
Who among the following was associated as Secretary with Hindu Female School which later came to be known as Bethune Female School?
- Annie Besant
- Debendranath Tagore
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
- Sarojini Naidu
Explanation
Option (c) is correct
- The Bethune School was founded as the Calcutta Female School in 1849 by John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune with the financial support of Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee. The school started in Mukherjee’s home with 21 girls enrolled. The Bethune School was the Second (the first being in Bhidewada Pune, by Jyotirao Phule) women’s school in India. In December 1850, Bethune appointed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as the school’s secretary. This appointment encouraged many Hindu families to send their girls to Bethune’s school. The Bethune School was taken over by the government in 1856 and renamed in 1862-63 to honour its founder. In 1879, Bethune School was developed into Bethune College, India’s first women’s college. Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu graduated from Bethune College in 1883, making them the first two female graduates in the Indian subcontinent.

