CAREY AS AN EDUCATOR--THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN THE EAST
1818-1830
A college the fourth and perfecting corner-stone of the mission--Carey
on the importance of English in 1800--Anticipates Duff's policy of
undermining Brahmanism--New educational era begun by the charter of
1813 and Lord Hastings--Plan of the Serampore College in
1818--Anticipates the Anglo-Orientalism of the Punjab University--The
building described by John Marshman--Bishop Middleton follows--The
Scottish and other colleges--Action of the Danish Government--The royal
charter--Visit of Maharaja Serfojee--Death of Ward, Charles Grant and
Bentley--Bishop Heber and his catholic letter--Dr. Carey's
reply--Progress of the college--Cause of its foundation--The college
directly and essentially a missionary undertaking--Action of the
Brotherhood from the first vindicated--Carey appeals to posterity--The
college and the systematic study of English--Carey author of the Grant
in Aid system--Economy in administering missions--The Serampore Mission
has eighteen stations and fifty missionaries of all kinds--Subsequent
history of the Serampore College to 1883.
The first act of Carey and Marshman when their Committee took up a
position of hostility to their self-denying independence, was to
complete and perpetuate the mission by a college. As planned by Carey
in 1793, the constitution had founded the enterprise on these three
corner-stones--preaching the Gospel in the mother tongue of the people;
translating the Bible into all the languages of Southern and Eastern
Asia; teaching the young, both heathen and Christian, both boys and
girls, in vernacular schools. But Carey had not been a year in
Serampore when, having built well on all three, he began to see that a
fourth must be laid some day in the shape of a college. He and his
colleagues had founded and supervised, by the year 1818, no fewer than
126 native schools, containing some 10,000 boys, of whom more than 7000
were in and around Serampore. His work among the pundit class, both in
Serampore and in the college of Fort William, and the facilities in the
mission-house for training natives, Eurasians, and the missionaries'
sons to be preachers, translators, and teachers, seemed to meet the
immediate want. But as every year the mission in all its forms grew
and the experience of its leaders developed, the necessity of creating
a college staff in a building adapted to the purpose became more
urgent. Only thus could the otherwise educated natives be reached, and
the Brahmanical class especially be permanently influenced. Only thus
could a theological institute be satisfactorily conducted to feed the
native Church.
On 10th October 1800 the missionaries had thus written home:--"There
appears to be a favourable change in the general temper of the people.
Commerce has roused new thoughts and awakened new energies; so that
hundreds, if we could skilfully teach them gratis, would crowd to learn
the English language. We hope this may be in our power some time, and
may be a happy means of diffusing the gospel. At present our hands are
quite full." A month after that Carey wrote to Fuller:--"I have long
thought whether it would not be desirable for us to set up a school to
teach the natives English. I doubt not but a thousand scholars would
come. I do not say this because I think it an object to teach them the
English tongue; but, query, is not the universal inclination of the
Bengalees to learn English a favourable circumstance which may be
improved to valuable ends? I only hesitate at the expense." Thirty
years after Duff reasoned in the same way, after consulting Carey, and
acted at once in Calcutta.
By 1816, when, on 25th June, Carey wrote a letter, for his colleagues
and himself, to the Board of the American Baptist General Convention,
the great idea, destined slowly to revolutionise not only India, but
China, Japan, and the farther East, had taken this form:--
"We know not what your immediate expectations are relative to the
Burman empire, but we hope your views are not confined to the immediate
conversion of the natives by the preaching of the Word. Could a church
of converted natives be obtained at Rangoon, it might exist for a
while, and be scattered, or perish for want of additions. From all we
have seen hitherto we are ready to think that the dispensations of
Providence point to labours that may operate, indeed, more slowly on
the population, but more effectually in the end: as knowledge, once put
into fermentation, will not only influence the part where it is first
deposited, but leaven the whole lump. The slow progress of conversion
in such a mode of teaching the natives may not be so encouraging, and
may require, in all, more faith and patience; but it appears to have
been the process of things, in the progress of the Reformation, during
the reigns of Henry, Edward, Elizabeth, James, and Charles. And should
the work of evangelising India be thus slow and silently progressive,
which, however, considering the age of the world, is not perhaps very
likely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for
all our toils. We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but
persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if
we faint not.'
