This remarkable institution was founded in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a Mohammedan lawyer and judge on the civil bench, for the education of his co-religionists in order that they may take places in the world beside the graduates of English and European universities and exercise a similar influence.  He recognized that the Moslem population of India must degenerate unless it was educated; that it could not keep pace with the rest of the world.  He was shocked at the ignorance and the bigotry of his fellow Mohammedans and at their stubborn conservatism.  He was a sincere believer in his own religion, and insisted that the faith of Islam, properly understood, was as much in the interest of truth and progress in every branch of human knowledge and activity as the Christian religion, and he devoted his entire fortune and collected contributions from rich Mohammedans for the establishment of a school that should be entirely up-to-date and yet teach the Koran and the ancient traditions of Islam.  There are now about 500 students, who come from the most important families in India.  They live together in dormitories built about the college, dine in the same refectory and enjoy a healthy, active college life.  Foreign and Christian professors fill the chairs of science, mathematics and languages, while able mullahs give instruction in the Koran and direct the students in the daily exercise of the Mohammedan rites.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan met with bitter opposition and animosity from the conservative element of his faith, and while some of his opponents admitted the purity and nobility of his motive, he was often accused of apostasy, but his noble life was spared until March, 1898, and he was permitted to see his institution enjoying great popularity and usefulness.  There is at present a movement among the Mohammedans of India for the higher education of the members of that sect.  It is the fruit of his labors and the men who are leading it are graduates of the Aligarh College.

Lucknow and Cawnpore are usually neglected by American travelers, but are sacred objects of pilgrimage to all Englishmen because of their terrible memories of the awful struggles of the mutiny of the sepoys, or native soldiers, in 1857, and their heroic defense and heroic relief by a handful of British troops under Sir Henry Havelock, General James Outram and Sir Colin Campbell.  Although more has been written about Lucknow, yet the tragedy of Cawnpore is to me the more thrilling in several particulars, and that city was the scene of the greater agony.

Upon the shores of the Ganges River is a pretty park of sixty acres, in the center of which rises a mound.  That mound covers the site of a well in which the bodies of 250 of the victims of the massacre were cast.  It is inclosed by a Gothic wall, and in the center stands a beautiful figure of an angel in white marble by an Italian artist.  Her arms are crossed upon her breast and in each hand she holds a palm branch.  The archway is inscribed: