FRIENDSHIPS AND PERSONALITY 225 



be said, for they have been many ; and it must be a matter 

 of satisfaction that even out of his past fights he has won 

 some of his staunchest friends. 



In recognition of the unique services rendered to the 

 cause of science, the Imperial Government has conferred 

 on him honours on successive occasions. This recognition 

 for the first time by the State of the importance of Indian 

 contributions for the advancement of world's science was 

 received with satisfaction by his countrymen. With 

 Bose's fully developed Indian personality, yet with the best 

 of world culture fully incorporated in his own, and high 

 humanistic views, one can wish for no better link between 

 East and West, of interchange and ever increasing under- 

 standing. 



Bose was to have retired in 1913, on the completion of 

 his fifty-fifth year ; but the Bengal Government, in recog- 

 nition of his services to the Presidency College and of his 

 great influence over students, extended his period of service 

 for two years, so that he retired in November 1915. As 

 a further acknowledgment the Government gazetted him 

 as Professor Emeritus, on full pay instead of pension 

 a distinction so far unique in the Education Service of 

 India. Thus was secured his permanent connection with 

 the Presidency College, whose renown he had so largely 

 enhanced. Further than this, he received a knighthood 

 and the Companionship of the Star of India. 



Most men, under such gratifying conditions, would 

 accept their honours and emoluments as their due reward 

 for strenuous effort and would feel justified in seeking the 

 ease of retirement ; but such was not Bose's attitude, for 

 his goal was not yet reached. 



One need only recall how his life-long efforts for the 

 establishment of a laboratory for research had so often 

 seemed on the point of realisation only to be thwarted 

 each time, to appreciate the irony of the fact that when 

 eventually the properly equipped physical laboratory of his 



