were directed to so many channels, that it may be convenient to describe them under different heads.
As an educationist, he raised the status of the Sanskrit College, and enforced strict discipline in it, at no small inconvenience to himself. Later on, in 1864 he founded the Metropolitan Institution, at a personal cost of nearly two lakhs of rupees, in order to bring secondary and higher education within the reach of the masses. He was the pioneer of unaided private colleges in Calcutta. He also established a High English School in his native village, Birshingha, and maintained it as a free school with a free boarding house. His services to vernacular education were none the less valuable. He turned his attention to Bengali school literature, which was extremely poor at that time, and compiled suitable text-books, from the first-primer to the highest standard.
Sanskrit learning was also made easy by his introductory grammar and his various easy Sanskrit readers. He also edited several English readers, both prose and poetry. He endeavoured to provide education for females in co-operation with Mr. Bethune, and did much useful service to it.
Vidyasagar was also a social reformer. The unhappy position of Hindu women strongly appealed to his generous nature, and to ameliorate their condition he started the widow-remarrige movement, which, he held, had the sanction of the Hindu Sastras. He wrote several epoch-making treatises in both English and Bengali, advocating the widow-remarriage and ultimately succeeded in inducing the legislature to pass an act legalising such marriages. His monthly charities, amounting to nearly Rs. 1500 per month, which were bestowed on all needy people, nearly exhausted his vast income from his books.
As a scholar, an educationist, a reformer and preeminently as a man, he held a unique position, and Bengal is proud to reckon him as one of the best of her many illustrious sons.
