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.
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