"And then, very dear brethren, when it shall be said of the seat of our
labours, the infamous swinging-post is no longer erected; the widow
burns no more on the funeral pile; the obscene dances and songs are
seen and heard no more; the gods are thrown to the moles and to the
bats, and Jesus is known as the God of the whole land; the poor Hindoo
goes no more to the Ganges to be washed from his filthiness, but to the
fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; the temples are forsaken; the
crowds say, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord, and He shall teach
us of His ways, and we will walk in His statutes;' the anxious Hindoos
no more consume their property, their strength, and their lives, in
vain pilgrimages, but they come at once to Him who can save to 'the
uttermost'; the sick and the dying are no more dragged to the Ganges,
but look to the Lamb of God, and commit their souls into His faithful
hands; the children, no more sacrificed to idols, are become 'the seed
of the Lord, that He may be glorified'; the public morals are improved;
the language of Canaan is learnt; benevolent societies are formed;
civilisation and salvation walk arm in arm together; the desert
blossoms; the earth yields her increase; angels and glorified spirits
hover with joy over India, and carry ten thousand messages of love from
the Lamb in the midst of the throne; and redeemed souls from the
different villages, towns, and cities of this immense country,
constantly add to the number, and swell the chorus of the redeemed,
'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
unto HIM be the glory;'--when this grand result of the labours of God's
servants in India shall be realised, shall we then think that we have
laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought? Surely not. Well,
the decree is gone forth! 'My word shall prosper in the thing whereunto
I sent it.'"
India was being prepared for the new missionary policy. On what we may
call its literary side Carey had been long busy. On its more strictly
educational side, the charter of 1813 had conceded what had been
demanded in vain by a too feeble public opinion in the charter of 1793.
A clause was inserted at the last moment declaring that a sum of not
less than a lakh of rupees (or ten thousand pounds) a year was to be
set apart from the surplus revenues, and applied to the revival and
improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives
of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories there. The
clause was prompted by an Anglo-Indian of oriental tastes, who hoped
that the Brahman and his Veda might thus be made too strong for the
Christian missionary and the Bible as at last tolerated under the 13th
resolution. For this reason, and because the money was to be paid only
out of any surplus, the directors and their friends offered no
opposition. For the quarter of a century the grant was given, and was
applied in the spirit of its proposer. But the scandals of its
application became such that it was made legally by Bentinck and
Macaulay, and practically by Duff, the fountain of a river of knowledge
and life which is flooding the East.
The first result of the liberalism of the charter of 1813 and the
generous views of Lord Hastings was the establishment in Calcutta by
the Hindoos themselves, under the influence of English secularists, of
the Hindoo, now the Presidency College. Carey and Marshman were not in
Calcutta, otherwise they must have realised even then what they left to
Duff to act on fourteen years after, the importance of English not only
as an educating but as a Christianising instrument. But though not so
well adapted to the immediate need of the reformation which they had
begun, and though not applied to the very heart of Bengal in Calcutta,
the prospectus of their "College for the Instruction of Asiatic,
Christian, and Other Youth in Eastern Literature and European Science,"
which they published on the 15th July 1818, sketched a more perfect and
complete system than any since attempted, if we except John Wilson's
almost unsupported effort in Bombay. It embraced the classical or
learned languages of the Hindoos and Mohammedans, Sanskrit and Arabic;
the English language and literature, to enable the senior students "to
dive into the deepest recesses of European science, and enrich their
own language with its choicest treasures"; the preparation of manuals
of science, philosophy, and history in the learned and vernacular
languages of the East; a normal department to train native teachers and
professors; as the crown of all, a theological institute to equip the
Eurasian and native Christian students, by a quite unsectarian course
of study, in apologetics, exegetics, and the Bible languages, to be
missionaries to the Brahmanical classes. While the Government and the
Scottish missionaries have in the university and grant in aid systems
since followed too exclusively the English line, happily supplanting
the extreme Orientalists, it is the glory of the Serampore Brotherhood
that they sought to apply both the Oriental and the European, the one
as the form, the other as the substance, so as to evangelise and
civilise the people through their mother tongue. They were the
Vernacularists in the famous controversy between the Orientalists and
the Anglicists raised by Duff. In 1867 the present writer in vain
attempted to induce the University of Calcutta to follow them in this.
It was left to Sir Charles Aitchison, when he wielded the power and the
influence of the Lieutenant-Governor, to do in 1882 what the Serampore
College would have accomplished had its founders been young instead of
old men, by establishing the Punjab University.
