worked in Sri Lankan Tamil dominant Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka. Within the British Indian community of that era, there were not lacking those "Orientalists" who saw value in the traditional learning of India and wished to support and encourage it. They opposed Duff's policy of stringently disregarding the same while assiduously promoting the spread of western education, culture and religion. In 1839, Lord Auckland, the governor-general of India, yielded to them and adopted a policy which was a compromise between the two perspectives. Regardless, English became the tool through which Indians were able to understand and advance themselves through the British institutions of government. This opportunity to share in governance established one of the foundations on which eventual self-rule was built. The Institutes Shortly after landing in India in 1830, Duff opened his institution in a house located at upper Chitpur Road in the Jorasanko neighbourhood of Calcutta. The house was made available to him by Feringhi Kamal Bose, an affluent Hindu. The school soon began to expand into a missionary college, known as the General Assembly's Institution. The location was a source of controversy for the Missions Committee who wanted to remain at the heart of Bengali society in the city of Calcutta. In 1834, Duff returned to Britain broken in health. During this sojourn, he succeeded in securing the approval of his church for his educational plans, and in arousing much interest in the work of foreign missions. His struggles were described in a speech at Exeter Hall on 8 May 1837 that called for hundreds of thousands of new teachers for India. In 1836, the Calcutta institution was moved to Gorachand Bysack's house in the Garanhata neighbourhood. On 23 February 1837, Mr. MacFarlon, the Chief Magistrate of Calcutta, laid the foundation stone for a new building belonging to the mission itself. The building was designed by Mr. John Gray construction was superintended by Capt. John Thomson, both of the East India Company. The construction of the building was completed in 1839. Duff returned to India in 1840, by which time The Institution had expanded to 600 Indian pupils from five to nine years old. At the Disruption of 1843, Duff sided with the Free Church. He gave up the college buildings, with all their effects, and with unabated courage set to work to provide a new institution, which came to be known as the Free Church