The Background
When the Brahmo Samaj split for the first time in 1866, all the progressives within the organisation, including Keshub Chandra Sen, Sivanath Sastri, Sib Chandra Deb, and Durga Mohan Das, were together. Their thinking about most matters related to the Brahmo Samaj matched. The parting of ways started in the early 1870s, and one of the issues on which they differed was women’s education.
The writings of Theodore Parker, the socially active Unitarian, had a profound impact on the Brahmo Samaj thinking. Mary Carpenter, a British follower of Theodore Parker and daughter of Ram Mohan Roy’s Unitarian friend, Lant Carpenter, also had a positive impact on Brahmo Samaj thinking. During her first two visits to India, Mary Carpenter met the Brahmos and asked them to extend the American and English efforts at women’s emancipation to India. Among her more devoted supporters were Monomohun Ghosh, whom she had occasion to meet when he was in England, attempting first an entry into the Indian Civil Service and then the English bar in the early and mid sixties.
When Mary Carpenter visited Kolkata in 1869, she had a definite scheme for promoting women’s education in India. She proposed the establishment by the Brahmo Samaj of a normal school to train women teachers for girls’ schools. Such a school was set up as part of the Indian Reform Association. At that point of time, Bethune’s school was the only institution for girls’ in Kolkata, which Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan and other liberals were supporting.
It was then that a second British woman, Annette Akroyd entered the scene. She had formed a deep friendship with Monomohun Ghosh in England and when Keshub Chunder Sen went to England and delivered his noted speech on Female Education in India, she made up her mind to travel to India. She arrived at Kolkata in 1872 and was house guest of Monomohun Ghosh.
Annette Akroyd opened her school, Hindu Mahila Vidyalaya, in 1873 with Dwarkanath Ganguly as headmaster. It became the cause of a bitter quarrel between the conservative and liberal sections of the Brahmo Samaj of India. Ultimately, Annette Akroyd got married and left the school. With the arrival of Mary Carpenter on her third visit to India, a more ambitious scheme to train women for higher education was adopted with the establishment in 1876 of Banga Mahila Vidyalaya .
Read more about this topic: Banga Mahila Vidyalaya
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