India. The Society found themselves unable to take up the work
immediately themselves; so they applied to the vigorous Danish
Lutheran Mission at Tranquebar, which was then a Danish settlement;
and a Danish minister was sent to Madras to set things going.

In the course of time Madras had become a much more habitable city
than it had been in its first beginnings, and a much more possible
place of residence for European women. The Company's employees,
therefore, were more and more disposed to matrimony; and, as already
related, the Directors, believing that married men made steadier
employees, had from early times encouraged the nuptial humour by
sending out from England periodical batches of well-connected young
women as prospective brides for employees who lacked either the means
or the inclination to take a trip home to choose partners for
themselves. The number of European fathers and mothers, therefore, in
Madras was continually increasing; and for the education of their
children, as also for that of children of well-to-do Eurasians, there
was need of a different kind of education than the various
free-schools supplied. Home education, with or without paid tutors and
governesses, probably served its turn with some, but it was certain
that sooner or later the private school would come into being.

We are unable to say when the first private school in Madras was
started; but an advertisement in one of the issues of the _Madras
Courier_, in 1790, shows that a private school for boys was started in
that year; and it was probably the first. The enterprising
educationist was Mr. John Holmes, M.A., who opened the 'Madras
Academy' in Black Town for the instruction of boys in 'Reading,
Writing, Arithmetic, History, the use of the Globes, French, Greek,
and Latin.' Other towns in the Madras Presidency had their English
residents, so Mr. Holmes offered to accommodate 'a few Boarders;' and
the offer was found so convenient that certain parents wanted
accommodation for their girls as well as for their boys. Mr. Holmes
was willing to receive all the pupils that he could get; for in an
advertisement two months later he announced that he was going to move
to a larger house in which 'apartments will be allotted for the Young
Ladies entirely removed and separate from the Young Gentlemen.'

The Madras Academy was eminently successful; but the mixed boarding
school was not its most commendable side; and in the following year an
ente