Before carrying further the story of the Government Boarding School, as our School came to be called while at Dow Hill, it will be profitable to pause and take some account of the wider world of Kurseong and Darjeeling.

The year 1879 marks the commencement of not only Dow Hill and Victoria but also of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, for it was in that year the same Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Ashley Eden, approved the scheme of Mr. Prestage, Agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway (brought as far as Siliguri in 1878), for "the laying of a steam tramway" from Siliguri to Darjeeling.

The first batch of our 15 children came by tonga from Siliguri. In the second year they must have come, like Lord Lytton, the then Viceroy, by train as far as Tindharia to which the track had been laid. "Before the end of that year the line was complete to Kurseong" (the station was then at the Claredon Hotel) and in July 1881 it was opened for traffic right through to Darjeeling." We find an echo of this in the Record of Christ Church. "Sunday, July 31st, 1881. Went by Railway to Hopetown for Service at 3.30. " We are still closely connected with both Railways. The Agent of the E.B. Railway and the General Manager of the D.H.Railway are both ex-officio members of our Governing Body.

It was the growth of the tea industry in the District, as well as the inconvenience of travel by tonga and bullock cart, that stimulated the construction of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. It is interesting to recall Hooker's casual reference in 1848, to the tea bush, now the staple of the District. Speaking of Labong he says : The tea plant succeeds here admirably, and might be cultivated to great profit, and be of advantage in furthering a trade with Tibet. It has been tried on a large scale by Dr. Campbell at his residence (alt. 7,000ft) but the frosts and snow of that height injure it, as do the hailstorms in Spring." The tea industry, too, has its representative on our Governing Body today.

Up to 1880, the year after the children came to Constantia, Kurseong was spiritually ministered to by the Chaplain of Darjeeling. I am not able to establish the exact date of the opening of Christ Church.

The first entry in its registers is dated August 5th, 1870. We find burial entries of that period terminating "buried by A.W.Vaul, Acting Commissioner." We, who today do not perhaps appreciate as we might the benefits we enjoy in the ministration of a resident priest, can hardly imagine a time, just over 60 years ago, when one had to ride in all the way from Darjeeling.And now we have the railway, electric lights and telephone, and cars to our to door!

At Christ Church were married "Mary Isabella Mathews, Spinster, teacher in the Government School," "Edward Lawrence Lynch Nile, Bachelor, Second Master," "Alfred Aston Barnes, Bachelor, Schoolmaster, to Norah Emily Pegler." and "Sidney James Hall, Bachelor, Gymnastic Instructor." Here were baptized "Annie Winifred Pegler," "Arthur Cecil, son of Arthur and Alice Chapman of the Government Boarding School," "Earnest J. Fraser, son of Earnest Edward and Lilly Ewell Sharp," "Humphrey Aston, son of Alfred Aston and Norah Emily Barnes,"and "Elizabeth Norah, daughter of Earnest Edward and Lilly Ewell Sharp." The registers record the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, who as we shall see, continued the work begun by Mr. and Mrs. Pegler,. On the east wall of the Church, by the Font, there is a brass tablet to the memory of the Barnes.

We left the Schools in 1898, one, for boys, newly opened (less "the Commercial" and the Anglican Chapel, built in 1904 and 1909 respectively), and the other, extended and enlarged for girls, but without the New Dormitory, built in 1925, and the New Hospital, the girls' side of which was opened in 1918 and the boys' in1923.

To beautify and make the most of our spacious buildings and grounds was the particular delight of Mr. Barnes, who Succeeded his father-in-law as Head master in 1901. To him fell the task of expanding the curriculum and of widening the usefulness of the Boys' School.

Till then the School had taught up to the Middle School Examination of, the European Code. In that year Government sanction was granted for teaching boys up to the High School. But it was decided after a very brief trial to restrict the ordinary class teaching to the Middle School Examination.

In the same year, too, a Training College for Teachers, men and women, was opened with Mr.R.Delaney as Principal. Expansion of the curriculum proceeded rapidly. In 1904 Technical classes were opened: the "Commercial" building (hence its name) housed the students. The Commercial side took instruction in Arithmetic, Algebra, Commercial History and Geography, Vernacular, Shorthand, Typewriting, Book- keeping and Business Methods.