Lord Hastings and even Sir John Malcolm took a personal interest in the
Serampore College. The latter, who had visited the missionaries since
his timid evidence before the House of Lords in 1813, wrote to
them:--"I wish I could be certain that your successors in the serious
task you propose would have as much experience as you and your
fellow-labourers at Serampore--that they would walk, not run, in the
same path--I would not then have to state one reserve." Lord Hastings
in Council passed an order encouraging the establishment of a European
Medical Professorship in Serampore College, and engaged to assist in
meeting the permanent expense of the chair when established. His
Excellency "interrupted pressing avocations" to criticise both the
architectural plan of the building and the phraseology of the draft of
the first report, and his suggestions were followed. Adopting one of
the Grecian orders as most suitable to a tropical climate, the Danish
Governor's colleague, Major Wickedie, planned the noble Ionic building
which was then, and is still, the finest edifice of the kind in British
India.
"The centre building, intended for the public rooms, was a hundred and
thirty feet in length, and a hundred and twenty in depth. The hall on
the ground floor, supported on arches, and terminated at the south by a
bow, was ninety-five feet in length, sixty-six in breadth, and twenty
in height. It was originally intended for the library, but is now
occupied by the classes. The hall above, of the same dimensions and
twenty-six feet in height, was supported by two rows of Ionic columns;
it was intended for the annual examinations. Of the twelve side-rooms
above and below, eight were of spacious dimensions, twenty-seven feet
by thirty-five. The portico which fronted the river was composed of
six columns, more than four feet in diameter at the base. The
staircase-room was ninety feet in length, twenty-seven in width, and
forty-seven in height, with two staircases of cast-iron, of large size
and elegant form, prepared at Birmingham. The spacious grounds were
surrounded with iron railing, and the front entrance was adorned with a
noble gate, likewise cast at Birmingham...
"The scale on which it was proposed to establish the college, and to
which the size of the building was necessarily accommodated,
corresponded with the breadth of all the other enterprises of the
Serampore missionaries,--the mission, the translations, and the
schools. While Mr. Ward was engaged in making collections for the
support of the institution in England, he wrote to his brethren, 'the
buildings you must raise in India;' and they determined to respond to
the call, and, if possible, to augment their donation from £2500 to
£8000, and to make a vigorous effort to erect the buildings from their
own funds. Neither the ungenerous suspicion, nor the charge of
unfaithfulness, with which their character was assailed in England, was
allowed to slacken the prosecution of this plan. It was while their
reputation was under an eclipse in England, and the benevolent
hesitated to subscribe to the society till they were assured that their
donations would not be mixed up with the funds of the men at Serampore,
that those men were engaged in erecting a noble edifice for the
promotion of religion and knowledge, at their own cost, the expense of
which eventually grew under their hands to the sum of £15,000. To the
charge of endeavouring to alienate from the society premises of the
value of £3000, their own gift, they replied by erecting a building at
five times the cost, and vesting it in eleven trustees,--seven besides
themselves. It was thus they vindicated the purity of their motives in
their differences with the society, and endeavoured to silence the
voice of calumny. They were the first who maintained that a college
was an indispensable appendage to an Indian mission."
The next to follow Carey in this was Bishop Middleton, who raised funds
to erect a chaste Gothic pile beside the Botanic Garden, since to him
the time appeared "to have arrived when it is desirable that some
missionary endeavours, at least, should have some connection with the
Church establishment." That college no longer exists, in spite of the
saintly scholarship of such Principals as Mill and Kay; the building is
now utilised as a Government engineering college. But in Calcutta the
Duff College, with the General Assembly's Institution (now united as
the Scottish Churches College), the Cathedral Mission Divinity School,
and the Bhowanipore Institution; in Bombay the Wilson College, in
Madras the Christian College, in Nagpoor the Hislop College, in Agra
St. John's College, in Lahore the Church Mission Divinity School, in
Lucknow the Reid College, and others, bear witness to the fruitfulness
of the Alma Mater of Serampore.
