New English School : Seeing how the education system, controlled & directed by the Govt. & Christian Missionaries was perverting India’s future generations, but English education itself could become the surest foundation of national progress & solidarity, Tilak, G.G. Agarkar & V.K. Chiplunkar started the New English School on 1st January 1880 in Poona, charging less than the Govt. High School & exempting the poor. Within the first four months a large number of students migrated from the Govt. High School to it & by 1881 they had 336 students of which 20% were poor. In 1884, Sir James Fergusson, Governor of Bombay presided over the School’s prize distribution ceremony. Emboldened, the founders decide to start a college by first forming the Dakshīna (Deccan to non/anti-Indians) English Society to manage the college & the institutions that might spring up in the future. The college named Fergusson College, after Sir James was opened by him on 2nd January 1885. [Karandikar]
... Education under the official Universities has been made both in Calcutta and under peculiarly favourable circumstances at Poona. At Poona an immense amount of self-sacrifice went to the making of the New English School and the Ferguson College, and some of the best intellects and noblest hearts in the Deccan devoted themselves to the work. Yet the end was failure. The Ferguson College is in no way superior ...
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