College Life in Madras
COLLEGE LIFE IN MADRAS
Anyone seeking to understand how he as a committed Christian advocated justice and peace in society should read his autobiography
Eighty Adventurous Years (Harper), written in his eighties, with the vigour and enthusiasm of youth.
I am grateful that I came into intimate personal contact with such a keen evangelist as Eddy in the days of my youth.
COLLEGE LIFE IN MADRAS
After completing my education in St John's High School, Palayamkottai, I joined St John's College, Tirunelveli in 1907.
The Principal was the Rev. H. J. Schaffter, an English missionary.
He was keen that Indian boys should learn the nineteen rules of politeness he had drawn up.
Every day we came together in a large hall upstairs for prayer before the classes began. We were asked to learn one rule each day.
Immediately after prayer he would point to one of the boys—there were about five hundred of us—and ask for the rule of that day.
If the boy gave out the rule, he was rewarded with a shining anna.
If he failed to reply, there was a good deal of fun at his expense and he would be covered with shame.
In this way the rules were drilled into our hearts and minds and, he hoped, also into our practice.
Some of the rules were:
* Do to others as you wish they should do to you.
* Always say 'Please' when asking for anything.
* Say 'Thank you' on receiving a kindness.
* Say 'I beg your pardon' or 'Excuse me' when contradicting another.
For the next two years'I went to the Madras Christian College, at that time in the crowded area of George Town, Madras.
'The teaching of Scripture was given great importance.
I had been receiving instruction in the Bible in high school and college classes, mostly from teachers who could not make their subjects come alive.
But this was not so in the Christian College.
The professors who taught the Bible spent considerable time preparing their lectures and based their instruction on recent biblical scholarship.
A. J. APPASAMY
For one year Dr William Meston taught us the Book of Jeremiah.
He gave us a clear picture of the historical circumstances in which the prophecies were made and brought out effectively the boldness of the prophet who spoke so emphatically against the social and religious abuses of his time,
There were some 150 students in the class, and I am afraid many of the students were not particularly interested, as the Bible was not a part of the university syllabus.
I followed the lectures with the deepest possible interest and took considerable pains to prepare for the examinations.
My special subject was philosophy, and we had some able men teaching psychology, ethics, logic and metaphysics.
The outstanding professor was Dr A. G. Hogg.
We realised how clear and thorough his grasp of philosophy was.
Every lecture was a closely-knit piece of reasoning and if one sentence was missed the entire force of the argument was lost.
But, however keen he was as a philosopher, his deepest interest was theology.
He wrote constantly on theological subjects.
His books, Karma and Redemption and Christ's Message of the Kingdom were widely used in India.
His articles in The International Review of Missions and his lectures on Redemption from the World reached scholarly readers in many lands.
His creative thinking in theology impressed us greatly, though we were not able to follow all his profound arguments.
We were also struck by the selflessness of his life.
He and his wife sought to establish personal contacts with the students, Every Saturday there was an 'At-Home' to which we were invited.
Some students played tennis or indoor games or chatted informally with the professor and his wife, whom we got to know well. At one time we saw a bed on the front verandah on which the Indian lecturer in logic, who was ill with tuberculosis, was being nursed.
The household revolved around the sick man.
We talked in whispers.
Dr and Mrs Hogg attended to his needs so closely that they themselves became infected and had to be sent to the sanatorium at Madanapalle.
We heard that the professor was set to dig in the garden, as part of his treatment.
Fortunately both of them returned well, the disease having been dealt with at an early stage.
Another characteristic of Dr Hogg was his tireless industry.
He was conscientious about his lectures and was always revising
COLLEGE LIFE IN MADRAS
them so as to bring them up-to-date.
For some years he was the editor of the Madras Christian College Magazine.
For one issue he found himself running short of matter.
He sat down in the night to write an article.
It was 4.30 a.m. when he finished it.
He had a full day of lectures before him, so he went to sleep and woke up again at 6 a.m. to attend to his usual routine.
Once he said, "One has to kill one's self to write a book.' He encouraged me to write letters to him during the holidays, and though he did not answer them immediately he wrote in great detail when he did answer.
The university course for B.A. actually required only four years.
But my health at that time was poor.
I had many attacks of malaria.
My father was anxious to have me at home to help him in his correspondence and literary work.
My mother said, "You must keep well.
Otherwise how can you do anything?
If you want a picture there must be a wall on which to paint it.'
The result was that I took not four but seven years to complete my B.A.
The period of enforced leisure had many compensations.
In 1904 my brother Paul returned from Cambridge University in England after a brilliant academic career.
He was highly gifted.
With his quick intelligence, retentive memory and steady work he came out at the top of almost all his examinations and carried away many medals and prizes. He loved books.
He had travelled much.
