With a focus on the Hindu/Presidency College, this book offers new ways of doing histories of education in colonial and postcolonial historical settings. Each essay utilizes new archival materials to present “liberal arts” education as an arena of competition, conversation, the rise of new disciplines, and politics. The everyday life of the College comes alive in a set of interdisciplinary essays that analyse different aspects of the institution’s existence from student publications to the challenges of under-funding.