of the University as a whole, and particularly in the conducting of its examinations and academic discipline, the reign of law in the place of personal caprice, the enforcement of general principles instead of regard for particular individuals.
We may leave aside for the present the question of ensuring true research under the auspices of the University, because pseudo-research, if published, is sure to be exposed in the course of time and to cover the University which has patronised “scholars” of this type with the ridicule and scorn of the learned world. If the governing body of a University once makes up its mind to discourage sneaks and sycophants, it can get rid of sham scholars in a day.
II.
Bearing these problems in our mind, let us see where the Calcutta University stands to-day.
At its last Matriculation Examination 74.2 per cent of the candidates were declared as passed, and out of the 14,000 who were successful, eight thousand were placed in the first division and only 730 in the third division. That is to say, the most reverend, grave and potent Senators who ordain the affairs of the Calcutta University have solemnly declared that there are among young Bengal today eleven first-class men for every single third-class man! In life we never find first-class carpenters, mechanics, clerks, compositors, cooks, or bearers outnumbering third-rate workmen as eleven to one. But office-heads, business managers and other employers of educated labour should now expect eleven chances of a Calcutta-passed employee turning out a first-class hand to one chance of his proving a duffer. Happy Bengal—the envy of other provinces of India!
Benighted Madras, Bombay or Allahabad will naturally ask, how has this miracle been effected in Bengal? The answer is, by the grace of Saraswati,—for though he is dead, his spirit still liveth and worketh among the academic birds (probably swans) that haunt the lake in College Square. The daily papers tell us that ten grace marks were given to every Matric candidate in the English paper, in order to raise the pass level to 74.2 p.c. The wisdom and necessity of this action on the part of the Calcutta Senate will become evident when we remember that it is the universal complaint of college teachers and employers that the Calcutta Matric standard in English is now so low that nearly all the boys who pass it are unfit to follow college lectures in English or to give intelligent answers in that language either in the class or in the office. (See Sadler Commission Report.) And, therefore, in English, of all subjects, the standard must be lowered still further at Calcutta!
III.
The University lately appointed a Committee to examine the organisation and pay of the post-graduate teaching staff maintained by it. The need for economy was pressing; there was a general clamour against the waste of public money by the needless creation of new departments and new branches (“optional groups”) each with a large and very lightly employed staff; and within the circle of these teachers themselves there were discontent and anxiety at their position and prospects. The situation here was well known outside and alarming: the salaries of the endowed professors (except one) were lower than in several other Indian universities, and therefore the best men could not be contented to remain at Calcutta; there was no intermediate rank in pay and position (such as Readerships) for “University Professors in the making”—i.e. between the full-fledged and best-paid endowed Professors at the top (one for each subject) and the young assistant lecturers at the bottom (on Rs. 20 or less), so that very promising teachers were constantly migrating elsewhere at the first opportunity; at the bottom there was a huge army of young lecturers, without enough teaching work for them, but on a low pay and uncertain prospects.
None of them knew where he stood; every one below the occupants of the few endowed chairs could be turned out at the end of his two or five years’ term on the ground of financial difficulty. The consequences of the reckless creation of new posts in a spirit of megalomania and contemptuous disregard for the University’s resources were relentless but sure; the poor teachers salaries remained unpaid for months together and their extra earnings (as examiners) for more than a year, and there spread among them terrible whispers that any one of them might be next sacked in the name of retrenchment if he was suspected of lukewarmness in partisan pamphleteering or attendance at Court.
These evils were well known. A wise
