e Fort ... who is to teach all the Children to read
English and to write and Cypher gratis, and if any of the other
Natives, as Portuguez, Gentues (Telugus),[4] or others will send their
Children to School, we require they be also taught gratis ... and he
is likewise to instruct them in the Principles of the Protestant
religion.' Mr. Ralph Orde arrived by the same ship which brought the
letter, and his arrival (1677) is another notable event in the history
of education in Madras. It was the first beginning of Government
education--the laying of the first stone in what is now such a vast
edifice.

[Footnote 4: In modern Madras the great majority of the Hindu
residents are Tamils; but in the beginning there were very few Tamil
immigrants, and the Hindu residents were nearly all of them Telugus
(Gentoos).]

In appointing a schoolmaster, the Directors meant to do their best for
education in their rising city; for they had [5]engaged no mean
dominie on a menial's pay. In choosing Mr. Ralph Orde they chose a
good man, and they paid him accordingly. He was to dine at the General
Table, and his salary was to be L50 a year, which in those days was no
small sum--more than the salary of some of the Members of Council.
Perhaps, indeed, they got too good a man for the post; for after five
years of educational work in Madras, Mr. Orde complained that his
schoolmastering had been 'much prejudicial to my health,' and he asked
to be relieved of his duties and to be appointed to a post in the
Company's civil service instead. His request was granted. A new
schoolmaster was appointed; and as a 'Civilian' Mr. Orde worked with
such success that in two or three years he was sent to Sumatra to be
the Chief of a factory that he was to found on the west coast of the
island. The ex-schoolmaster would, perhaps, have risen to be Governor
of Madras, but it would seem that life in the East had really been
'much prejudicial to his health,' for he died in Sumatra ten years
after his first arrival in Madras.

In 1688, by virtue of the Company's Royal Charter, a Corporation of
the City of Madras came into being, and it was among their delegated
duties that they should build a school in Black Town for the purpose
of teaching 'Native children to speak, read, and write the English
Tongue, and to understand Arithmetic and Merchants' Accompts.' Three
years later, however, Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, complained to
the Corporation that, although they ha