Friday, 13 March 2015
CMS College Kottayam
The CMS College (CMS College Kottayam) is the oldest college which started in India.CMS College Kottayam holds the record for the 'second' college in India. It was founded by the Church Missionary Society of England, in 1817 when no institution existed in what was then the princely state of Travancore to teach English. The Rev. Benjamin Bailey was the first principal of The College, Cottym, as it was then known, and the government of India welcomed the College as "a place of general education whence any demands of the state for officers to fill all departments of public service would be met"
The first college in India now has fourteen departments teaching 47 courses. There are six research centres in the college. Research work leading to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy is conducted in the departments of Botany, Zoology, Physics, Chemistry, English, and Commerce.
HISTORY
In the early years Old Seminary(Orthodox Pazhaya Seminary), the curriculum included the study of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics,History, and Geography besides English, Malayalam, Sanskrit, and Syriac. In 1838, the College was moved to a wooded hillock — the present site — commanding views of the distant Western Ghats. One of the oldest buildings in the campus is Room 52, or the "Grammar School", as it was originally called. A college magazine in Malayalam was started in 1864 by Principal Richard Collins, after whom the college library is named.
In 1890, two-year classes were started, and the first batch of students, initially all men, was presented for the F.A. Examination in 1892. Female students were not admitted to the College until 1938.In 1857 the college was affiliated to Madras University soon after its incorporation, and the college began to present students for the Matriculation examination. It provided free education to all its students until 1855, when the fee of one Rupee a month began to be collected from each student. The total number of students in 1870 was only 129. In 1880, Visakham Thirunal, Maharaja of Travancore, observed on a visit to the college: "Long before the state undertook the humanizing task of educating the subjects, the Christian Missionaries had raised the beacon of knowledge in the land".
In 1840, the number of students in the College was 220. In 1950, Degree classes were started, and by 1960 the number of students in the college had risen to 1,250. Postgraduate classes were started in 1959. The college is now affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University,Kottayam. In 1981, the Synod of the Church of South India transferred the management of the college to the C. S. I. Madhya Kerala Diocese.
In 1999 the college was accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with five-star status. In 2004 the University Grants Commission (UGC) accorded it the status of College with Potential for Excellence (CPE). In 2009, CMS College's English department, which is the oldest department in the oldest college in the state, celebrated the golden jubilee of the introduction of a postgraduate programme.
CMS College gets back its 2 years frozen in time
The 200th anniversary celebrations of CMS College begin on March 17 as new-found records prove that the oldest existing college in India was started in 1815, two years earlier than previously thought.
The early years of the college came to light after a study of documents in the Bangalore United Theological College Museum and the Missionary Register in the CMS College library as well as the Church Missionary Proceedings.
Dr Babu Cherian, the head of the college’s Malayalam department, stumbled on the piece of history during the research for his book, ‘Towards Modernity: The Story of the First College of India’. The college management has approved the change in the birth date.
The bicentennial celebration is also aimed at modernising all the departments of the college and raising the quality of education, principal Dr Roy Sam Daniel said.
The college, then called The College, Cotym, was started by Colonel John Munro, a British statesman who was a political resident and later Diwan of the princely state of Travancore. He started the college on 16 acres at Chungam near Kottayam.
The recently discovered records show that construction of the building was started as early as 1813 and classes were started with 25 students in 1815. Colonel Munro received the support of Rani Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, the Regent of Travancore.
Munro entrusted the management of the college to Pulikkottil Ittoop Ramban (Joseph Mar Divannasios) of the Malankara Church.
Munro wrote to the Church Mission Society (CMS) headquarters in Britain in 1813 asking for two missionaries to teach in the new college, the records collected by Dr Cherian shows. The letter was received in Britain after six months.
Thomas Norton, a missionary from Britain, came to Kottayam in May 1816 to take charge of the college. He stayed in Alappuzha, then a bigger and busier town than Kottayam.
Munro’s insistence on a resident head for the college led to the arrival of the legendary Benjamin Bailey in 1817, which was traditionally known as the founding year of CMS College. CMS College calendar recorded 1815 as the year the college was started.
The college’s phenomenal growth started with Bailey, who laid the foundation for English education in Kerala.
The original building where classes were started in March 1815 was later turned into a seminary when the college was shifted to its present location on a hillock in 1837.
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