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CONVOCATION ADDRESSES- 
 
 0¥ THE 
 
 UNIYERSITIES*OF BOMBAY AND JWADRAS.* 
 
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 COMPILED 
 BY 
 
 K. SUBBA RAU, 
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 i^iub- editor, The Hindu. 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 The Convocation addresses of the Bombay and Madras 
 
 Universities are so valuable in themselves and are the 
 productions of such eminent men, that no words of mine 
 are needed to commend them to the cordial acceptance of 
 the public. They furnish an authentic history of the com- 
 mencement and progress of Higher Education in the Pre- 
 sidencies of Bombay and Madras. In them are found an 
 admirable exposition of liberal education and its marvel- 
 lous effects ; authoritative declarations on the policy of the 
 Government towards Collegiate education, and on the 
 status, the privileges and responsibilities of the alumni of 
 the Universities. But the interest which they possess is 
 not merely academical. There is hardly any subject of 
 practical importance which they fail to traverse. On the 
 supreme necessity of the education and elevation of Indian 
 women, " the insatiable passion " for foreign travel that 
 ought to animate the educated youths of the country, 
 the willing homage that must be paid to rules of sanitation, 
 the methods calculated to increase the material prosperity 
 of the country, and a variety of equally weighty sub- 
 jects, the accompanying pages contain the mature opinions 
 of many of the best thinkers of the present and the pre- 
 ceding generation. The addresses therefore deserve a 
 permanent place in Indian literature, in a form convenient 
 for ready reference and within the easy reach of all. If 
 the publication of a moral text-book is still exercising 
 the mind of the Government of India, a judicious selec- 
 tion from the addresses would well serve the purpose. 
 Above all, the addresses set forth in an excellent manner 
 the objects with which England in her unrivalled genero- 
 sity and far-seeing statesmanship founded the Indian 
 Universities and the ideal which tliey desire their alumni 
 to always keep in view. 
 
2 Preface. 
 
 The princely benefactions of tlie citizens of Bombay 
 deserve the highest commendation and may probably, if 
 widely known in this Presidency, create a similar spirit 
 among the wealthy of my countrymen. 
 
 I have had to omit three addresses of the Madras 
 University, those delivered in 1858, 1865 and 1867, the 
 first and the last as I could not secure copies of them, and 
 the second agreeably to the resolution of the Senate that 
 the publication of it was not in keeping with the general 
 policy of the University in such matters. 
 
 To facilitate reference, I have given marginal head- 
 ings and an index to each of the parts. 
 
 I regret sanction was not given to me to publish the 
 Addresses of the Chancellors and the Yice-Chancellors 
 of the Calcutta University. 
 
 In conclusion, I beg to tender my thanks to the Regis- 
 trars of the Madras and Bombay Universities for the per- 
 mission they accorded to me, to Messrs. S. R. Bhandarkar, 
 Assistant Registrar of the Bombay University, and Din- 
 shaw Eduljee "VYacha, of Bombay, for the aid they ren- 
 dered me in procuring copies of the Bombay addresses, 
 and to Mr. K. Natarajan, b.a., for revising with me the 
 proofs. 
 
 100, Mount Road. K. S. 
 
::^ 
 
 THIS VOLTJMP 
 
 EDICATED TO HIS f^XCELLENCY 
 
 LORD WEJ<LOCK, 
 
 Covernor of Madras and Chancellor of the Madras University 
 BY THE COMPILER. 
 
CONTENTS OF PART I. 
 
 BOMBAY CONVOCATION ADDRESSES. 
 
 Parte. 
 
 Sir H. B. E. Frere, K.C.B. ... ... ... ... 1 to 30 
 
 Sir Alexander Grant Bart, LL.D.... ... 31 to 33 
 
 Sir H. B.E. Frere, KC.B. ... 33 to 38 
 
 Six W R. Fitzgerald, GCS.!., D.CL 38 to 47 
 
 Rev. John Wilson, D.D., F.R.S... ... ... ... 47 to 55 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Justice Gibbs ... ... 55 to 60 
 
 Sir W. R. Fitzgerald, D.CL. G.CS.I. ... ... ... 60 to 65 
 
 Sir p. E. Wodehouse, KC.B. ... ... 65 to 74 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Justice Gibbs ... ... ... 74 to 86 
 
 Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G C.S.I., CLE... 86 to 104 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Justice Gibbs ... ... ... ... 104 to 113 
 
 Sir Richard Temple, Bart, G.O.S.L, CLE.... 114 to 125 
 
 Sir James Fergusson, Bart., K.CMG., D.CL. ... ... 125 to 130 
 
 Mr. Justice Raymond West, CS., M.A., F.R.GS 130 to 140 
 
 Sir James Fergusson, Bart, K.CMG., D-CL... ... 140 to 149 
 
 Mr. Justice Raymond West C.S., MA., P.RG.S 149 to 160 
 
 Sir James Fergusson Bart, K.CM.G., D.CL. ... 160 & 161 
 
 Lord Ripon ... ... ... ... ... ... 161 to 163 
 
 The Hon. J. B. Peile, CS., CS.L ... ... 164 to 177 
 
 Sir Raymond West CS., M.A., P.RG.S. 178 to 206 
 
 Lord Reay, LLD., G.CI.E. ... ... 206 to 227 
 
 Rev. D. Maokiehan, MA., D.D, ... ... ... 227 to 243 
 
 Lord Reay, LLD., G-CLE. ... ... 243 to 245 
 
 Mr. Justice Birdwood, CS., MA., LL.D. ... ... 246 to 248 
 
 Lord Harris ... ... ... ... ... 248 to 252 
 
 Mr. Justice Birdwood, CS., MA., LLD. ... ... 252 to 268 
 
 Lord Harris ... ... .., ... ... 268 to 271 
 
CONTENTS OF PART II. 
 
