In 1880 Henry Steel Olcott arrived in Sri Lanka with Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society, causing much excitement on the island. He had been inspired when he read about the Panadura debate and had exchanged letters with Gunananda. After learning about Buddhism from monks such as Sumangala Thera, Olcott converted to the religion. Olcott and the Sinhalese Buddhist leaders established the Buddhist Theosophical Society in 1880, with the goal of establishing Buddhist schools (there were only three at the time, by 1940, there were 429 Buddhist schools on the island). He sponsored Buddhist collges such as Ananda College in Colombo and the Dharmaraja College in Kandy. Olcott also collected the Buddhist scriptures which had been translated by Western indologists and on based on these, he composed a ‘Buddhist Catechism’ (1881), which promoted Buddhism as a 'scientific religion' and was used in Buddhist schools until the late 20th century.