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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