SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the educational activities of Christian missionaries in Bengal between 1793 and 1837. An attempt has also been made to relate them to the educational and religious situation in the home countries of the missionaries, principally England and Scotland, which is explored in parts of Chapters I and V. The greater part of the thesis consists of an account of the development of the missionaries' schools for boys. This is traced from the early experiments made by William Carey shortly after his arrival in Bengal in 1793, through the great extension of the schools which took place during the administration of the Marquess of Hastings under the auspices of several different societies; but which was followed by a decline in the late 1820s and finally by a revival and further progress, with a new emphasis on English, consequent on the arrival in 1830 of Alexander Duff. Some analysis is made of the educational methods used by the missionaries, the subjects taught, the type of religious teaching given, the languages used, the compilation of textbooks, the caste of pupils and teachers, and the missionaries' relationship with Indians, lay British sympathisers, and with each other. Some account is also given of the schools for girls, and of the two institutions for higher education - Serampore and Bishop's Colleges - which the missionaries founded. The thesis is based mainly on manuscript letters from the missionaries in Bengal, found in the archives of the main English missionary societies and in the National Library of Scotland; and complemented by Indian Government records and by contemporary printed reports, newspapers, and periodicals of missionary, official and general provenance.