Oriental Seminary

For the school within Berlin University founded in 1887, see Oriental Seminary (Berlin).

The Oriental Seminary is a private school in Kolkata.

Oriental Seminary
Location
Information
Established	1829; 196 years ago (1829)
Founder	Gour Mohan Addy

History

The Oriental Seminary was established in 1829 by the educator Gour Mohan Addy. It was the first privately-run, first-rate^{[further explanation needed]} school for Hindus (the children of Hindus)Hindu parents in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata).^[1][2] It was open only to boys of Hindu parents.^[3] It was possibly India's first fully private school, as even Hindu School, Hindu College, and Hare school had to abide by certain government guidelines.^[1]

In earlier days, students wanting to study English had to go to the missionary schools, where they were subject to substantial religious influence. The establishment of a school for learning English free from religious influences was a major contribution of Addy.^[4] Traditional Indian education centres which taught Sanskrit and/or Persian had started fading out.^{[citation needed]}

The founder and teachers

Gour Mohan Addy (20 January 1805 – 3 March 1846) founded the school without government funding. He appointed teachers to each class level by their ethnicity: Eurasian teachers for junior classes, Bengali teachers for intermediate classes, and Englishmen or Bengalis for upper levels. He died in a boating accident on the Hooghly river, when returning from a trip to Serampore to hire a teacher.^[4]

Currently^[when?] the principal of the primary section is Rina Basak Halder.^{[citation needed]}

Notable alumni

Oriental Seminary was the earliest school Rabindranath Tagore attended.^[5] The first experience of school aroused in the youngster the yearning to be a teacher. Wielding a stick, he used to teach from the railings in the big veranda of the palatial Jorasanko Thakur Bari.^[6][7][8]

Among the list of other notable alumni are Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati,^[9] Krishnadas Pal, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Sir Gooroodas Banerjee, Sambhunath Pandit, Vishwanath Datta, Amrita Lal Basu, Akshay Kumar Datta, Sudhindranath Dutta,^[10] Jatindranath Sengupta, Swami Abhedananda, Bankim Ghosh, Malay Roy Choudhury and Mithun Chakraborty.^[4][11][12]