Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/338

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1925]
OUR CRITICS
323

OUR CRITICS

The Modern Review has again opened its campaign against the University with the indefatigable Professor Sarkar of Patna in the van. The gentle Professor made so many misstatements in his usual polite and courteous style that we felt inclined not to take any notice of them. The attack, we may tell our readers, is neither unexpected nor unforeseen. We were informed that two brown gentlemen holding high Government offices and a retired Government officer met in holy conclave at a certain place on Himalaya’s lofty brow where the animate holds constant communion with the inanimate and came to a unanimous verdict that they wasted a year for nothing and the campaign should be relentlessly carried till the Post-graduate Department is starved out of existence. The Knight, as usual, kept cautiously in the background, the would-be Knight of Magadha came out with a thundering article in the Modern Review and the squire of Mohenjo-Dero made his onslaughts from the hospitable columns of the local dailies. We preferred to wait and watch but we are afraid that silence, as in the past, may be construed as admission and an ex parte judgment may go against us.

In the present issue, the Modern Review has several notes on University affairs. What our contemporary really advocates it is very difficult for us to say. At one place it writes

In area, England is much smaller than Bengal; and the population of the British Isles is not greater than that of Bengal. England has many first class Universities and yet new Universities are being founded there. In India, particularly in Bengal, the Universities are starving. The Calcutta University cannot carry on the work of the Post-graduate Department effectively; it cannot extend the work of scientific and other department for want of funds.