When he gave a lecture at Palayamkottai on 'London, Paris and Rome' to a large gathering, he held its attention for an hour and half.
He had visited many art galleries in Europe.
He stayed with our parents for three years, beginning his practice as a barrister and with plenty of time on hand.
A born teacher, he sought hour after hour to instil in me a love of books, a delight in great paintings, a longing for wide travel, and a desire to fill my mind with noble thoughts expressed in noble language.
He was a deeply religious man.
When my college education began he had already left home to live in Madras, but the foundations of the culture which he laid were there.
He had taught me what to read and how. He had encouraged me to write.
During those years I did much private study and wrote in English many articles which the editors of magazines such as The Christian Patriot, The Young Men of India, and The Wednesday Review gladly accepted.
In this way I tried
A. J. APPASAMY
to fill up a gap which the university course had left.
I acquired a thirst for knowledge and its communication.
During the first two years of our college life we were asked by the University to write Tamil essays, but we did not do any other work in Tamil.
All our education was in English and was of the Western type.
I decided to apply myself to Tamil.
For long hours I studied difficult Tamil books and was particularly attracted by the writings of Swami Vedachalam.
He had been a Tamil Pandit of the Madras Christian College but had resigned in order to devote himself wholly to writing.
He wrote on several subjects but mostly on the Saiva Siddhanta.
In his later years he settled down at Pallavaram near Madras in a small house in the midst of a lovely cocoanut and mango garden. I also lived at Pallavaram and saw a good deal of him.
When the time for graduation came in 1914 a problem arose.
I did not get a first class, though I got two gold medals and some prizes of books, and I became conscious of my limitations.
I sought the spiritual counsel of Bishop Pakenham Walsh.
'I had a similar problem,' he said.
'One of my brothers is a general; another is a High Court judge.
I am not as clever as either of them.
But I now realise that there is much useful service which I can give to God with my handicaps.'
This counsel of Bishop Pakenham Walsh has helped me again and again in later years to know that, whatever one's limitations, there are many useful things one can do. As in our Lord's parable of the talents, I have felt it my duty to double by my industry whatever capacity God has given me, without asking why it is more or less than what others have (Matthew 25:14-30).
About this time I had some interesting glimpses of the versatile and well-stocked mind of K. T. Paul, who later became the General Secretary of the National Council of the Y.M.C.A.s in India.
I had read the moving story of Henry Martyn.
He had a brilliant career in Cambridge University and became the senior wrangler of his year.
He sacrificed his prospects of worldly success and went out as a missionary to the Muslim world.
He died in his thirty-second year of tuberculosis.
Defying all signs of weakness and disease, he had worked hard until the end and burnt himself out in the service for Christ.
In 1912, I wrote a biographical sketch of Henry Martyn and sent it to K. T. Paul,
COLLEGE LIFE IN MADRAS
who was then editing the National Missionary Intelligencer, the monthly magazine of the National Missionary Society,
K.'T. Paul was quite pleased with my article and began taking a deep personal interest in me which continued to the end of his life.
My article on Henry Martyn was used widely by student study groups in India.
| In 1915, the Hartford Theological Seminary in U.S.A. decided to give scholarships to two Indian students for the study of theology.
The scholarships which they promised would cover all expenses during term time.
But the students or their parents had to make themselves responsible for their passage and for expenses during the holidays.
When K. T. Paul spoke to me about this offer I said to him, 'I would like to go to Hartford but I don't know what my father will say about it.
He is living at Shenbaganur, three miles below Kodaikanal.
You are coming to Kodi to read a paper in one of the missionary conferences.
Could you possibly meet him and make this suggestion to him?'
He agreed to do so.
He was busy all day long.
The only time he could manage was in the evening after the meetings were over.
We invited him to an evening meal.
It was nearly 9 o'clock at night.
He had not yet come.
We were beginning to get anxious.
Then he arrived in a rickshaw, the only conveyance he could get at that time.
At much inconvenience to himself he had kept his word.
My father agreed to send me to Hartford.
This proved to be the beginning of seven years of fruitful and happy study in the West.
For the many opportunities I had during those years, I feel deeply grateful to God, and to his servant K. T. Paul who opened the first door.
In 1927, it was proposed to observe in a fitting manner the centenary of the birth of H. A. Krishna Pillai, the Tamil Christian
Poet, on 23rd of April, 1827.
K. 'T. Paul took a keen interest in the arrangements which were made and also wrote a paper to be read at Kodi in a meeting (attended mostly by missionaries), held in connection with the celebrations.
The paper which he wrote gives a fascinating account of how the writings of Krishna
Pillai affected him and his wife.
Soon after they were married, they began studying Krishna Pillai together.
Daily they learnt verse after verse by heart.
These verses seemed so natural an expression of their own deepest experiences, dyed in the spiritual