July 13 & Scottish Churches College
On July 13 in 1830, Scottish Church College was founded (its name was different until 1908). It is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in India, well known for its beautiful campus, renowned faculty, robust intellectual milieu and its English Palladian architecture.
(picture att.)
Inspired by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Reverend Alexander Duff set up this English-medium institution. Undertaking his evangelical mission to India, he went a voyage that involved two shipwrecks (first on the ship Lady Holland off Dassen Island, near Cape Town, and later on the ship Moira, near the Ganges delta) and the loss of his personal library consisting of 800 volumes (of which 40 survived). He arrived in Calcutta on 27 May 1830. Soon, with support from the Governor General of India, he established the college in a house. The first college building was not completed until 1839. Bengalis had shown some interest in the spread of Western education from the beginning of the 19th century, yet there was some skepticism about the high-caste Bengalis' response to the idea of an English-medium institution.
Your Servent
Tattvavit Das
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