Chitta Ranjan was born at Calcutta on the 5th of November 1870. Shortly afterwards Bhuban Mohan came to stay at Bhowanipur and Chitta Ranjan was admitted into the London Missionary Society School whence he passed the Entrance Examination in 1886. He was subsequently educated in the Presidency College and took his degree in 1890. He was much disappointed with the result as he narrowly missed Honours in the B. A. Examination. However he sailed for England to qualify himself for the Indian Civil Service. From his boyhood he was rather deficient in Mathematics and therefore with all his proficiency in literature he could not secure high position in the University examinations. But Chitta Ranjan gave considerable promise of exceptional literary and oratorical gifts even when he was a student in the Presidency College. The habit of making speeches grew upon him even in his boyhood when he would gather his friends and playmates in his house and begin to deliver a speech imitating the voice and posture of an orator to the great amusement of his people. Professors and fellow-students at college all hoped that he would one day turn out as one of the most powerful speakers of India. This hope has amply been justified. Chitta Ranjan went to England and began to prepare for the Indian Civil Service. At that time the late Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji was trying to get himself elected a member of Parliament from Finsbury so that he might personally state Indian grievances before the British Parliament. Chitta Ranjan had then just appeared in the Civil Service Examination, but the result was not yet out. He came to Dadabhai's assistance and made some political speeches in connection with the Electioneering Campaign. Some of the speeches were very favourably noticed by the English and the Indian press.