Confluence of divergent cultures with research at its core
Native values included in British education pattern way back in 1919, with thrust on research
LUCKNOW: The Lucknow University, which is set to complete 100 years of its existence this month, was the outcome of an idea that was put forward in a newspaper. In early 1919, Raja Mohammad Ali Mohammad Khan of Mahmudabad wrote an article in an English daily, mentioning the need to establish a university in Lucknow.
The article was well timed and written specially for the eyes of Spencer Harcourt Butler who was appointed the Governor of United Province in 1918.
The two had become acquainted and the Raja Mahmudabad knew about the deep interest of Butler in the field of education.
By this time Butler had spent almost a decade in the subcontinent and for most of its parts held the position of member of education and occupied a seat in the viceroy’s executive council. The move worked and Butler responded to the article. He called a meeting of educationists in which the plan to establish the university was outlined.
A place was marked, funds collected and by next year the then Canning College, IT College and King George’s Medical College came to be known as the University of Lucknow. To note, teach
› No university in modern times will be worthy of the name until it devotes a considerable portion of resources, money and intelligence to the cultivation of research...
SPENCER HARCOURT BUTLER , governor of United Province,1918-21
ing in the faculties of Arts, Science, Commerce, and Law was being done in the Canning College and teaching in the Faculty of Medicine in the King George’s Medical College and Hospital at that time.
Though Butler pushed the British idea of education in the university, he allowed the Indian members to include the native values of ‘guru and shishya’ in the education pattern. To push this idea forward, he appointed Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti who retired from the post of registrar of Allahabad University, as the first vice chancellor.
Along with the confluence of two divergent cultures, the founding members unanimously agreed on making ‘research’ as the core of the university.
“The principal work of the university must ever be to teach undergraduates and to maintain a high degree of academic culture based on sound research,” Butler said in his address at the first convocation held in October 30, 1921.
“No university in modern times will be worthy of the name until it devotes a considerable portion of resources, money and intelligence to the cultivation of research as part of its ordinary function,” he added.
Butler also became the first person to receive an honorary degree from the university. A total of three master’s and 138 bachelor’s degrees were conferred on the occasion. Four of the students were women, all from IT College. Hundred students got bachelor’s degree in arts . Only one student was conferred master’s degree in science while 20 others got bachelor’s degree. Fourteen students got MBBS degree.