The Serampore College began with thirty-seven students, of whom
nineteen were native Christians and the rest Hindoos. When the
building was occupied in 1821 Carey wrote to his son:--"I pray that the
blessing of God may attend it, and that it may be the means of
preparing many for an important situation in the Church of God...The
King of Denmark has written letters signed with his own hand to
Brothers Ward, Marshman, and myself, and has sent each of us a gold
medal as a token of his approbation. He has also made over the house
in which Major Wickedie resides, between Sarkies's house and ours, to
us three in perpetuity for the college. Thus Divine generosity appears
for us and supplies our expectations." The missionaries had declined
the Order of the Dannebrog. When, in 1826, Dr. Marshman visited
Europe, one of his first duties was to acknowledge this gift to Count
Moltke, Danish Minister in London and ancestor of the great strategist,
and to ask for a royal charter. The Minister and Count Schulin, whose
wife had been a warm friend of Mrs. Carey, happened to be on board the
steamer in which Dr. Marshman, accompanied by Christopher Anderson,
sailed to Copenhagen. Raske, the Orientalist, who had visited
Serampore, was a Professor in the University there. The vellum charter
was prepared among them, empowering the College Council, consisting of
the Governor of Serampore and the Brotherhood, to confer degrees like
those of the Universities of Copenhagen and Kiel, but not carrying the
rank in the State implied in Danish degrees unless with the sanction of
the Crown. The King, in the audience which he gave, informed Dr.
Marshman that, having in 1801 promised the mission protection, he had
hitherto refused to transfer Serampore to the East India Company, since
that would prevent him from keeping his word. When, in 1845, the
Company purchased both Tranquebar and Serampore, it could be no longer
dangerous to the Christian Mission, but the Treaty expressly provided
that the College should retain all its powers, and its Christian
character, under the Danish charter, which it does. It was thus the
earliest degree-conferring college in Asia, but it has never exercised
the power. Christian VIII., then the heir to the throne, showed
particular interest in the Bible translation work of Carey. When, in
1884, the Evangelical Alliance held its session in Copenhagen, and was
received by Christian IX.,[28] it did well, by special resolution, to
express the gratitude of Protestant Christendom to Denmark for such
courageous and continued services to the first Christian mission from
England to India.
How Dr. Carey valued the gift of the King is seen in this writing, on
the lining of the case of the gold medal, dated 6th November 1823:--
"It is my desire that this medal, and the letter of the King of
Denmark, which accompanied it, be given at my death to my dear son
Jonathan, that he may keep it for my sake."
The letter of King Frederic VI. is as follows:--
"MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR ET PROFESSEUR WILLIAM CAREY--
C'est avec beaucoup d'intérêt que nous avons appris le mérite qu'en
qualité de membre dirigeant de la Société de la Mission, vous avez
acquis, ainsi que vos co-directeurs, et les effèts salutaires que vos
louables travaux ont produits et partout où votre influence a pu
atteindre. Particulierement informés qu'en votre dite qualité vous
avez contribué a effectuer bien des choses utiles, dont l'établissement
à Frédéricsnagore a à se louer, et voulant vous certifier que nous vous
en avons gré, nous avons chargé le chef du dit établissement,--notre
Lieutenant-Colonel Kraefting, de vous remettre cette lettre; et en même
temps une medaille d'or, comme une marque de notre bienveillance et de
notre protection, que vous assurera toujours une conduite meritoire.
"Sur ce nous prions Dieu de vous avoir dans Sa sainte et digne
garde.--Votre affectionné FREDERIC.
"Copenhague, ce 7 Juin 1820.
"Au Docteur et Professeur WILLIAM CAREY,
Membre dirigeant de la Société de la Mission à Frédéricsnagore."
The new College formed an additional attraction to visitors to the
mission. One of these, in 1821, was the Maharaja Serfojee, the prince
of Tanjore, whom Schwartz had tended, but who was on pilgrimage to
Benares. Hand in hand with Dr. Carey he walked through the missionary
workshop, noticed specially the pundits who were busy with translation
to which Lord Hastings had directed his attention, and dilated with
affectionate enthusiasm on the deeds and the character of the apostle
of South India. In 1823 cholera suddenly cut off Mr. Ward in the midst
of his labours. The year after that Charles Grant died, leaving a
legacy to the mission. Almost his last act had been to write to Carey
urging him to publish a reply to the attack of the Abbé Dubois on all
Christian missions. Another friend was removed in Bentley, the scholar
who put Hindoo astronomy in its right place. Bishop Heber began his
too brief episcopate in 1824, when the college, strengthened by the
abilities of the Edinburgh professor, John Mack, was accomplishing all
that its founders had projected. The Bishop of all good Christian men
never penned a finer production--not even his hymns--than this letter,
called forth by a copy of the Report on the College sent to him by Dr.
