constitution, which
recognises their fitness for self-governing rights under the benevolent
rule of King Edward VII. and his Viceroy in Council. Christianity, and
the leaven of the more really educated Christian natives, will alone
moralise and loyalise the peoples of India, and prepare future
generations for a healthy independence, material and political.

As they have watched the lines along which these developments have
proceeded, the leaders of the missionary enterprise have become more
and more convinced that the realisation of Carey's ideal has been too
long delayed, and that the influence of the Christian community on the
great movements of Indian thought has suffered in consequence. In
particular, while the need for highly-equipped Indian preachers,
evangelists and leaders, is far more urgent now even than it was in
Carey's day, the most experienced missionaries of all societies are far
from satisfied with the present level of theological education in the
Indian Church. They are convinced that the time has come to reorganise
the whole system of ministerial training, and to secure for the study
of Christian Theology in India that academic recognition which it has
enjoyed for centuries in Western lands. Since the British Government
is pledged to neutrality in religious matters, it is unable to sanction
the establishment of Divinity faculties, in any of the State
Universities, Hence the Decennial Missionary Conference, representing
all the Protestant Missionary Societies working in India, meeting in
Madras in December 1902, appointed a Committee "to confer with the
Council of the Serampore College, through the Committee of the London
Baptist Missionary Society, to ascertain whether they are prepared to
delegate the degree-conferring powers of the Charter of that College to
a Senate or Faculty, representative of the various Protestant Christian
Churches and Societies working in India."

The College Council (of which Meredith Townsend, Esq., is Master, and
Alfred Henry Baynes, Esq., F.R.G.S., is Secretary), has taken this
request into careful consideration, and after being assured by the
highest legal opinion that the Charter is still valid, has resolved to
do everything in its power to carry out the suggestions of the
Decennial Conference. They realise, however, that if the
degree-conferring powers of the Charter are to be used, the College
itself must be raised to the highest standard of efficiency as a
Teac