History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

298 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. VI.

have in a previous page quoted the high opinion expressed by the Government educational authorities of the efficiency of the school under his charge. The Fort Proprietary School, the Fort High School, and some other high schools are all conducted by Parsi head-masters with a staff composed mostly of Parsi teachers. The number of boys whom they pass annually at the matriculation examination is highly creditable not only to their own education but to their teaching capacities.

When the opportunity of medical instruction was first afforded in Bombay the Parsis were eager to take advantage of it. The Grant Medical College was opened in that city in the year 1845, and from that date up to the present time a very large number of Parsis have qualified themselves as physicians and surgeons. Fourteen have entered the Indian Medical Service by successfully passing the competitive examination in London.

One of them, Mr. Dhanjisha Naorozji Parakh, has recently been appointed by Sir James Fergusson, Governor of Bombay, to the professorial chair of midwifery in the Grant Medical College, and to the post of surgeon to the obstetric ward of the Sir Jamshedji Jijibhai Hospital. The Parsis are naturally proud of and much gratified at these appointments, inasmuch as the first native of India on whom such a

distinction has been conferred is one of their own race.