I 'Ask Now of the Days That Are Passed'
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, .. t 'Ask now of the days that are passed' I l Published by Dr. Nazir Ahmad Principal Government College Lahore Printed by Mirza Mohammad Sadiq at the Ripon Printing Press Ltd. Bull Road, Lahore 1964 I II I I II A HISTORY II OF GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE. 1864 1914. Edited by H. L. O. GARRETT, M.A., Cantab., F. R. C.I.p (Indian Educational Service, ProfCSSOl'llfHistory, Go.vernment College, Lah~e) •. II ASK NOW OF THE DAYS THAT ARE PASSED." ~,lltorc : PRINTED AT THE IlCIVJL A!l:D MILITARY GAZEITS" PBBSS 1914. TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION L A History of Government College Lahore 1864-1964 H. L. O. Garrett and Ahdul Hamid PREFACE Garrett's A History of Government College dealing . .' with the first 50 years of the institution was published in 1914. The author surveyed the following decade in an article entitled The Years that Remain written for the Golden Jubilee number of The Ravi published in 1924. Tb~ task of completing the narrative from that point to thec:entenary year of, 1964 was entrusted to me in the beginning of 1963. I had intended to adhere to the original plan of the volume and begin my part of the work with a chapter giving some significant details that did not find a place in Garrett's. account of the College. Consequently, a circular letter was addressed to about 250 prominent old Ravians requesting for help in the undeJ:t~king. Replies were received from the following; Mian Afzal Hussain, Syed Fida Hassan, Begum Zeenat Fida Hassan, Mr. Manzoor Qadir, Mr. S. B. Ahmad, Mr. Iftikhar Ali, Mr. A. Shakur Ahsan, Mian Asghar Ali, Chaudhari Nazir Ahmad Khan, the late Maulvi Ghulam Mohyud-Din Qasuri and the late Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan. * Reminders issued to the rest after some weeks of waiting also remained unacknowl. edged. , , , In the circumstances the idea of weaving the story of 'the College round the reminiscences of its alumni as well as that of adding a postscript to the original work *Mian Afzal Hussain, Mr. Fida Hassan and Begam Fida Hassan wrote brief accounts of their collegedays that are being published in the Centenary issue of The Ravi. ii had to be dropped and the subsequent history of the College had to be extracted mainly from The Ravi which does not always present a complete or objective picture. The account prepared by me, which forms part II of the present volume and is incomplete in important respects, underlines, among other things, the difficulties of compiling a contemporary record. My own associa- tion with the College, now extending over a period of 17years, was as much a help as a hindrance in this task. I have generally refrained from mentioning the names of the authors of my source materials, namely, the articles, poems and satires, appearing in The Ravi from time to time. In spite of the inherent unsoundness of such a procedure in a history, there are obvious difficulties and embarrassments (not to speak of dangers) of quot- ing living persons on recent issues. I am grateful to Principal Nazir Ahmad for his sustained interest in the progress of the work and to Qazi Muhammad Aslam and Mr. E. J. Sinclair for going through the typescript and giving some useful suggestions, though I must, iIi the accepted fashion, absolve them from all responsibility for any opinion. Upon my colleague of the Political ScienceDepartment, Munir Ahmad Shaikh, has fallen the onerous task of seeing the book through the Press and in this he was ably assisted by my pupil, Muhammad Mahmud. My thanks are also due to Messrs M. Amjad Butt and Abdus Sattar Chawla for shouldering some of my teaching responsibilities in the last academic session. Their generous assistance enabled me to complete this work in time. The dust-cover of the book was designed by an old Ravian, Hanif Ramay. r' I iii Mr. Abdul Rauf, Director, Ripon Printing Press, Ltd., another old boy of the College, freely gave his advice and help at the printing stage. Khwaja Salamuddin also of the Ripon Printing Press Ltd. took infinite pains in correcting proofs. May I hope that anyone who undertakes to continue this work at some future date-I wish he may be a pupil of mine just as I am one of Garrett's-wiII start with a postscript, (as I had intended to do) to rectify my omissions and to Correct errors offact or opinion wherever he may find them ? Abdul Hamid 6-A Katchery Road, (Government CoIIege) LAHORE: 6 November, 1964. CONTENTS PAGE Preface i-iii Part I Introductory v-vii CHAPTER I.-Dr. Leitner, 1864-1876 1 " I1.-Dr. Leitner, 1876-1886 32 " I1I.-Mr. T. C. Lewis, 1886-1891 and Dr. Stulpnagel, 1891-1892 .. '67 " IV.