At the Social Gathering held on the 16th December 1915, in the compound
of the Calcutta Presidency College, to meet him after his highly
successful tour through Europe, America and Japan, Dr. Bose spoke as
follows:--
He said that it was his rare good fortune to have been amply rewarded
for the hardships and struggles that he had gone through by the generous
and friendly feelings of his colleagues and the love and trust of his
pupils. He would say a few words regarding his experience in the
Presidency College for more than three decades, which he hoped would
serve to bring all who loved the Presidency College--present and past
pupils and their teachers--in closer bonds of union. He would speak to
them what he had learnt after years of patient labour, that the
impossible became possible by persistent and determined efforts and
adherence to duty and entire selflessness. The greatest obstacle often
arises out of foolish misunderstanding of each other's ideals, such as
the differing points of view, first of the Indian teacher, then of his
western colleague, and last but not least, the point of view of the
Indian pupils themselves. In all these respects his experience had been
wide and varied. He had both been an undergraduate and a graduate of the
Calcutta University with vivid realization of an Indian student's
aspirations; he had then become a student of conservative Cambridge and
democratic London. And during his frequent visits to Europe and America
he had become acquainted with the inner working of the chief
universities of the world. Finally he had the unique privilege of being
connected with the Presidency College for thirty-one years, from which
no temptation could sever him. He had the deepest sense of the sacred
vocation of the teacher. They may well be proud of a consecrated
life--consecrated to what? To the guidance of young lives, to the making
of men, to the shaping and determining of souls in the dawn of their
existence, with their dreams yet to be realised.
Education in the West and in the East showed how different customs and
ways might yet express a common ideal. In India the teacher was, like
the head of a family, reverenced by his pupils so deeply as to show
itself by touching the feet of their master. This in no servile act if
we come to think of it; since it is the expression of the pupils' desire
for his master's blessings, called down from heaven in an almost
religious communion of souls. This consecration is renewed every day,
calling forth patient foresight of the teacher. As the father shows no
special favour, but lets his love and compassion go out to the weakest,
so it is with the Indian teacher and his pupil. There is the relation
something very human, something very ennobling. He would say it was
essentially human rather than distinctively Eastern. For do we not find
something very like it in Mediaeval Europe? There too before the coming
of the modern era with its lack of leisure and its adherence to system
and machinery, there was a bond as sacred between the master and his
pupils. Luther used to salute his class every morning with lifted hat,
"I bow to you, great men of the future, famous administrators yet to be,
men of learning, men of character who will take on themselves the burden
of the world." Such is the prophetic vision given to the greatest of
teachers. The modern teacher from England will set before him an ideal
not less exalted--regarding his pupils as his comrades, he as an
Englishman will instill into them greater virility and a greater public
spirit. This will be his special contribution to the forming of our
Indian youths.
Turning to the Indian students he could say that it was his good fortune
never to have had the harmonious relation between teacher and pupils in
any way ruffled during his long connection with them for more than three
decades. The real secret of success was in trying at times to see things
from the student's point of view and to cultivate a sense of humour
enabling him to enjoy the splendid self-assurance of youth with a
feeling not unmixed with envy. In essential matters, however, one could
not wish to meet a better type or one more quickly susceptible to finer
appeals to right conduct and duty as Indian students. Their faults are
rather of omission than of commission, since in his experience he formed
that the moment they realised their teachers to be their friends, they
responded instantly and did not flinch from any test, however severe,
that could be laid on them.
--_The Presidency College Magazine._ _Vol. II, pages_ 339-341.