Marshman:--
"I have seldom felt more painfully than while reading your appeal on
the subject of Serampore College, the unhappy divisions of those who
are the servants of the same Great Master! Would to God, my honoured
brethren, the time were arrived when not only in heart and hope, but
visibly, we shall be one fold, as well as under one shepherd! In the
meantime I have arrived, after some serious considerations, at the
conclusion that I shall serve our great cause most effectually by doing
all which I can for the rising institutions of those with whom my
sentiments agree in all things, rather than by forwarding the labours
of those from whom, in some important points, I am conscientiously
constrained to differ. After all, why do we differ? Surely the
leading points which keep us asunder are capable of explanation or of
softening, and I am expressing myself in much sincerity of
heart--(though, perhaps, according to the customs of the world, I am
taking too great a freedom with men my superiors both in age and in
talent), that I should think myself happy to be permitted to explain,
to the best of my power, those objections which keep you and your
brethren divided from that form of church government which I believe to
have been instituted by the apostles, and that admission of infants to
the Gospel Covenants which seem to me to be founded on the expressions
and practice of Christ himself. If I were writing thus to worldly men
I know I should expose myself to the imputation of excessive vanity or
impertinent intrusion. But of you and Dr. Carey I am far from judging
as of worldly men, and I therefore say that, if we are spared to have
any future intercourse, it is my desire, if you permit, to discuss with
both of you, in the spirit of meekness and conciliation, the points
which now divide us, convinced that, if a reunion of our Churches could
be effected, the harvest of the heathen would ere long be reaped, and
the work of the Lord would advance among them with a celerity of which
we have now no experience.
"I trust, at all events, you will take this hasty note as it is
intended, and believe me, with much sincerity, your friend and servant
in Christ, REGINALD CALCUTTA.
"3rd June 1824."
This is how Carey reciprocated these sentiments, when writing to Dr.
Ryland:--
"SERAMPORE, 6th July 1824.
"I rejoice to say that there is the utmost harmony between all the
ministers of all denominations. Bishop Heber is a man of liberal
principles and catholic spirit. Soon after his arrival in the country
he wrote me a very friendly letter, expressing his wish to maintain all
the friendship with us which our respective circumstances would allow.
I was then confined, but Brother Marshman called on him. As soon as I
could walk without crutches I did the same, and had much free
conversation with him. Some time after this he wrote us a very
friendly letter, saying that it would highly gratify him to meet
Brother Marshman and myself, and discuss in a friendly manner all the
points of difference between himself and us, adding that there was
every reason to expect much good from a calm and temperate discussion
of these things, and that, if we could at any rate come so near to each
other as to act together, he thought it would have a greater effect
upon the spread of the gospel among the heathen than we could calculate
upon. He was then just setting out on a visitation which will in all
probability take a year. We, however, wrote him a reply accepting his
proposal, and Brother Marshman expressed a wish that the discussion
might be carried on by letter, to which in his reply he partly
consented. I have such a disinclination to writing, and so little
leisure for it, that I wished the discussion to be viva voce; it will,
however, make little difference, and all I should have to say would be
introduced into the letter."
On the death of Mr. Ward and departure of Dr. Marshman for Great
Britain on furlough, after twenty-six years' active labours, his son,
Mr. John Marshman, was formally taken into the Brotherhood. He united
with Dr. Carey in writing to the Committee two letters, dated 21st
January 1826 and 15th November 1827, which show the progress of the
college and the mission from the first as one independent agency, and
closed with Carey's appeal to the judgment of posterity.
"About seven years ago we felt convinced of the necessity of erecting a
College for native Christian youth, in order to consolidate our plans
for the spread of gospel truth in India; and, as we despaired of being
able to raise from public subscriptions a sum equal to the expense of
the buildings, we determined to erect them from our own private funds.
Up to the present date they have cost us nearly £14,000, and the
completion of them will require a further sum of about £5000, which, if
we are not enabled to advance from our own purse, the undertaking must
remain incomplete. With this burden upon our private funds we find it
impossible any longer to meet, to the same extent as formerly, the
demands of our out-stations. The time is now arrived when they must
cease to be wholly dependent on the private donations of three
individuals, and must be placed on the strength of public
contributions. As two out of three of the members of our body are now
beyond the age of fifty-seven, it becomes our duty to place them on a
more permanent footing, as it regards their management, their support,
and their increase. We have therefore associated with ourselves, in
the superintendence of them, the Rev. Messrs. Mack and Swan, the two
present professors of the college, with the view of eventually leaving
them entirely in the hands of the body of professors, of whom the
constitution of the college provides that there shall be an unbroken
succession.
