CHAPTER V.

BEGINNING WORK.

The special work for which Alexander Duff had been sent to India, was to set up a missionary College. In doing this, he had to meet with some great difficulties, and some of the most trying of them from his own European friends. This sounds strange, and needs a little explanation.

A great many English people, some of them doubtless sensible and good men, thought that though Hindu boys should certainly be taught, they should only be taught in Oriental languages. They might learn Sanscrit, Bengali, Persian, Arabic, it was said, but what would be the use of teaching them English? Some persons think the same thing now; they would feed boys' minds with stories from the Vedas, they would let them know ancient poems filled with impure legends, and become good Oriental scholars, but to teach English is, in such persons' opinion, to bring in insolent manners, vanity, deceit and infidelity.

Dr. Duff held a very different opinion. He looked on the English tongue as the key to a rich storehouse of science, wisdom and truth, where eager minds and hungry souls might feed, and so grow to manly stature. Why only open presses full of sweetmeats, some of them well-known to be poisoned with vice, while a rich granary might be thrown open to young India? Duff resolved, with the firmness of his resolute nature, that he would teach Hindu boys English; and in this he was encouraged by an enlightened native, Raja Rammohun Roy. The native languages were by no means to be neglected, but the English key to knowledge was to be given to India, the granary was to be opened. Duff saw that it was not true that his pupils must become, as was feared, like those worthless natives who had caught a smattering of English just in order more easily to cheat Europeans lately arrived from the West. It was not true that because some English books, alas! contain the poison of infidelity, that ignorance of the language would keep Bengalis safe from the evil.

We see the truth of this reasoning now, but at that time Duff had to face a strong opposition. Before he opened his school, one of the Missionary's dearest friends came to implore him to give up his design of teaching boys in English. Finding all his arguments and entreaties in vain, the friend rose, and shaking Duff by the hand, uttered this sad prediction:

"You will deluge Calcutta with rogues and villains!"

Oh! What a strange mistake was made by this doubtless well meaning man! India has at this moment no nobler sons than the boys taught in the College of Duff!

The Missionary's first efforts to instruct in Calcutta have been thus described.

Duff "planted himself in the very heart of the native town. Nor did he, as some advised, begin with the erection of a grand building which would do much, it was urged, to attract the pupils. The grand building was left to the future, and a room of a Hindu house, in Chitpore, a small ill-ventilated room, was in the first instance sufficient. Here, a month and a half after landing, Mr. Duff might have been seen in eager converse, mostly by means of an interpreter, with five young men, whom Raja Rammohun Roy had persuaded to attend. The despisers of the day of small things would have read failure over that first day's work. To Mr. Duff it was a hopeful beginning.

"Next day twenty-five appeared, and before a week was over, the room was filled at different periods of the day with two distinct sets of scholars. Two hundred and fifty were thus accommodated, and still many had to be refused."

Here then was the opening work of him who has been described as "the Missionary who knew no Bengali, and taught boys who knew no English."

An amusing account has been given of Duff's early lessons; of course he had to begin with the alphabet. He who was so learned and eloquent was content to stoop to teach boys their A B C. Gathering his class around him, the Master would begin by showing a large pointed O on a frame. Very soon the letter was shouted out by some hundred young tongues. The letter X would follow, the word OX was thus formed, and the merry scholars were delighted to find that they had mastered an English word. The teacher then exercised the minds of his pupils by asking them questions about the animal whose name they had learned. So delighted were the boys at this new, simple, and amusing way of instruction, that when they went out into the streets, and saw an ox pulling a cart, they would shout "Ox! Ox!" at the top of their voices.

This was the first step to something higher. Duff was training his boys to "think;" they were no parrots merely to learn a lesson by rote. Duff opened the intellects of his scholars, and at the same time won their hearts by his kindness. The work wonderfully grew and spread. The hired house was exchanged for a better one, which was—after the lapse of a considerable time—to be succeeded by a beautiful college.

After a year, a public examination was held. Those who were present at it were surprised at reading of the boys, their knowledge of arithmetic, geography and grammar. Those who had expected that but little could possibly have been done in a year, listened with admiration to the prompt and clever answers given by the bright young students.

Here indeed was grand success. The desire of the youth of India to learn under Alexander Duff became greater and greater. As the Master afterwards wrote,—

"The excitement amongst the natives continued unabated. They pursued us along the streets, they threw open the very doors of our palankeens, and poured in their supplications with a pitiful earnestness of countenance that might have softened a heart of stone. They craved for English reading, English knowledge. In broken English some would say, 'me good boy, Oh! take me!' Some 'me want read good books, Oh! take me!'"

Such was the press of new candidates that it was found quite needful only to admit by tickets, and to station two men at the door to see that no boys came in who could not show such a ticket.

Thus was the blessing of God given to the first efforts of the Missionary Duff for the improvement of the boys of India.

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