Church Missionary Society College High School

The Church Missionary Society College High School (CMS High School) is situated in Kottayam, Kerala, India. It was started by the Church Missionary Society, England, in 1817 when no institution existed in the then-Travancore state to teach English. The Rev. Benjamin Bailey was the first principal of The College, COTTYM, as it was then called and spelt. The government welcomed the College as "a place of general education whence any demands of the state for officers to fill all departments of public service would be met". In the early years, the curriculum included the study of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics, History and Geography besides English, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Syriac. In 1838, the College was shifted to the wooded hillock — the present site — commanding views of the distant Western Ghats. One of the oldest buildings in the campus is Room 52 or "Grammar School," as it was then named. The College magazine in Malayalam was started in 1864 by the then-principal Richard Collins, after whom the College Library is named.

In 1857 the College was affiliated to Madras University soon after its incorporation and the College presented students for the Matriculation examination. The College provided free education to all the students until 1855 when the fee of one Rupee a month began to be collected from each student. The total number of students in 1870 was only 129. In 1880, the Maharaja of Travancore who visited the College observed: "Long...
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