Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

teaching catechisms in Bengali and English, as the children learn to read and write every day. I
have received a letter from a gentleman up the country, who writes very warmly respecting the
general establishment of Christian schools all over Bengal.”
Not many years had passed since Raikes had begun Sunday schools in England. Their use seems to have
passed away with the three Serampore missionaries for a time, and to have been again extended by the American
missionaries about 1870. There are now above 200,000 boys and girls at such schools in India, and
three-fourths of these are non-Christians.
As from the first Carey drew converts from all classes, the Armenians, the Portuguese, and the Eurasians, as
well as the natives of India, he and Mr. and Mrs. Marshman especially took care to provide schools for their
children. The necessity, indeed, of this was forced upon them by the facts that the brotherhood began with
nine children, and that boarding-schools for these classes would form an honourable source of revenue to the
mission. Hence this advertisement, which appeared in March 1800: “Mission, House, Serampore.--On
Thursday, the 1st of May 1800, a school will be opened at this house, which stands in a very healthy and
pleasant situation by the side of the river. Letters add to Mr. Carey will be immediately attended to.” The cost
of boarding and fees varied from £45 to £50 a year, according as “Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, or Sanskrit”
lessons were included. “Particular attention will be paid to the correct pronunciation of the English language”
was added for reasons which the mixed parentage of the pupils explains. Such was the first sign of a care for
the Eurasians not connected with the army, which, as developed by Marshman and Mack, began in 1823 to
take the form of the Doveton College. The boys’ school was soon followed by a girls’ school, through which a
stream of Christian light radiated forth over resident Christian society, and from which many a missionary
came.
Carey’s description of the mixed community is the best we have of its origin as well as of the state of
European society in India, alike when the Portuguese were dominant, and at the beginning of the nineteenth
century when the East India Company were most afraid of Christianity: “The Portuguese are a people who, in
the estimation of both Europeans and natives, are sunk below the Hindoos or Mussulmans. However, I am of
opinion that they are rated much too low. They are chiefly descendants of the slaves of the Portuguese who
first landed here, or of the children of those Portuguese by their female slaves; and being born in their house,
were made Christians in their infancy by what is called baptism, and had Portuguese names given them. It is
no wonder that these people, despised as they are by Europeans, and being consigned to the teachings of very
ignorant Popish priests, should be sunk into such a state of degradation. So gross, indeed, are their superstitions,
that I have seen a Hindoo image-maker carrying home an image of Christ on the cross between two
thieves, to the house of a Portuguese. Many of them, however, can read and write English well and understand
Portuguese...
“Besides these, there are many who are the children of Europeans by native women, several of whom are well
educated, and nearly all of them Protestants by profession. These, whether children of English, French,
Dutch, or Danes, by native women, are called Portuguese. Concubinage here is so common, that few unmarried
Europeans are without a native woman, with whom they live as if married; and I believe there are but few
instances of separation, except in case of marriage with European women, in which case the native woman is
dismissed with an allowance: but the children of these marriages are never admitted to table with company,
and are universally treated by the English as an inferior species of beings. Hence they are often shame-faced
yet proud and conceited, and endeavour to assume that honour to themselves which is denied them by others.
This class may be regarded as forming a connecting link between Europeans and natives. The Armenians
are few in number, but chiefly rich. I have several times conversed with them about religion: they hear with
patience, and wonder that any Englishman should make that a subject of conversation.”
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