Forman’s legacy March 3, 2021 March 3, 2021 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles W Forman, founder of Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) in Lahore. Born in the frontier state of Kentucky in 1821, he later attended Princeton University before joining the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board. This in turn paved the way for his departure to the Indian port city then known as Calcutta in 1847 at the age of twenty-six. Two years later he reached Lahore, the place where he would spend most of the rest of his life. Embodying the phrase ‘missionary zeal’, Forman let nothing stand in the way of his education-focused mission. Rather than charge fees, he paid his first few students one paisa a day to meet for lessons under a tree outside the Old City. Only later was he able to hold classes in a ‘real’ school building.