"writer," "factor," and "merchant," in their
several grades, had, since Clive obtained a military commission in
disgust at such duties, become the judges and rulers of millions,
responsible to Parliament. They must be educated in India itself, and
trained to be equal to the responsibilities and temptations of their
position. If appointed by patronage at home when still at school, they
must be tested after training in India so that promotion shall depend
on degrees of merit. Lord Wellesley anticipated the modified system of
competition which Macaulay offered to the Company in 1853, and the
refusal of which led to the unrestricted system which has prevailed
with varying results since that time. Nor was the college only for the
young civilians as they arrived. Those already at work were to be
encouraged to study. Military officers were to be invited to take
advantage of an institution which was intended to be "the university of
Calcutta," "a light amid the darkness of Asia," and that at a time when
in all England there was not a military college. Finally, the college
was designed to be a centre of Western learning in an Eastern dress for
the natives of India and Southern Asia, alike as students and teachers.
A noble site was marked out for it on the stately sweep of Garden
Reach, where every East Indiaman first dropped its anchor, and the
building was to be worthy of the founder who erected Government House.

The curriculum of study included Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit;
Bengali, Marathi, Hindostani (Hindi), Telugoo, Tamil, and Kanarese;
English, the Company's, Mohammedan and Hindoo law, civil jurisprudence,
and the law of nations; ethics; political economy, history, geography,
and mathematics; the Greek, Latin, and English classics, and the modern
languages of Europe; the history and antiquities of India; natural
history, botany, chemistry, and astronomy. The discipline was that of
the English universities as they then were, under the Governor-General
himself, his colleagues, and the appellate judges. The senior
chaplain, the Rev. David Brown, was provost in charge of the
discipline; and Dr. Claudius Buchanan was vice-provost in charge of the
studies, as well as professor of Greek, Latin, and English. Dr.
Gilchrist was professor of Hindostani, in teaching which he had already
made a fortune; Lieutenant J. Baillie of Arabic; and Mr. H. B.
Edmonstone of Persian. Sir George Barlow expounded the laws or
regulation