Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Lafont, Eugène
LAFONT, EUGÈNE (1837–1908), science teacher in India, born at Mons, Belgium, on 26 March 1837, was eldest son of Pierre Lafont by his wife Marie Soudar. Educated at St. Barbara's College, Ghent, and at the Jesuits' seminary, he was admitted to the order in 1854, and did educational work in Belgium until 1865. He was then sent to Calcutta to inaugurate science teaching at St. Xavier's College, which had been founded by the Jesuit fathers in 1860 for the 'domiciled' European and Eurasian communities. He was rector of the college from 1873 to 1904, when failing health caused his retirement. After leaving Europe he only revisited it twice, in 1878 to recruit after severe illness, and in 1900 to visit the Paris exhibition for scientific purposes.
Indian education on Lafont's arrival in India was almost exclusively literary, and Lafont was the pioneer of scientific teaching in Bengal. He combined a thorough knowledge of experimental physics with great skill as a teacher and lecturer. He equipped St. Xavier's with a fine meteorological and solar observatory, and with a physical laboratory second to none in India. He was one of the founders of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, and for nineteen years gave weekly honorary lectures under its auspices, and was its senior vice-president. A popular and eloquent preacher, he also frequently lectured on Christian evidences, claiming that true science was the handmaid of faith. Lafont was a member of the Institutes of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, and was chairman of the Calcutta section of the latter from 1889. Appointed a follow of Calcutta University in 1877, he took an active part in the work of the senate, filling at various times the offices of syndic (thrice), dean of the arts faculty (1904–7), and president of the board of studios in physics (1904–6). At the jubilee celebrations of the university in March 1908 he received the honorary degree of D.Sc. He had been created C.I.E. on 1 Jan. 1880, and was made an officer of the French Academy, while in 1898 the king of the Belgians made him a knight of the order of Leopold. His devotion to science, his constant labour for the welfare of the 'domiciled' white community, his gentleness, and his charm of manner won him general esteem. He died at Darjeeling on 10 May 1908, and was buried there.
[Journ. Inst. of Elect. Eng. vol. xxxxi. no. 192, 1908; The Times, 11 May 1908; Englishman (Calcutta), weekly edit., 14 and 21 May 1908.]