"To secure an increase of missionaries in European habits we have
formed a class of theological students in the college, under the
Divinity Professor. It contains at present six promising youths, of
whose piety we have in some cases undoubted evidence, in others
considerable ground for hope. The class will shortly be increased to
twelve, but none will be continued in it who do not manifest undeniable
piety and devotedness to the cause of missions. As we propose to allow
each student to remain on an average four years, we may calculate upon
the acquisition of two, and perhaps three, additional labourers
annually, who will be eminently fitted for active service in the cause
of missions by their natural familiarity with the language and their
acquisitions at college. This arrangement will, we trust, secure the
speedy accomplishment of the plan we have long cherished, that of
placing one missionary in each province in Bengal, and eventually, if
means be afforded, in Hindostan.
"As the completion of the buildings requires no public contribution,
the sole expense left on the generosity of its friends is that of its
existing establishment. Our subscriptions in India, with what we
receive as the interest of money raised in Britain and America, average
£1000 annually; about £500 more from England would cover every charge,
and secure the efficiency of the institution. Nor shall we require
this aid beyond a limited period.
"Of the three objects connected with the College, the education of
non-resident heathen students, the education of resident Christian
students, and the preparation of missionaries from those born in the
country, the first is not strictly a missionary object, the two latter
are intimately connected with the progress of the good cause. The
preparation of missionaries in the country was not so much recommended
as enforced by the great expense which attends the despatch of
missionaries from Europe. That the number of labourers in this country
must be greatly augmented, before the work of evangelising the heathen
can be said to have effectively commenced, can admit of no doubt.
"The education of the increasing body of Native Christians likewise,
necessarily became a matter of anxiety. Nothing could be more
distressing than the prospect of their being more backward in mental
pursuits than their heathen neighbours. The planting of the gospel in
India is not likely to be accomplished by the exertions of a few
missionaries in solitary and barren spots in the country, without the
aid of some well-digested plan which may consolidate the missionary
enterprise, and provide for the mental and religious cultivation of the
converts. If the body of native Christians required an educational
system, native ministers, who must gradually take the spiritual conduct
of that body, demanded pre-eminent attention. They require a knowledge
of the ingenious system they will have to combat, of the scheme of
Christian theology they are to teach, and a familiarity with the lights
of modern science. We cannot discharge the duty we owe as Christians
to India, without some plan for combining in the converts of the new
religion, and more especially in its ministers, the highest moral
refinement of the Christian character, and the highest attainable
progress in the pursuits of the mind.
"During the last ten years of entire independence the missionary cause
has received from the product of our labour, in the erection of the
college buildings, in the support of stations and schools, and in the
printing of tracts, much more than £23,000. The unceasing calumny with
which we have been assailed, for what has been called 'our declaration
of independence' (which, by the bye, Mr. Fuller approved of our issuing
almost with his dying breath), it is beneath us to notice, but it has
fully convinced us of the propriety of the step. This calumny is so
unreasonable that we confidently appeal from the decision of the
present age to the judgment of posterity."
Under Carey, as Professor of Divinity and Lecturer on Botany and
Zoology, Mack and John Marshman, with pundits and moulavies, the
college grew in public favour, even during Dr. Marshman's absence,
while Mrs. Marshman continued to conduct the girls' school and
superintend native female education with a vigorous enthusiasm which
advancing years did not abate and misrepresentation in England only
fed. The difficulties in which Carey found himself had the happy
result of forcing him into the position of being the first to establish
practically the principle of the Grant in Aid system. Had his
Nonconformist successors followed him in this, with the same breadth of
view and clear distinction between the duty of aiding the secular
education, while giving absolute liberty to the spiritual, the splendid
legacy which he left to India would have been both perpetuated and
extended. As it is, it was left to his young colleague, John Marshman,
and to Dr. Duff, to induce Parliament, by the charter of 1853, and the
first Lord Halifax in the Educational Despatch of 1854, to sanction the
system of national education for the multifarious classes and races of
our Indian subjects, under which secular instruction is aided by the
state on impartial terms according to its efficiency, and Christianity
delights to take its place, unfettered and certain of victory, with the
Brahmanical and aboriginal cults of every kind.
