 |
| Prafulla Chandra Ray |
Prafulla Chandra Ray was a Bengali chemist, educator and entrepreneur. He was born on 02 August 1861 at Raruli, Khulna, Bangladesh. his father Harish Chandra Ray was a land proprietor. Up to the age of nine, Prafulla Chandra studied in a school in his village. In 1870 his family migrated to Calcutta and Ray and his elder brother were admitted to Hare School. In 1874, while Ray was in the fourth standard, he suffered from a severe attack of dysentery, which hampered his health throughout his life. Due to the severity of the attack, Ray had to postpone his studies for a couple of years and return to his ancestral home in the village. However, Ray himself considered this disruption in his studies as it allowed him to read much more widely than what would have been possible within the constraints of school curricula. He read Lethbridge's 'Selections from Modern English Literature' and Golsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. After recovering from his illness, Ray returned to Calcutta and took admission in Albert School.
In 1879 he passed the Entrance Examination and took admission into the Metropolitan Institution, which was established by Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. At that time the Metropolitan Institution had no science classes or laboratories and Ray attended lectures on physics and chemistry in the Presidency College as an external student. Here he was specially attracted by the chemistry courses of Professor Alexander Pedler. While studying for his Bachelor of Arts examination, he was awarded for Gilchrist Prize Scholarships after an all-India competitive examination. Prafulla Chandra proceeded to Britain and enrolled in the B.Sc. of University of Edinburgh where he studied physics, chemistry and biology amongst other subjects. But Ray did not confine his studies to only natural sciences. He also developed a strong interest in history and read books Rousselet's L'lnde des Rajas, Lanoye's L'lnde contemporaine, Revue dex deux moneds. He also read Fawcett's book on political economy and Essays on Indian Finance.
