CHAPTER III 



EARLY STRUGGLES 



THRICE armed with good degrees, from Cambridge and 

 London in addition to the initial Calcutta one, young Bose 

 felt it time to return to India, towards which not only 

 family ties and homesickness, but increasing family cares as 

 well, had long been straining him. Four years is a long 

 exile, in youth especially ; and now, at nearly twenty-five, we 

 have the almost grown man ready and eager for a career. 

 Fortunately for him, Professor Fawcett the economist, then 

 Postmaster-General, who had kept up an old acquaint- 

 ance with Bose's much senior brother-in-law the late 

 Mr. A. M. Bose, afterwards a Calcutta barrister, and a 

 man of much note and a leader of public' opinion in his 

 day, still warmly remembered wrote spontaneously, in- 

 viting him to call. After this Fawcett asked his colleague, 

 Lord Kimberley, then Secretary for State for India, if he 

 knew., of any appointment in the Education Department ; 

 but none was then intimated, so he could only advise him 

 to go home to India and see. Fawcett gave young Bose 

 an introduction to Lord Ripon, then Governor-General, 

 and this he presented at Simla on his journey home. The 

 reception was of the kindest, and the Viceroy promised 

 to nominate him for the Educational Service. Yet in course 

 of the conversation he suddenly broke out, in full bitterness 

 of disappointment : ' My life here has been a failure : I 

 wanted to serve India, and to give Indians more responsi- 

 bilities. At first all seemed promising, but then came this 



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