considerably by the lessons in the Bible, and he expressed himself to that effect in a reply he wrote when he was requested to take part in the celebration of the Christian College Day for 1897-.

"I have, of course, much pleasure in responding to the invitation and beg to express my thanks to the committee for thinking of my name for the honour. Probably I am the oldest surviving pupil of the late Rev. John Anderson, who founded the Free Church Mission School in 1837, of which I was a pupil in the years '38, '39, and '40. For my first lesson in English I sat at the feet of the Rev. John Anderson, and it was from him that I first learnt those moral truths which strike deep into our minds when young. I was then only about ten.... The Rev. Mr. Johnston was a co-worker with the Rev. Mr. Anderson and the Rev. Mr. Braidwood joined them soon after. Mr. Huffton was the teacher of my class. Their names are all still enshrined in my memory as they were the first to teach me from the Bible the love and fear of God which has carried me safe through life. May this be the case with all who can claim the privilege of calling the Christian College their Alma Mater!"

In 1840 some high-caste students of the school were converted to Christianity. The native community was alarmed and a widespread consternation seized the public. The enraged multitude laid siege to the school, then located in the premises of the present Municipal Office, and threatened violence. Armed with his Highland club, the Rev. John Anderson came out to face

the tumultuous mob and dispersed them at the point of the bludgeon! The scene must have made a profound impression on young Sashiah; for writing more than half a century afterwards to Dr. William Miller, he thus hits it off in a few happy words:-"The school was then in the premises now occupied by the Municipal Office, and I have a very vivid recollection of the Rev. John Anderson, as he, pressed by the crowd that were surging round and besieging the building as it were, came out and stood in the verandah and flourished his Highland club at them. This was on the occasion of the first conversion of the young men whom I have named."

*

Many of the students were withdrawn from the institution, and Sashiah among the rest, the general idea of the people being that the Missionaries were in possession of certain charms by which they allured youngsters into their fold. Meanwhile the Government had been maturing a scheme of general education. So early as 1835, in response to the Bengal Despatch, a Committee of Native Education had been appointed with a Member of Council as President and five other members. The elaborate proposals of this Committee had, however, come to nothing. In 1839,

* The Revd. S. P. Rajagopal, Venkataramiah and Ethirajulu.

when Lord Elphinstone became Governor of Madras, he elaborated a scheme of his own, in accordance with which a University Board was. established in January 1840 with a President, (Mr. George Norton, the Advocate-General, who had taken great interest in native education) and fourteen Governors, of whom seven were to be natives. The University Board resolved to open a High School. But before the opening of the High School, a Preparatory School was established through the instrumentality of the native members of the Board. Sashiah, with many of his schoolmates, joined the newly-established Preparatory School and passed from thence to the High School, which was formally opened on Wednesday morning, the 14th of April, 1841.

It was an imposing ceremony. Lord Elphinstone, the Governor of Madras, who presided on the occasion, came attended by all his staff in full uniform, and was shortly followed by H. H. the Nawab of the Carnatic who, upon his arrival, was received by a guard of honour and with the usual salute. The principal members of society at the Presidency Town, both European and Native, including the Members of Council, mustered in grand array to honour the occasion. The President and the Governors of the institution had indeed omitted nothing to make the

inaugural ceremony as grand as it could be, and it was estimated that there were no fewer than a thousand and five hundred persons present in the College Hall, which presented probably the largest and most representative assemblage of the Native population ever seen at Madras till then. The grounds and roads about were thronged, and some thousands besides were collected at the High School House, to which the students proceeded from the College Hall. Among those now admitted into the High School was Sashiah.

The High School, started under such brilliant auspices, sent out in the course of a few years some of the brightest ornaments of Southern India,-Ranganadha Sastryar, Sir. T. Madhava Rao, Shadagopacharlu, Ramiengar, Basil Lovery, Rangacharlu, and Sashiah-each of whom has

left

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Foot-prints on the sands of time,
Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again."

A great part of the success of the High School was due to the master-mind that ruled its destinies-Mr. E. B. Powell, a Wrangler of the University of Cambridge, who was appointed to the headmastership of the institution. With the

instincts of a born teacher and a single-minded devotion to his sacred work, this gentleman dedicated his time and his extraordinary talents to the advancement of his students from the lowest grade of scholastic instruction up to a course of study more congenial to his own eminent attainments. Among his boys he moved a boy, sharing their delights and anxieties and directing their pursuits and aspirations and was thus able to stamp his individuality on their plastic minds and animate their souls with a zeal for knowledge and for whatever was pure and noble. Many a time and oft, on clear and starlit nights, would he take with him his most advanced boys and tell them the story of the heavens in sweet and indelible words and pour into their willing ears his knowledge and his wisdom, till they caught his spirit and his enthusiasm and unconsciously imbibed all those elevating impulses that radiated from him in a thousand untold ways.

Mr. Powell took a parental interest in his boys. He had no idea that his duty was circumscribed by the school-house or the school-hours. At his own cost he provided a set of cricket appliances and taught the game himself and played with the boys on almost every day they had it. Sashiah was voted very good at the wicket.