Cradle of education

The Maharani Girls School was a pioneer of women’s education.

It’s hard to miss the gracious heritage building of the Maharani College for Women when you drive down Jhansi Laxmi Bai Road in Mysore. The building stands as a testimony to the institution, one of the oldest in the country, and to the cause of women’s education in the state.

The college began as a school, at a time when few girls were educated and the existing schools set up by religious missions were more concerned about the students’ spiritual salvation. Chamaraja Wodeyar, who succeeded to the throne of Mysore after the death of Krishnaraja Wodeyar III in 1868, was keen to promote the education of women. His dewan, Rangacharlu, encouraged Rai Bahadur Ambil Narasimhiengar, an advocate for women’s education, to take up the task of setting up an institution. Narasimhiengar convened a public meeting in Mysore in 1880 and, with private subscriptions, started the girls’ school on March 16, 1881. In the first year, there were 28 girl students and five teachers. Lessons were was mostly in Kannada and subjects included music and Sanskrit. It was named the Maharani’s Girls School in honour of Maharani Kempananjammanni, wife of Sri Chamaraja Wodeyar, who was also keen on the establishment of a girls’ school aided by the state.

Presiding over the prize distribution at the first anniversary of the Maharani's Girls School, Dewan Rangacharlu emphasised the great importance he attached to English education among young women of the leading families, “who could feel for the advancement of their sex and take up the same position in regard to them as that occupied by educated men in relation to their brethren.”

Initially, the Maharani’s Girls School of Mysore was located at the temple premises within the Palace Fort. As the number of students attending the school began to steadily increase, it was shifted to the Jaganmohan Palace. The vacant area behind it was taken over for the construction of the school building.

Presenting the new building to the school in 1889, the maharaja observed, “You are all aware that this school, which was started only a few years ago, is now one of the most popular institutions in Mysore. I have watched its progress with great attention, and have hitherto accommodated it in a part of the Jaganmohan Palace premises. I believe that it has now acquired those dimensions which make it desirable that it should have a proper separate school.”

By 1895, the Maharani’s Girls School had become a high school, after it was taken over by the government on April 1, 1891. That year, three students passed the matriculation examination for the first time from the school.

The school acquired the status of a college with the opening of the arts classes affiliated to the Madras University in 1897. In 1900, a regular college department was formed and the following year the school was renamed Maharani's College. History was created when three students of the college, D K Rukminiyamma, Srirangamma and Subbamma , passed Madras University’s BA exam in 1906. The three were not only the first to pass the degree course from Maharani’s College but also the first women in South India to secure a university degree.

A hostel was added to the college in 1913, with the government taking over a widows’ home, established in Mysore. Later, when Mysore University was formed in 1916, the college was affiliated to the university. About 20 years later, it was bifurcated and shifted from the school premises. In 1980-81, the two-year pre-university course was added to the high school. The school celebrated its centenary in 1993.

Today, the Maharani’s School complex has a girls’ high school, a junior college and a training institution, and a strength of nearly 2,000 students.