opt one member from the teaching staff of each section of a Post-Graduate department and a specialist in each of these sections, who is not a paid servant of any University or has not been so. ”

“ Sarkar to offer in order to tempt other people to write in favour of University Reform? The public may rest assured that none of the reformers in his private conversation expresses an opinion about the Calcutta University diametrically opposite to that of another man’s article which a Boss may compel him to sign in his own name. ”

“ If the group of teachers in a particular subject have the sole power of fixing the standard of Post-Graduate examinations and the appointment of examiners, then in the interest of their own skins they will fix the standard as low as possible. It is well-known that out of twenty-five lecturers at present employed by the Calcutta University in teaching Ancient Indian History to the Post-Graduate students, the Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture and a few of his assistants, have any real right to teach Post-Graduate students. ”

“ But even if outraged national feeling could be set aside as a sentimental complaint, the other grievances are strong. Calcutta is justly claimed by all Bengalis for their own capital, as well as the capital of India. It is the centre of their culture and trade, of justice and government. It has the best Indian newspapers; it is the home of the best social intercourse; its University sets the standard of knowledge; its High Court is regarded with confidence by all Indians as a sure appeal against injustice. ”

“ In the centre of the educational buildings of Calcutta a marble hall was erected as a memorial of him. Four Duff scholarships were instituted in the university. A portrait was placed in one college, a bust in another. A few Scotchmen in India and adjacent countries offered him a gift of 11,000l., the capital of which he destined for the invalided missionaries of his own church. Conspicuous among those who gave utterance to their esteem for him as he was leaving them was Sir Henry Maine, who had succeeded to the post of vice-chancellor of the university. ”

“ A University was established at Calcutta, another at Madras, and a third at Bombay, for the conduct of examinations and the granting of degrees. In a word, secular education was proceeding on a liberal scale, and some Hindus, who took high degrees, got appointments in the revenue and judicial departments, whilst others entered the service of Asiatic rulers, and rose to the rank of ministers. ”

“ Whatever indirect support the Government may get in not paying anything to the University, they will get because many people have no faith in the present rulers of the University. It is believed by a large section of the educated public, that the University is run for the benefit of numerous worthless people, who have found employment not on the grounds of great scholarship, research work or brilliant academic career. ”

“ The result must be in the hands of your own people; and we must look to the leaders of society that what we think reforms shall have their support to be judiciously carried out. No greater bond can exist between the Natives of this country and their foreign rulers than the common desire for their future advantage. Gentlemen, finally, the Supreme Government have empowered this University, with those of Calcutta and Madras, to confer honorary degrees. This power will enable the University to reward merit in many quarters in which at present no recognition is possible. ”

“ People who give anxious thought to the future of Bengal have been asking themselves whether the Calcutta University is any nearer reform and whether realities are asserting themselves in the counsels of its present Senate. ”

“ The Calcutta University alone has, in its affiliated colleges, more students registered than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Toronto combined. In that city, which is the centre of the present unrest, there are 12,000 young men in the Colleges, and 30,000 pupils in the High Schools. This host of [7] young men and women are imbibing modern ideas of manliness, independence, and liberty such as India never knew in the past; and they go out into the world with new ambitions for their country and inspired with not a little "divine unrest." ”

“ The cause of higher studies will suffer as long as abler men do not go into the University and stay there contented and with the conviction that they are secure in their posts so long as they do not cease to carry on their work properly and whole-heartedly. Even some very great scholars in the University do not know where they stand and when they would be asked to leave. ”

“ The party in power" know that their life depends upon the existence of the corrupt boroughs and the system of manipulation of nominations, their ability to pack the Boards of Studies and the Syndicate with their paid men or men whose interests are bound up with their own existence. If education is to be reformed in Bengal, then fresh legislation about the Calcutta University is absolutely and immediately necessary. ”

“ What is no doubt really wanted is the wholesale removal of all the Colleges connected with the Calcutta University altogether from their present surroundings, but to refuse to make a beginning with the Presidency College is merely to prove once more that le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. ”

“ If owing to reasons, into which we need not go here, the appointment of professors and lecturers at the University up to the present time, has not been guided by ideal principles, that is no reason why steps should not be taken to undo the evil. Bad appointments may be considered as a bad debt and the University should formulate a scheme, something like a sinking fund and even at some monetary loss, whereby higher education may recover its health. It is foolish on the part of those who want retrenchment to judge the value of a branch of studies by the number of students it attracts ”

“ The conscious and unconscious helpers of the Government cause are expressing the opinion that the University is extravagant and is running a large number of departments which are useless as they lack a proper number of students ”

“ For years we have pointed out irregularities and defects in the working of the Calcutta university, but there has been no improvement, for which one reason is that there is no vigilant public opinion. And what little public opinion there is can not work in the absence of adequate information. ”

“ The climate is hot and humid, drier at Behar, and passing through every gradation up to the snow-line. The people are engaged in agriculture, raising indigo, jute, opium, rice, tea, cotton, sugar, &c. Coal, iron, and copper mines are worked in Burdwân. The manufactures are of cotton and jute. The population is mixed in blood and speech, but Hindus speaking Bengali predominate. Education is further advanced than elsewhere; there are fine colleges affiliated to Calcutta University, and many other scholastic institutions. The capital, Calcutta, is the capital of India ”