The other side received "a two years' training which was accepted at Sibpur, where another two years in the Apprentice Department followed in either General Engineering or Mining." For them a Carpenters' Shop and Smithy were constructed and a Science Room equipped. Every year the students spent two weeks at Sukna or Siliguri in survey work.

Two other notable events took place this year, 1904. "Hockey started as one of the regular School "games" and Goethels school was in course of construction.

In the following year, the outstanding event was "the Great Plague". "An epidemic," we read in the Record for 1906, "pronounced to be plague, broke out in the School at the beginning of April. The outbreak was handed splendidly from first to last. Ten trained nurses were engaged at once, the whole school was turned out into six separate camps, and after 13 cases had been treated, the disease left us and we moved back again to our work. No lives were lost amongst the patients and by the 7th of May we were back in School, most of the boys, owing to their free life in the forest, looking the picture of health." I can hear the voice of a boy I know ask appealingly, "Can't we have a plague too? The name "Plague Rock" on the Giddapahar Ridge survives to remind us of the site of that camp.

In 1912 the Cambridge Junior Examination was taken for the first time and the examination of the code were dropped. "Victoria School is now" as the Record for 1911 proudly observes "a Secondary School. We read, however, in the Headmaster's Report for the following year that only 2 of the 7 candidates were able to satisfy the examiners. On the 11th July, 1912, Mr P.M. O'riordan, MA., (Cambs), joined the staff.

In 1918 the Victoria School Record, in which most of the foregoing information was found, celebrated its coming of age. The Editor was a true prophet when he said in his editorial that year, "I feel sure that in time to come it will be valuable as a mine of information from which to unearth the history of the School." From 1912 on we find the School making "quiet and steady progress."

The candidates for the Junior Cambridge Examination, making up for the poor results of the first effort, pass well every year. So do those for the Preliminary Locals, Government Vernacular, Lower Standard (Hindi) and the joint Technical Board Entrance Examination though we find the number of the candidates for this last reduced on one occasion to one. We read year by year of the Headmaster's desire to start the Cambridge Senior Examination and his agitation for the necessary augmentation of the Staff. The scheme is postponed till the end of the War when the Preliminary Local Examination is abandoned and the School takes for the first time in 1918, the Senior Cambridge or School Certificate Examination.

In 1918 saw, too, the closing down of the Technical Department, which had served Bengal so well since 1904 and had produced no less than three students who were awarded State Scholarships to go on from Sibpur for further study to England. From this Class, also, there came a distinguished member of the Geological Survey of India, the Resident Engineer of one railway and the Agent of another.

Victoria has now turned her attention to producing boys with a good all round education, suitably equipped to enter the field of competition for employment, with a wider and more general school-leaving certificate than had been required of a boy till then. In this departure from our old objectives we were following the trend of European education throughout the Province. In 1932 the logical next step was taken and we sent up candidates for the first time for the Intermediate Arts Examination of the University of Calcutta. Was the Pendulum swinging too far?

The Training College, too, which has served Bengal for forty years, will cease to send out trained teachers to staff the middle and primary forms of the European Schools in the Province. At the end of this year it closes down. Established in 1901, as we have seen, and then known as the Victoria Training .College, it was open to both men and women. In 1903 Mr. Delaney,. the first Principal, left to take up a new appointment in South Africa as Inspector of Schools, Natal. After that date the Training College accepted women students only, and was located at Dow Hill, where it has remained since.

What of the future ? We are on the threshold of a new era In India. What part are we to play in the history of our times? The answer lies in our past history. These Schools were founded for the children of those in the lower ranks of Government service. Since then the opportunities they offer have been extended to others as well and now finally to the children of our Indian fellow subjects. We are not a Church School; with one other institution for Anglo- Indian education in Bengal we share the distinction of being a non- sectarian school. Yet "we acknowledge the restraint of reverence." This fact has been a distinct feature of the contribution of Victoria and Dow Hill to education in the province. Independent of ecclesiastical "magisterialism" these two schools have been forcing-houses of new ideas and an example to others in the field of education in Bengal. Having this heritage we face the future with confidence.

Victrix Domus peraeque

Mucicae gymnasticaeque

Diva stimulatrix

Ter quaterque floreas!