in the evening prayer Rabindranath, Chintamani Chattopadhyay, and Shambhunath Gadgadi took the seat on the dias. Rabindranath gave them advice after the prayer.
Who were the first students is not very clear. Rathindranath, the elder son of Rabindranath, was one amongst them. He was 13 years old. He wrote that it was a problem for his father to collect students at that time. He asked Brahmabandhab to assist him in this respect. Brahmabandhab sent four boys from families he knew. Rathindranath remembered that two among them were the sons of a renowned businesss family of Nan. The autographer of Rabindranath gave the list of students as follows;
1. Gaur Govinda Gupta (became professor of philosophy in Rangpur College),
2. Asok Kumar Gupta (son of the same family),
3. Yogananda Mitra (a cousin of Ambikacharan Mitra, prof. of Philosophy)
4. Sudhir Chandra Nan,
5. Girin Bhattacharya,
6. Rajendranath De,
7. Premkumar Gupta,
8. Rathindranath Thakur,
9. Shamindranath Thakur, and
10. Santosh Chandra Majumdar.
Amongst the teachers there were Reba Chand, Shibdhan Bidyarnab, Jagadananda Roy, and Shasi Bhushan Roychoudhury.
Philosopher Brajendranath Seal (1864-1938) was also became close with Rabindranath. Rabindranath wrote to Pramathalal that he was busy writing critical essays on Kumarsamvab and Shakuntala to discuss about literature and society in the context of Indian Idealism. He did not have any time for writing on education in Bangadarshan. Perhaps that would be done in the next issue. In fact, he was not in favour of discussion regarding his school. He imagined only a limited number of students. They would work there as far as practicable.
It could be mentioned here that The Unity and Minister, the mouth peace of Nababidhan Samaj, in its issue of 13 Oct 1901, wrote an essay about the Brahmacharyasharm, titled Pilgrimage to Shantiniketan of Bolpur', the following lines ,
The latest addition is a Brahmavidyalaya or a school for imparting secular and religious education to students in the national style. A boarding house will be opened and there shall be accomodation for 12 students who would learn Sanskrit and Brahmacharya according to the Vedic idea. English, Mathematics, History, upto the Entarnce Course, will also be taught.
It was not clear who wrote this but the person came to Shantiniketan before writing this.
