Oriental Seminary

  • Oriental Seminary was established at Goranhata of Kolkata, on 1st March 1829 by Gourmohan Adhya (1805-1845). He died in a boat accident on the Hooghly river while returning from Serampore, on a mission to find a suitable english teacher for the school. 

  • Initially the medium of instruction was English, after ten years; from 27 April 1839 the Seminary started teaching Bangla. The school believed in preserving local socio-cultural norms among the native students rather than influencing the Western way of life upon them.

 

  • Notable Bengali teachers were Kalikinkor Palit, Peary Mohan Bandhopadhyay, Gurucharon Datta, Kailash Chandra Basu, Ishwar Chandra Nandi, Benimadhob De, Amrita Lal Basu and others. Some of the Western teachers at the elementary and high sections were George Edward Baylis, Alexander Turnbull, David Lester Richardson, Fredrick Penny, Mr JB Smith, Hardman Jeffrey and others. At the elementary level, different languages like Greek, Latin, German, French, Hebrew, Spanish and others were taught along with English.

 

  • The School boasts of a prestigious list of alumni members who played instrumental role in Bengal renaissance including Akshay Kumar Datta, Shambu Nath Pundit, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, Krishna Das Pal, Girish Chandra Ghosh Kailash Chandra Basu, Vishwanath Datta, Swami Abhedananda, W. C Bonnerjea among others. 

 

  • At this school Rabindranath Tagore studied for 15 days, the only period of formal schooling in his life.

 

  • Today the school functions actively under the ‘Sarva Shiksha Avigyan’ of West Bengal Board.

 

  • The well preserved school archive displays pictures, newspaper clippings, and photographs in chronological order. Among the artifacts from the bygone days, one finds a slide projector, a globe in Bengali scripts, specimens of metal, soil, coins, weights, textiles used for demonstration and several others.

Address: 363, Rabindra Sarani, Ahiritola, Shobhabazar

Date of visit: 13.09.2022

References:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Seminary

https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Oriental_Seminary

 


The Entrance

The Building Today

The School Logo


Plaque at the entrance
Plaque at the entrance


Plaque at the Entrance

Slides used to teach children
Tagore as a student
The Slide Projector
First illustration of the School Logo
The playground
Emblem
Painting of Swami Abhedananda
Chronological display of events
Plaque
Chronological display of events
Charts
Lab equipments on display
Teaching aids of the past
Latern and Globe
Globe in Bengali


Archive entrance
Plaque in memory of one of the founder members


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