G. K. GOKHALE.

A SKETCH.

Mr. Gokhale was a Maratha Brahmin and thus belonged to a class of people who are not in the goodbooks of Anglo-Indians. But the Maharashtra, the country of the Marathas and the origin and centre of the Maratha supremacy in the 18th century, has produced some of the finest intellects, the noblest minds and stoutest hearts in India. Though the last to pass under British rule, the people were soon reconciled to the change and came to appreciate the benefits of that rule. But the intellects of Maharashtra showed a vigour and a power of independent thought that were rare elsewhere and thus created against them a prejudice which has not disappeared even to-day. They perceived the urgent need of reform in various directions and started institutions for the purpose of preparing the people for progress-institutions based on the foundation of self-sacrifice and public spirit. Among these institutions typical of Maharashtra, the Deccan Education Society of Poona, the centre of Mahratta patriotic activities, takes a very high rank. It was in 1879 that a few enthusiastic young men like the late Mr. V. K. Chiplunkar, the late Mr. M. B. Namjoshi, the late Mr. G. G. Agarkar, and Mr. B. G. Tilak, with the advice and approval of leading people like Mr. Mandlik and Mr. Ranade, started the New English School at Poona with the object of cheapening and facilitating education and making it available for all classes by opening schools and colleges under

private management. That small seed steadily grew into a large tree under whose genial shade thousands of young men are comfortably drinking at the inspiring fountain of education. The Deccan Education Society, established in 1884 to give a regular shape to this educational activity, is a unique institution in India. The Life Members, those who conduct the Fergusson College, the schools and other institutions of the Society, bind themselves to serve for a period of 20 years on a small salary which is but a subsistence allowance. Their sacrifice has enabled them to develop the educational institutions under their charge to such an extent that no less than 3,600 pupils are to-day receiving their education in the college and schools of the D. E. Society.

Mr. Gokhale was born at Kolhapur in 1866 of poor parents. He passed his Intermediate Examination from the local college and prosecuted his further studies partly at the Elphinstone College, Bombay, and partly at the Deccan College, Poona. He graduated in 1884 and immediately joined the D. E. Society as a Life Member. Fergusson College was opened on the second day of the year 1885, and Mr. Gokhale was soon called upon to lecture to college classes on English Literature and Mathematics. As a lecturer he made his mark, and his success was not a little due to his hard work and powerful memory. History and Political Economy had, however, great fascination for him, and it was in these subjects that he greatly shone. His command of English, his masterly manner of putting things before his students and his fine grasp of the subjects he expounded, attracted crowded classes, and his students even now remember how charmed they were by his splendid exposition and eloquence. So long as he was connected with the D. E. Society, he was a tower of strength to it and