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The Right Hon'ble
V.S. Srinivasa Sastri, LL.D., P.C., C.H.
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There
is a certain appropriateness in the Hindu Higher School Magazine
devoting a few of its pages to a sketch of the life and work
of the Rt. Hon'ble V.S. Srinivasa Sastriar. For nearly 45 years
he was connected with school, firstly as its Headmaster for
about 7 years and afterwards as a member of the Committee of
Management, as its Secretary and later as its President. If
now the Hindu High School, Triplicane, is known as a first-rate
school throughout India and in some other parts of British Commonwealth,
it is very largely due to Mr.Sastriar's connection with it.
He was born of poor parents at Valangiman, a village in the
Tanjore District, on September |
22,1869.
A short time later, the family migrated to Kumbakonam, where
he had his education-scholastic and collegiate. At the Native
High School, then under the proprietorship of the late Rao Bahadur
S. Appu Sastriar, he spent some years bringing credit to himself
and the school. Then he passed on to the Government College
there and graduated in 1888 with high distinction in English
and Sanskrit. Even in those days, he had earned quite a reputation
for his accurate English scholarship.
Belonging as he did to a family of orthodox vaodeek Brahmins
who were poor, but though nothing of poverty, whose only concern
was to live blameless lives as described in the Sastras, setting
there a bright example to the Laukik Brahimins at whose houses
they officiated, he was strongly attracted to the teaching profession
in which, as all know, work is heavy and rewards are few. For
17 long years, he laboured hard as teacher, during the last
7 years of which he was Headmaster of this School.
What were his special features as a teacher? For the first time
I tmay say in the history of English education in this Presidency,
he began the English practice of treating boys, not as juveniles
to be kept at a respectable distance and forwned upon, but as
comrades engtaged in a common task and whom one should meet
with a smiling face not only in the school room but on playfields
also in swimming contests, for the latter of which Kumbakonam
is still so well known. As a teacher of English, he won unique
distinction, carrying away the only two prizes, instituted by
the Madras Teachers' Guild, which were thrown open to teachers
in Madras City. Having a high sense of his importance as Headmaster,
he treated Managers of schools and Inspecting officers as his
colleagues, not as his superiors. As teacher in the Salem Municipal
College, he showed to the public that, though he was servant
of the Municipality, it was not wrong on his part to draw public
attention to centain crying needs of thast municipality and
failure of duty on the party of its officers. As one of the
most prominent founder members of the Madras Teachers' Guild,
he took a great part in shaping its early activities.
Thus, when in January 1907 he joined the Servants of India Society,
he had won for himself a great reputation as a fine speaker
of faultless English, a bold, fearless and upright Headmaster
and public man who could hold his own with the tallest in the
land and whose dignity and charm and hate of hate and scorn
of scorn was the admiration and despair of many a public ma
n and as one, who uttered nothing base in public or in private
and wore the white flower of a blamesless life. With such high
credentials, it was no wonder that his larger public life extending
over a period of more than 35 years was a remarkable success.
As a member of the Madras of the Madras Legislative Council
and also of the Imperial House of Legislature he earned much
fame. Later, as the India Governments' Agent in South Africa,
and as its ambassador to plead the cause of Indians in Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and the United States he won laurels
and gained for our Motherland great appreciation as the home
of culture and of a civilisation far more ancient than theirs.
To no other Indian was such a rare privilege give, and no other
was acclaimed by common consent as the 'Silver-tongued orator
of the Empire.' The Master of Balliol openly declared, 'I never
knew that the English Language was so beautiful till I heard
Sastri speak it.' All of us must be proud of him a noble type
of good, heroic manhood.
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