Page:History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions.djvu/139

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government sanscrit college.

embrace the following subjects,—Mechanics,—Hydrostatics,— Pneumatics,— Optics,— Electricity,—Astronomy,— Chemistry; and a Professor or Lecturer was to be appointed with a Salary of 500 £ per annum. The philosophical apparatus, the gift of the London Society, was to be placed at this Officer’s disposal, and the Lectures, as already stated, would be for the joint instruction of the students of the Government College, and of the Native Hindoo College, which will be noticed hereafter.

A portion of the College Funds is assigned to the payment of stipends to one hundred pupils (not necessarily to consist of that number, but fluctuating within it as a fixed limit according to circumstances) being either strangers, not possessing the means of subsistence in Calcutta, or other indigent students. This is conformable to the ancient practice of the Hindoos, among whom education was gratuitous, and the prejudices and expectations of the people continue to run in the same current.[1] The stu-

  1. Similar stipends exist in the Madrissa or Mohomedan College, and analogous provisions are not unknown to the universities of Europe.