TRIBUTEs. To HIS MEMORY. 337 The late Sir Gooroo Das Banerjee may be said, without any exaggeration, to have been the Grand Old Man of Bengal. Born 74 years ago in Narkuldanga, the same district in which he died, Sir Gooroo Das became a vakil, and was eventually promoted to the Bench of the Calcutta High Court, on which he sat from 1889 to 1903. While he was one of the most eminent jurists in India, he took at least an equal interest in ’education, and besides publishing a number of works on this question, was a member of the Universities Commission of 1902. Sir Gooroo Das was a most distinguishcd man, respected and admired by all ranks and races, and his appearance on great public occasions was always signalised by the remarkably precise and measured diction in which he never failed to express himself. He was knighted fourteen years ago, and held many honorific degrees. Ghe Statesman, December 4, 1918. The universal chorus of regret with which the tidings of the death of Sir Gooroo Dass Banerjee was received in Bengal must meet an echo wherever there is any knowledge or appreciation of a life devoted to the disinterested pursuit of truth and virtue. Sincere and modest, benevolent and gentle, indifferent to ambition and the applause of the world, and wholly unselfish, all who knew him loved
