ABSTRACT
It was in December 1915 that I first landed in India on my way to take up an appointment of Professor of Indian Economics in the University of Madras. The appointment was a new one, the policy of appointing University Professors being in itself a recent innovation. Previously the University of Madras, like other Indian Universities, had been purely of a Federal character. University teaching was the task of affiliated colleges of different grades; the business of the governing body of the University, its Senate, which consisted of elected representatives of the colleges with nominated members, acting through its Executive Committee, the Syndicate, was to hold examinations, confer degrees, and exercise a general supervision over the colleges in order to secure their efficiency. The new departure of calling upon the Universities in their corporate capacity to take a separate part in the work of teaching was taken by the Imperial Government of India, in response to an Indian demand, due to a widespread feeling that the existing system tended to be wooden, that it made no provision for research, and tended to reduce a university education to little more than a mere cramming of text-books and lecture notes. The Indian Government had accordingly provided for grants to be made to such universities as submitted approved schemes for using the money in the directions desired. The earliest schemes submitted and approved were those of Calcutta and Allahabad Universities; both provided for the appointment of Professors of Indian Economics.
