FROM AULD LANG SYNNE-SECOND SERIES BY THE RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR MAX MULLER : RAMONOO LAHIR Ramtonoo was born in 1813, and must therefore have been older than Debendranath Tagore, who is generally considered as the Nestor of the Brahma-Samaj. 'He was a pupil of David Hare, who had undel taken the philanthropic work of educating native youths, and after spending a few years at his school, he was admitted unto the Hindu College at Calcutta, which was established 1n 1817 as the first fruit of the annual vote of £10,000 for cducational purposes insisted on by the English Parliament. The teacher who chiefly influenced the young men was D. Rozario, who, though brandcd by the clergy as an infidel and as a devil of the Thomas Paine School, was worshipped by his pupils as an incarnation of goodness and kindness. It was Christian morality, as preached by D. Rozario, that appealed most strongly to the heart of Ramtonoo and his fellow-pupils, many of them very distinguished in later life, the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation of Indian reformers. Ramtonoo became a model among his friends in all matters pertaining to morality and conscience, pentence and sincerity being the watchwords of his early career, vice and hypocrisy the constant objects of his denunclation, both among his cquals and among those of higher rank and authority. Even the founder of the Brahma-Samaj did not escape his reproof, on account of what he considered want of moral courage to act up to his convictions. As to himself, he denounced caste as a great social and moral evil, and silent submission to superstitious customs as reprehensible weakness. In order to shame those who denounced beef-eating as sinful, he and his friends would actually parade the streets with beef in their hands, Inviting the people to take1t and eat it. The Brahmanical thread which was retained by the members of the Brahma-Samaj as late as 1861, was openly discarded by him as early as 1851. And we must remember that ın those days such open apostasy was almost a question of life or death, and that Rammohun Roy was in danger of assassination in the very streets of Calcutta. It is true that European officials respected and supported Ramtonoo, but Ramtonoo is probably meant for Rantanu,body of Rama, but when a name has once become familiar in the modern Bengali form, I do not always like to put it back into its classical Sanskrit form.
