On the 12th July 1828 the father again writes to his son Jabez thus:—"Your apologies about Brother Marshman are undoubtedly the best you can offer. I should be sorry to harbour hostile sentiments against any man on the earth upon grounds so slight. Indeed, were all you say matter of fact you ought to forgive it as God for Christ's sake forgives us. We are required to lay aside all envy and strife and animosities, to forgive each other mutually and to love one another with a pure heart fervently. 'Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not.'"
CHAPTER XIV
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.'