In 1826 Carey, finding that his favourite Benevolent Institution in
Calcutta was getting into debt, and required repair, applied to
Government for aid. He had previously joined the Marchioness of
Hastings in founding the Calcutta School Book and School Society, and
had thus been relieved of some of the schools. Government at once paid
the debt, repaired the building, and continued to give an annual grant
of £240 for many years. John Marshman did not think it necessary, "to
defend Dr. Carey from the charge of treason to the principles of
dissent in having thus solicited and accepted aid from the state for an
educational establishment; the repudiation of that aid is a modern
addition to those principles." He tells us that "when conversation
happened to turn upon this subject at Serampore, his father was wont to
excuse any warmth which his colleague might exhibit by the humorous
remark that renegades always fought hardest. There was one question on
which the three were equally strenuous--that it was as much the duty of
Government to support education as to abstain from patronising
missions."
A letter written in 1818 to his son William, then one of the
missionaries, shows with what jealous economy the founder of the great
modern enterprise managed the early undertakings.
"MY DEAR WILLIAM--Yours of the 3rd instant I have received, and must
say that it has filled me with distress. I do not know what the
allowance of 200 rupees includes, nor how much is allotted for
particular things; but it appears that Rs. 142:2 is expended upon your
private expenses, viz., 78:2 on table expenses, and 64 on servants.
Now neither Lawson nor Eustace have more than 140 rupees for their
allowance, separate from house rent, for which 80 rupees each is
allowed, and I believe all the brethren are on that, or a lower
allowance, Brother Yates excepted, who chooses for himself. I cannot
therefore make an application for more with any face. Indeed we have
no power to add or diminish salaries, though the Society would agree to
our doing so if we showed good reasons for it. I believe the
allowances of the missionaries from the London Society are about the
same, or rather less--viz. £200 sterling, or 132 rupees a month,
besides extra expenses; so that your income, taking it at 140 rupees a
month, is quite equal to that of any other missionary. I may also
mention that neither Eustace nor Lawson can do without a buggy, which
is not a small expense.
"I suppose the two articles you have mentioned of table expenses and
servants include a number of other things; otherwise I cannot imagine
how you can go to that expense. When I was at Mudnabati my income was
200 per month, and during the time I stayed there I had saved near 2000
rupees. My table expenses scarcely ever amounted to 50 rupees, and
though I kept a moonshi at 20 rupees and four gardeners, yet my
servants' wages did not exceed 60 rupees monthly. I kept a horse and a
farmyard, and yet my expenses bore no proportion to yours. I merely
mention this without any reflection on you, or even a wish to do it;
but I sincerely think your expenses upon these two articles are very
greater.--I am your affectionate father, W. CAREY."
In 1825 Carey completed his great Dictionary of Bengali and English in
three quarto volumes, abridged two years afterwards. No language, not
even in Europe, could show a work of such industry, erudition, and
philological completeness at that time. Professor H. H. Wilson
declared that it must ever be regarded as a standard authority,
especially because of its etymological references to the Sanskrit,
which supplies more than three-fourths of the words; its full and
correct vocabulary of local terms, with which the author's "long
domestication amongst the natives" made him familiar, and his unique
knowledge of all natural history terms. The first copy which issued
from the press he sent to Dr. Ryland, who had passed away at
seventy-two, a month before the following letter was written:--
"June 7th, 1825.--On the 17th of August next I shall be sixty-four
years of age; and though I feel the enervating influence of the
climate, and have lost something of my bodily activity, I labour as
closely, and perhaps more so than I have ever done before. My Bengali
Dictionary is finished at press. I intend to send you a copy of it by
first opportunity, which I request you to accept as a token of my
unshaken friendship to you. I am now obliged, in my own defence, to
abridge it, and to do it as quickly as possible, to prevent another
person from forestalling me and running away with the profits.
"On Lord's day I preached a funeral sermon at Calcutta for one of our
deacons, who died very happily; administered the Lords' Supper, and
preached again in the evening. It was a dreadfully hot day, and I was
much exhausted. Yesterday the rain set in, and the air is somewhat
cooled. It is still uncertain whether Brothers Judson and Price are
living. There was a report in the newspaper that they were on their
way to meet Sir Archibald Campbell with proposals of peace from the
Burman king; but no foundation for the report can be traced out.
