Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches

Jagadis Chandra Bose

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• Publié par: ermey
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, by Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
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Title: Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
His Life and Speeches
Author: Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
Editor: Anonymous
Release Date: July 16, 2007 [EBook #22085]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE ***
Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Typos and spelling variants (including hyphenated
words) have been checked against the Oxford
English Dictionary (online edition, July 2007) and
corrected as needed. Archaic spellings have been
retained. In rare cases, where a word replacement or
correction was either uncertain or impossible, the
word was identified with [sic.]
2. Reference on 168 to the "The Presidency College
Magazine" must be to the second issue, as the 25th
issue was in 1939 as the events mentioned on p.
168 happened in 1915.
3. By-lines after various sections sometimes show as
"Patrika," and at other times as "A. B. Patrika." A. B.
Patrika is not a person, but is rather "Amrita Bazar
Patrika," an English language daily newspaper in
India. To reduce confusion I have standardized the
by-lines to "Amrita Bazar Patrika."[pg_i]
SIR JAGADIS
CHUNDER BOSE
HIS LIFE AND SPEECHES
Price Rs. 2 GANESH & CO.
[pg_ii]
The Cambridge Press, Madras.
[pg_iii]
CONTENTS
Page
His Life and Career 1
Literature and Science 79
Marvels of Plant Life 102
Plant Autographs—How Plants can record their own story 106
Invisible Light 113
Lecture on Electric Radiation 117
Plant Response 122
Evidence before the Public Services Commission 126
Prof. J. C. Bose at Madura 143
Prof. J. C. Bose Entertained—Party at Ram Mohan Library 147
History of a Discovery 154
A Social Gathering 165
Light Visible and Invisible 169
Hindu University Address 172
The History of a Failure that was Great 177
Quest of Truth and Duty 187
The Voice of Life 200
The Praying Palm of Faridpur 222
Visualisation of Growth 226
[pg_iv]Sir J. C. Bose at Bombay 231Unity of Life 235
The Automatic Writing of the Plant 243
Control of Nervous Impulse 247
Marvels of Growth as Revealed by the "Magnetic Crescograph" 254
The Night-Watch of Nymphaea 262
Wounded Plants 267
[Pg_001]
SIR JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE
On the 30th November, 1858, Jagadis Chunder was born, in a respectable
Hindu family, which hails from village Rarikhal, situated in the Vikrampur
Pargana of the Dacca District, in Bengal. He passed his boyhood at Faridpur,
where his father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, a member of the then
Subordinate Executive Service was the Sub-Divisional Officer; and it was there
that he derived "the power and strength that nerved him to meet the shocks of
1life."
HIS FATHER
His father was a fine product of the Western Education in our country.
Speaking of him, says Sir Jagadis "My father was one of the earliest to receive
the impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And
in his case it came to pass that the stimulus evoked the latent potentialities of
his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by the period of transition
in which he was placed. They found expression in great constructive work, in
[Pg_002]the restoration of quiet amidst disorder, in the earliest effort to spread education
both among men and women, in questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts,
in the establishment of people's bank and in the foundation of industrial and
2technical schools." However, his efforts—like most pioneer efforts—failed. He
became overpowered in the struggle. But his young son, who witnessed the
struggle, derived a great lesson which enabled him "to look on success or
failure as one"—or rather "failure as the antecedent power which lies dormant
for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call success." "And if
my life" says Sir Jagadis "in any way came to be fruitful, then that came through
2the realisation of this lesson." So great was the influence exerted on him by
his father that Sir Jagadis Chunder has observed "To me his life had been one
2of blessing and daily thanksgiving."
HIS EARLY EDUCATION
Little Jagadis received his first lesson in a village pathsala. His father, who
had very advanced views in educational matters, instead of sending him to an
English School, which was then regarded as the only place for efficient
instruction, sent him to the vernacular village school for his early education.
[Pg_003]"While my father's subordinates" says Sir Jagadis "sent their children to the
English schools intended for gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school,
where my comrades were hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now
3fashion to regard, were belonging to the depressed classes." Speaking of the
effect it produced on him, observes Sir Jagadis "From these who tilled the
ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening corn, andground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening corn, and
the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange creatures that
frequented unknown depths of mighty rivers and stagnant pools, I first derived
the lesson of that which constitutes true manhood. From them too I drew my
3love of nature."
"I now realise" continues Sir Jagadis "the object of my being sent at the
most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school where I was to learn my
own thoughts and to receive the heritage of our national culture through the
medium of our own literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people
3and never to place myself in an equivocal position of assumed superiority."
"The moral education which we received in our childhood" adds Sir Jagadis
[Pg_004]"was very indirect and came from listening to stories recited by the "Kathaks"
on various incidents connected with our great epics. Their effects on our mind
4was Very great."
And it is very interesting to learn from the lips of Sir Jagadis himself "that the
inventive bent of his mind received its first impetus" in the industrial and
4technical schools established by his father.
HIS COLLEGIATE EDUCATION IN INDIA
After he had developed, in the pathsala, some power of observation, some
power of reasoning and some power of expression through the healthy medium
of his own mother tongue, young Jagadis was sent to an English School for
education. He passed the Entrance Examination, in 1875, from the St. Xavier's
Collegiate School, Calcutta, in the First Division. He then joined the College
classes of that Institution, and there, in the "splendid museum of Physical
Science Instruments," he drew his early inspirations in Physics from that
remarkable educationist and brilliant experimentalist, the Rev. Father E. Lefont,
S.J., C.I.E., M.I.E.E., who had the rare gift of enkindling the imagination of his
pupils. He passed the First Examination in Arts, in 1877, in the Second Division
and the B.A. Examination by the B. Course (Science Course), in 1880, in the
[Pg_005]Second Division. "It is the paramount duty of the University" says Sir Ashutosh
5Mookerjea "to discover and develop unusual talent." The Calcutta University,
by the test of examination which it applied, totally failed to discover (not to
speak of developing) the powers of an original mind which was destined to
enrich the world by giving away the fruits of its experience.
HIS STUDY ABROAD
After Jagadis had graduated himself, in the Calcutta University, he longed to
get a course of scientific education in England. He was sent to Cambridge and
joined the Christ's College. He came in "personal contact with eminent men,
whose influence extorted his admiration and created in him a feeling of
emulation. In the way he owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh, under whom he
6worked." He passed the B.A. Examination of the Cambridge University, in
Natural Science Tripos, in 1884. He also secured, in 1883, the B.Sc. Degree
with Honours of London University. Jagadis had, by birth, the speculative
Indian mind. And, by his scientific education, at home and abroad, he
[Pg_006]developed a capacity for accurate experiment and observation and learnt to
control his Imagination—"that wonderous faculty which, left to ramble
uncontrolled leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land
of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and
reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius,
7the instrument of discovery in Science." His strength and fertility as a
discoverer is to be referred in a great measure to the harmonious blending ofdiscoverer is to be referred in a great measure to the harmonio