-Mr. Bell, 1892-1895 and Mr. Dallinger, 1896-1898 84 " V.-Mr. S. Robson, 1898-1912 105 " VI.-The Progress of Science and Later Days 128 " VII.-The Years That Remain 147 Part II CHAPTER VIII.- Last Years of Hemmy's Princi- palship (1925-1927) 153 " IX.-Garrett's Principalship (1927- 1936) 167 " X.-H. B. Dunnicliff as Principal (1936-1939) 209 " XL-Sondhi's Principalship (1939- 1945) 230 " XII.-Principalship of Eric Dickenson (1945-1947) 252 " XIII.-Principalships of A. S. Bokhari and U. Kramet (1947-1950) 256 " XIV.-Principalships of Sirajuddin and Khwaja Manzoor Hosain (1950-1954; 1955-1958; .•v 1954-1955 ; 1958-1959) 267 " XV.-Nazir Ahmad's Principalship (1959- ) 287 ApPENDICES 301-309 j Part I 1864-1924 H. L. O. GARRElT PROFI1SSOR OF HISTORY GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE (1912-1927) PRINCIPAL GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE (1927-1936) INTRODUCTORY •. In dealing with such a subject as that of this History, one is faced at the outset by a number of difficulties. The material is abundant. The fact that the College has been from its foundation a Govern- ment institution, and that the Annual Report upon it has always appeared in the Annual Education Report of the Province, has ensured this. For months the Editor has been intrenched behind a formidable barrier of solid looking official files and reports, the gradual disappearance of which has been a daily increasing source of satisfaction. But official reports alone make somewhat heavy reading. Hence, at an early date, the Editor turned to other sources and summoned to his aid a host of willing assistants in the shape of old students of the College. Invited, to assist they responded nobly, and post after post brought in contri. butions from graduates in all parts of India, and in all sorts of positions. Then followed the perplexing problem of how to deal with all this material. After much deliberation, the Editor decided to publish any contributions that formed a complete memoir, as a whole, regardless of what may be described as the official part of the History. This will account for a number of repeti- tions in the text which are really deliberate, and are not the result of mere careless insertion. In other cases the • Part I of the present volume is an exact reproduction of Garrett's work as published in 1914 except that the two appendIces giving tabulated succession lists QfPrincipals and Professors have been omitted and the Chapter entitled The Years that Remain has been inserted, vi Editor has used the operating knife freely, and for them he craves pardon. The question of the contributed memoirs settled, the unfortunate Editor was then faced by a "multitude of counsellors" in whom one is lead to believe "there is wisdom." "You must include tliis",said one. "The History will be.a failure without that" said another. "Let me see the proofs", said a third, "and I will just add a suggestion or two." Being old'in sin and thoroughly unregenerate, the Editor finally deCided.to carry out his original scheme, which was to take each. year as a separate unit. Then to combine such units into the period of office of a certain Principal (incidentally the greatest compliment I have had paid to the book was a remark from a captious critic that the. chapter headings looked like a real History Book). In such a period to include the reminiscences of any con- temporaries which may have been sent in, and to endea- vour to represent the whole as a story of continuous development. As regards the illustrations, they should, and no dqubt will,explain themselves. A fewnotable personages . are depicted-not by any means all-the remainder are devoted to views of the College buildings and College grounds. I have been blamed for introducing a photo- graph of the College trophies, but as this year witnessed ali unprecedented success in the P.D.S.T.C. (the College winning 7 events out of 9), I think it only fair to represent our athletic triumph as the crowning achievement of fifty y~arshard constructive work. If there is one lesson more than another to be gained from a study of the History of our College, it is that it has ever aimed at the produc- tion.of men-men fitted to go out (and well fitted as the r~ords of the Province will show) and take their share hrthe bearing of the Imperial burden, men able to control men and still more to control themselves. Were our -------------------~~ Vll record a mere catalogue of examination room successes, we should have indeed failed in our mission. But it is because the Government ColIege has ever stood forth as the nursing mother of alI that is best and manliest in the Punjab that she occupies to-day her proud position.