Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, His Life and Speeches

Part 1

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Transcriber's Notes:

Typos and spelling variants (including hyphenated words) have been checked against the Oxford English Dictionary (online edition, July 2007) and corrected as needed. Archaic spellings have been retained. In rare cases, where a word replacement or correction was either uncertain or impossible, the word was identified with [sic.]

Bold and small cap text has been rendered as all caps in the text version.

Reference on 168 to the "The Presidency College Magazine" must be to the second issue, as the 25th issue was in 1939 and the events mentioned on p. 168 happened in 1915.

By-lines after various sections sometimes show as "Patrika," and at other times as "A. B. Patrika." A. B. Patrika is not a person, but is rather "Amrita Bazar Patrika," an English language daily newspaper in India. To reduce confusion I have standardized the by-lines to "Amrita Bazar Patrika."

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SIR JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE

HIS LIFE AND SPEECHES

Price Rs. 2 GANESH & CO.

The Cambridge Press, Madras.

CONTENTS

Page His Life and Career 1 Literature and Science 79 Marvels of Plant Life 102 Plant Autographs--How Plants can record their own story 106 Invisible Light 113 Lecture on Electric Radiation 117 Plant Response 122 Evidence before the Public Services Commission 126 Prof. J. C. Bose at Madura 143 Prof. J. C. Bose Entertained--Party at Ram Mohan Library 147 History of a Discovery 154 A Social Gathering 165 Light Visible and Invisible 169 Hindu University Address 172 The History of a Failure that was Great 177 Quest of Truth and Duty 187 The Voice of Life 200 The Praying Palm of Faridpur 222 Visualisation of Growth 292 Sir J. C. Bose at Bombay 231 Unity of Life 235 The Automatic Writing of the Plant 243 Control of Nervous Impulse 247 Marvels of Growth as Revealed by the "Magnetic Crescograph" 254 The Night-Watch of Nymphaea 262 Wounded Plants 267

SIR JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE

On the 30th November, 1858, Jagadis Chunder was born, in a respectable Hindu family, which hails from village Rarikhal, situated in the Vikrampur Pargana of the Dacca District, in Bengal. He passed his boyhood at Faridpur, where his father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, a member of the then Subordinate Executive Service was the Sub-Divisional Officer; and it was there that he derived "the power and strength that nerved him to meet the shocks of life."

HIS FATHER

His father was a fine product of the Western Education in our country. Speaking of him, says Sir Jagadis "My father was one of the earliest to receive the impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And in his case it came to pass that the stimulus evoked the latent potentialities of his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by the period of transition in which he was placed. They found expression in great constructive work, in the restoration of quiet amidst disorder, in the earliest effort to spread education both among men and women, in questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts, in the establishment of people's bank and in the foundation of industrial and technical schools." However, his efforts--like most pioneer efforts--failed. He became overpowered in the struggle. But his young son, who witnessed the struggle, derived a great lesson which enabled him "to look on success or failure as one"--or rather "failure as the antecedent power which lies dormant for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call success." "And if my life" says Sir Jagadis "in any way came to be fruitful, then that came through the realisation of this lesson." So great was the influence exerted on him by his father that Sir Jagadis Chunder has observed "To me his life had been one of blessing and daily thanksgiving."

HIS EARLY EDUCATION

Little Jagadis received his first lesson in a village pathsala. His father, who had very advanced views in educational matters, instead of sending him to an English School, which was then regarded as the only place for efficient instruction, sent him to the vernacular village school for his early education. "While my father's subordinates" says Sir Jagadis "sent their children to the English schools intended for gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school, where my comrades were hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now fashion to regard, were belonging to the depressed classes." Speaking of the effect it produced on him, observes Sir Jagadis "From these who tilled the ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening corn, and the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange creatures that frequented unknown depths of mighty rivers and stagnant pools, I first derived the lesson of that which constitutes true manhood. From them too I drew my love of nature."

"I now realise" continues Sir Jagadis "the object of my being sent at the most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school where I was to learn my own thoughts and to receive the heritage of our national culture through the medium of our own literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people and never to place myself in an equivocal position of assumed superiority."

"The moral education which we received in our childhood" adds Sir Jagadis "was very indirect and came from listening to stories recited by the "Kathaks" on various incidents connected with our great epics. Their effects on our mind was Very great."

And it is very interesting to learn from the lips of Sir Jagadis himself "that the inventive bent of his mind received its first impetus" in the industrial and technical schools established by his father.

HIS COLLEGIATE EDUCATION IN INDIA

After he had developed, in the pathsala, some power of observation, some power of reasoning and some power of expression through the healthy medium of his own mother tongue, young Jagadis was sent to an English School for education. He passed the Entrance Examination, in 1875, from the St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Calcutta, in the First Division. He then joined the College classes of that Institution, and there, in the "splendid museum of Physical Science Instruments," he drew his early inspirations in Physics from that remarkable educationist and brilliant experimentalist, the Rev. Father E. Lefont, S.J., C.I.E., M.I.E.E., who had the rare gift of enkindling the imagination of his pupils. He passed the First Examination in Arts, in 1877, in the Second Division and the B.A. Examination by the B. Course (Science Course), in 1880, in the Second Division. "It is the paramount duty of the University" says Sir Ashutosh Mookerjea "to discover and develop unusual talent." The Calcutta University, by the test of examination which it applied, totally failed to discover (not to speak of developing) the powers of an original mind which was destined to enrich the world by giving away the fruits of its experience.

HIS STUDY ABROAD

After Jagadis had graduated himself, in the Calcutta University, he longed to get a course of scientific education in England. He was sent to Cambridge and joined the Christ's College. He came in "personal contact with eminent men, whose influence extorted his admiration and created in him a feeling of emulation. In the way he owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh, under whom he worked." He passed the B.A. Examination of the Cambridge University, in Natural Science Tripos, in 1884. He also secured, in 1883, the B.Sc. Degree with Honours of London University. Jagadis had, by birth, the speculative Indian mind. And, by his scientific education, at home and abroad, he developed a capacity for accurate experiment and observation and learnt to control his Imagination--"that wonderous faculty which, left to ramble uncontrolled leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in Science." His strength and fertility as a discoverer is to be referred in a great measure to the harmonious blending of the burning Imagination of the East with the analytical methods of the West.

APPOINTED AS A PROFESSOR

After having completed his education abroad. Jagadis chose the teaching of Science as his vocation. He was appointed as Professor of Physical Science at the Presidency College, Calcutta. He joined the service on the 7th January, 1885. Although he was appointed in Class IV of the then Bengal Educational Service, (which afterwards merged in the present Indian Educational Service), he was not admitted to the full scale of pay of the Service. He, being an Indian, was allowed to draw only two-thirds the pay of his grade. This humiliating distinction was, however, removed in his case, on the 21st September 1903, when the bureaucracy could not any longer ignore the pressure of enlightened opinion that was brought to bear on it.

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