Living or dead they are secure."
On hearing of the death of Dr. Ryland, he wrote:--"There are now in
England very few ministers with whom I was acquainted. Fuller,
Sutcliff, Pearce, Fawcett, and Ryland, besides many others whom I knew,
are gone to glory. My family connections also, those excepted who were
children when I left England, or have since that time been born, are
all gone, two sisters only excepted. Wherever I look in England I see
a vast blank; and were I ever to revisit that dear country I should
have an entirely new set of friendships to form. I, however, never
intended to return to England when I left it, and unless something very
unexpected were to take place I certainly shall not do it. I am fully
convinced I should meet with many who would show me the utmost kindness
in their power, but my heart is wedded to India, and though I am of
little use I feel a pleasure in doing the little I can, and a very high
interest in the spiritual good of this vast country, by whose
instrumentality soever it is promoted."
By 1829 the divinity faculty of the College had become so valuable a
nursery of Eurasian and Native missionaries, and the importance of
attracting more of the new generation of educated Hindoos within its
influence had become so apparent that Oriental gave place to English
literature in the curriculum. Mr. Rowe, as English tutor, took his
place in the staff beside Dr. Carey, Dr. Marshman, Mr. Mack, and Mr.
John Marshman. Hundreds of native youths flocked to the classes. Such
was the faith, such the zeal of Carey, that he continued to add new
missions to the ten of which the College was the life-giving centre; so
that when he was taken away he left eighteen, under eleven European,
thirteen Eurasian, seventeen Bengali, two Hindostani, one Telugoo, and
six Arakanese missionaries. When Mr. David Scott, formerly a student
of his own in Fort William College, and in 1828 Commissioner of Assam
(then recently annexed to the empire), asked for a missionary, Carey's
importunity prevailed with his colleagues only when he bound himself to
pay half the cost by stinting his personal expenditure. Similarly it
was the generous action of Mr. Garrett, when judge of Barisal, that led
him to send the best of his Serampore students to found that afterwards
famous mission.
Having translated the Gospels into the language of the Khasias in the
Assam hills, he determined in 1832 to open a new mission at the village
of Cherra, which the Serampore Brotherhood were the first to use as a
sanitarium in the hot season. For this he gave up £60 of his
Government pension and Mr. Garrett gave a similar sum. He sent another
of his students, Mr. Lisk, to found the mission, which prospered until
it was transferred to the Welsh Calvinists, who have made it the centre
of extensive and successful operations. Thus the influence of his
middle age and old age in the Colleges of Fort William and of Serampore
combined to make the missionary patriarch the father of two bands--that
of the Society and that of the Brotherhood.
Dr. Carey's last report, at the close of 1832, was a defence of what
has since been called, and outside of India and of Scotland has too
often been misunderstood as, educational missions or Christian
Colleges. To a purely divinity college for Asiatic Christians he
preferred a divinity faculty as part of an Arts and Science
College,[29] in which the converts study side by side with their
inquiring countrymen, the inquirers are influenced by them as well as
by the Christian teaching and secular teaching in a Christian spirit,
and the Bible consecrates the whole. The United Free Church of
Scotland has, alike in India, China and Africa, proved the wisdom, the
breadth, and the spiritual advantage of Carey's policy. When the
Society opposed him, scholars like Mack from Edinburgh and Leechman
from Glasgow rejoiced to work out his Paul-like conception. When not
only he, but Dr. Marshman, had passed away Mack bravely held aloft the
banner they bequeathed, till his death in 1846. Then John Marshman,
who in 1835 had begun the Friend of India as a weekly paper to aid the
College, transferred the mission to the Society under the learned W. H.
Denham. When in 1854 a new generation of the English Baptists accepted
the College also as their own, it received a Principal worthy to
succeed the giants of those days, the Rev. John Trafford, M.A., a
student of Foster's and of Glasgow University. For twenty-six years he
carried out the principles of Carey. On his retirement the College as
such was suspended in the year 1883, and in the same building a purely
native Christian Training Institution took its place. There, however,
the many visitors from Christendom still found the library and museum;
the Bibles, grammars, and dictionaries; the natural history
collections, and the Oriental MSS.; the Danish Charter, the historic
portraits, and the British Treaty; as well as the native Christian
classes--all of which re-echo William Carey's appeal to posterity.