Naoroji came of a poor but highly respectable family, and were it not for the generosity of the Camas—another Parsee family—in supplying him with books, and even at times helping towards the payment of his fees, Naoroji would have been deprived of his education, and thus hindered from being the bulwark of strength to the Indian cause. The realisation that poverty may, in numerous instances, prove a formidable bar to equipping oneself for the severe discipline of life, assumed in Naoroji the force of an irresistible conviction, in no wise diminished, even when his career marked the zenith of successful achievement, by the comforting thought that in his own case the kindness of friends helped him tide over many a difficulty. In fact, throughout his long and honourable career, almost overcrowded with varied and assiduous activities, Naoroji maintained an attitude of uncompromising democratic zeal, striving to open out wider opportunities for the less favoured, championing the cause of " the submerged tenth " fighting pitched battles on the parliamentary back bench, on the public platform and in the sanctum of intimate friendships, for the amelioration of the lot of the overtaxed peasantry, for the elimina tion of poverty and illiteracy among India's countless and dumb millions, for the removal of social and political stigmas branded on the foreheads of India's intellectuals, and for the general softening of harsh and severe conditions. The main power that impelled and drove forward his activities was the intense conviction that a bureaucratic government, alien or indigenous, failed to create the environment where talent and genius could come into their own : and on the other hand it reinforced every reactionary influence that suppressed self-realisation and over burdened with a crushing weight the undeveloped powers of a nation's manhood. We referred above to Naoroji's fighting pitched battles : we may, perhaps, add that he fought these with the coolness of an experienced general that had surveyed the entire situation before him, and with the daring and dash of a trained soldier.
From school the transition to collegiate life at Elphinstone College was made easy by Naoroji's winning a scholarship. On taking his B.A. final with honours, Dadabhai did not experience great difficulty in securing an assistant professorship at his Alma Mater, which later led to a full-blown professor ship at that historic institution. In all his attempts he was considerably assisted by Sir Erskine Perry and a Professor of the same college. Sir Erskine, the principal, was so much struck by Dadabhai's integrity, intelligence and mastery of the English language, that before Dadabhai's graduation he offered to be responsible for half the expenses requisite for Dadabhai's education for the English Bar, provided his parents could arrange for the raising of the other half. But in those days the prevailing panic was, and this was shared by Dadabhai's parents to an extraordinary degree, that a visit to England might result in the youth's con version to Christianity. So the project was hung up for a season, and then ultimately dropped so far as the parents were concerned.
During under-graduate days, and perhaps earlier while at school, Dadabhai would, like Gokhale, snap at English classics and read them with great avidity. He was also tremendously interested in books on travel and adventure, and in thrilling anecdotes of heroism and philanthropy. Thus the lives of the pioneers of the Slavery Abolition movement, lives like those of William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and Zachary Macaulay exercised a great fascination over a mind so wonderfully amenable to appeals of human tragedy and so sensitive to the demands of suffering humanity. The perusal of these biographies fired his imagination, and set his life aglow with many a fixed resolve. And it is common knowledge to-day that never did patriot or reformer ever apply himself to seemingly impossible tasks with sterner determination or haughtier defiance of the barriers that strewed the pathway to achievement. At the same time it is instructive to observe that Naoroji was at no time of his life an idle visionary, nor ever did he under take to achieve what lay beyond the zone of accomplishment in the history of more favoured countries.
When some years later Dadabhai interviewed Sir Erskine Perry, while the latter held an appointment at the India Office, in Whitehall, Dadabhai was quite convinced, as was his erstwhile principal, that the fiasco of the earlier years had only broadened the avenues of useful service to his country, and that a lawyer's career, however lucrative, would have greatly curbed his enthusiasm for service and con fined his sphere of influence.
Before coming to England, however, Dadabhai had striven to the best of his ability to launch new and rather ambitious schemes for the improvement of the standards of teaching efficiency in the existing schools, for establishing a large number of schools where English must be the medium of instruction, for female education leading to the fuller emancipa tion of women, for floating new journalistic ventures advocating religious and social reform. Dadabhai was thus prompted by his reforming instincts in all the various spheres of his life-work, for he saw the utter futility of dreaming new dreams, without developing the corresponding capacity for setting one's house in order, or developing those aptitudes without which mere political ambitions only foster a vague discontent. He clearly foresaw with the vision of a prophet, that gross abuses had crept into his own community, by reason of the obscurantist leadership of ignorant priests and general social and moral helplessness. He was fortunate in securing the loyal co-operation of eminent Parsee progressives, but it is the merest justice to Dadabhai to say that he himself was, from their very inception, the chief guiding spirit of these reforms. The paper called " Rast Guftar " owes its origin mainly, if not exclusively to Dadabhai's efforts, and this paper has always maintained an attitude of unflinching criticism of religious and social anomalies in the community and political in the government.