72 Obituary Notice of Dr. G. B. Wihon, [Notember, 



from its labours. In a letter dated April 28rd of this year, lie writes : 

 ** I think it is clear that the fate of education depends altogether on 

 Government. If they appoint well-selected senates and strengthen the 

 teaching department ^everywhere, we may do better things .1 should 

 hope, at any rate, that tlie standard of the Entrance and F.A. Examina- 

 tions will be raised, the size of classes reduced aud the quality of the 

 men improved." Now that reform has become a nearer reality he can 

 ill be spared. For C. R. Wilson had the larger and more inspiring con- 

 ception of university teaching. He thought a Professor existed for 

 something more than the convenience of a College routine. He thought 

 tbe Principalship of a College should be a position of real influence and 

 distinction, not an intermediate step in an official hierachy. He had, 

 moreover, grasped two truths not, perhaps, very often practically re- 

 cognised in Bengal. The one was, that educational work makes as 

 high claims in India as elsewhere, and demands as complete a self- 

 surrender and as thorough an identification of the teacher with the 

 interests of the taught : that this duty is as binding at a Government 

 College as under other conditions of service, and as possible of reali- 

 sation. The other was that when a thing ought to be done, it can be 

 done. He had not idly studied the Kantian ethic. Teachers, he knew, 

 never can be mere units in a department. They must, if they are to do 

 their work in any true sense, be independent sources of life and energy. 

 They require a larger discretion tlian other Government servants. 

 This larger freedom, by a happy combination of circumstances and 

 temperament, C. R. Wilson was able to realise to a great extent. He 

 was out-spoken to the point almost of brusqueness, and a mixture of 

 simplicity and fearlessness carried him to the attainment of ends which, 

 to minds more normally constituted, might have seemed denied by the 

 conditions of the case. He did not parade his religious principles, but it 

 was not possible to know him without recognising that in these was to 

 be sought the mainspring of his character. 



When Mr. Wilson went to Patna as Principal in 1 900 (after pre- 

 viously officiating at the Government College there for a short time in 

 1897-98) he identified himself wholly with the duties of his new position 

 and was able to show his unsparing devotion to the welfare of those 

 under his charge. He went to Patna at a critical time, when the new 

 buildings of the Behar School of Engineering were in course of com- 

 pletion and about to be opened. Without neglecting the older Arts 

 College, he threw himself heart and soul into the work involved by the 

 new — which he himself said more than doubled the responsibilities of 



