Haileybury College
Haileybury College an educational and training institute for the newly recruited cadets of the east india company. The idea of giving the East India Cadets (newly recruited members of the Company's Civil Service) a designed education and training before they entered active service was first conceived and implemented by Lord wellesley. With the purpose of educating and training the newly arrived cadets, Wellesley set up an institution called fort william college in 1800. But the court of directors refused to fund the College on the plea of irregularity. It was established without taking any prior permission from the Court. The Court rejected Wellesley's Fort William College, but not his idea of building a professional bureaucracy for administering the colonial state. The Court resolved to establish a similar training and educational institute in England. The East India College, commonly known as Haileybury College (from its location) was thus established in 1806.
All cadets were henceforth required to receive education and training at the College for four years to qualify themselves for the Company’s Covenanted Civil Service. Rigid rules and regulations were framed to give moral, physical and intellectual training to the cadets. The educational programme was planned according to the syllabi of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Along with the courses on western subjects were introduced additionally the Indian languages and history. For moral training of the cadets were engaged reputed moral philosophers like Rev Samuel Henley (principal) and, Rev Edward Lewton.
Thomas R Malthus (1766-1834), a celebrated theorist of Political Economy was also a Moral Philosopher in the College. With Malthus was another great theoretician, David Ricardo (1772-1823).
The academic and moral atmosphere of the College had a positive impact on the young cadets. Rhetoric goes that if India made the crown of the British Empire in the nineteenth century, its steel-frame was the Indian Civil Service. By extending the rhetoric it may be said that the artisan of the steel-frame had been the Haileybury College which had trained the freshmen of the bureaucracy morally, physically and intellectually. [Sirajul Islam]
