The position had its cares, for the college was an educational experiment. Governor-General Wellesley[1004] had proposed to found a college at Fort William, Calcutta, for the general education of the civil servants of the Company as well as their special instruction in Oriental languages. He pointed out that their functions, judicial, administrative, diplomatic, were now totally unlike their names of writer, factor, and merchant, and they needed something higher than the commercial training which was all that was then required of them. The Directors of the East India Company carried out his wishes so far as to allow Fort William College to do the advanced training in languages; but they thought that the general education should be given before the cadets left England, and at the end of 1805 they passed a scheme for establishing for that purpose a college at Haileybury, near Hertford. On their nomination, instead of going out at once to India, the future civil servants of India were to spend two or three years at Haileybury, and to receive _first_ a General education on the lines of Oxford and Cambridge, and _second_ a Special education to prepare them for their duties in their province.[1005] The Professor of “History and Political Economy” and the Professor of “General Polity and the Laws of England” were regarded as giving both the general and the special kinds of training. “As the study of law and political economy” (so runs the scheme) “is to form an essential part in the general system of education, it will be required that, in the lectures upon these subjects, particular attention be given to the explanation of the political and commercial relations subsisting between India and Great Britain.”[1006] The two professors were required to give “(1) a course of lectures on general history and on the history and statistics of the modern nations of Europe, (2) a course of lectures on political economy, (3) a course of lectures on general polity, on the laws of England and principles of the British Constitution.”[1007] The other subjects were Classics, Oriental Languages, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. The college course lasted, as a rule, two years, each year consisting of two terms of about five months each (Feb. to June, Aug. to Dec.); and there were periodical examinations, honour lists, and prizes. The ages of the pupils ranged from as low as fifteen to as high as twenty-two, and about forty joined every year. Malthus would seldom have a class beyond twelve or fourteen, all in the later year of their course.[1008]