 MADRAS ADDRESSES. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 E. B. Powell, Esq., M.A. 1 to 8 
 
 J. D. Mayne, Esq., B.A 8 to 13 
 
 The Eev. A. R Symonds, M.A 13 to 17 
 
 The Rev. R. Halley, M.A 17 to 22 
 
 J. Bruce Norton, Esq., B.A 22 to 27 
 
 E. Thompson, Esq., MA. ... ... ... 27 to 32 
 
 Honorable Sir Adam Bittlestone ... ... ... 33 to 40 
 
 Honorable A. J. Arbuthnot, C S.I. ... ... 40 to 49 
 
 Lord Napier ... .. ... ... ... ... 49 to 57 
 
 George Smith, Esq., M.D.,L.R.C.S.E. ... 57 to 69 
 
 The Rev. William Miller, M.A.... ... ... ... 69 to 79 
 
 Henry Fortey, Esq., M.A. ... ... .. 79 to 86 
 
 W. A. Porter, Esq., M.A. ... ... ... ... 85 to 93 
 
 Honorable H. S. Cunningham, MA. ... 93 to 101 
 
 Geo. Thorn, Esq., MA. ... ... ... ... ... 101 to 108 
 
 Honorable Mr. Justice Innes ... ... 108 to 115 
 
 Col. R. M. Macdonald ... ... ... ... ... 115 to 123 
 
 M. C. Purnell, Esq., M.D., P.R.CS 123 to 135 
 
 The Right Rev. R. Caldwell, D.D , LLD. ... ... 135 to 142 
 
 Duke of Buckingham and Chandos ... 142 to 147 
 
 Honorable Sir Charles A. Turner ... ... ... 147 to 154 
 
 Honorable Mr. Justice Muthusamy Aiyar 155 to 168 
 
 Honorable D. P. Carmiehael ... ... ... ... 169 to 174 
 
 Surgeon- General The Hon'ble W. R. Cornish. CLE. .. 174 to 185 
 Honorable P. O'Sullivan .. .. .. ... 186 to 191 
 
 Rt. Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstonc Grant Duff 191 to 222 
 
 Raja Sir T. Madhava Row, KC.S.T. ... ... ...222 to 236 
 
 Lieut. Col. W. Hughes-Hallet ... ... 236 to 252 
 
 D.Sinclair, Esq., M.A. ... ... .. ... ...253 to 259 
 
 Rai Bahadur P. Ranganadha Mudaliar, M.A 259 to 270 
 
 D. Duncan. Esq . MA., D.Sc ... ... ... .. 270 to 284 
 
 H. B. Grigg; Esq., M.A., CLE 284 to 314 
 
CONVOCATION ADDRESSES 
 
 01 THE 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Part I. Page 19, line 10 for exprience read experience. 
 
 )) ,, 47 ;;, 6 for learn read earn. 
 
 ,i „ 135 ,^ 3 for apart read a part. 
 
 ,i ,i 150 ,, 4 for Moble read Noble. 
 
 \ i, 3) 47 in the marginal heading for Duke of Con- 
 
 naught read Dake of Edinburgh. 
 
 ii a 159 Marginal heading for university read univer- 
 
 sities. 
 
 Part II. ^, 49 Marginal heading for orgin read origin. 
 
 which have enabled me to be present. ^ " T 
 
 I cannot help going back in memory to the occasion shortly 
 after my arrival in this country, when I met 
 taonS^Sy^tem.** ^©ssrs. Bell and Henderson, who had then just 
 landed, the two first of the highly educated teachers 
 who were selected by Mr. Elphinstone to commence his great 
 system for the education of the youth of this presidency. I 
 recollect, too, when Dr. Harkness, your present Dean of the 
 Faculty of Arts, arrived here with Professor Orlebar in 1835, 
 as the first Professor of the then infant College. Looking to 
 the great difficulties with which they had to contend, I think 
 
CONVOCATION ADDRESSES 
 
 01 THE 
 
 mnlversit^ of Bombay. 
 
 FIRST CONVOCATION. 
 
 By His Excellency Sik H. B. E. Febeb.) 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of tlie Senate,— I am 
 sure it is a subject o£ very sincere regret to the 
 Clerk ^^^^^^ Senate and to every one here present that this 
 meeting could not be presided over by the great 
 statesman who has lately left these shores : to one whose heart 
 was so full of sympathy with everything connected with the 
 welfare of India — who loved India with a large and generous 
 heart as Sir George Clerk did, the present would have been an 
 occasion of no ordinary interest. But while I regret he is not 
 here among us to-day, I cannot but feel grateful to Mr. "Vice- 
 Chancellor, for the arrangements he so considerately made, 
 which have enabled me to be present. 
 
 I cannot help going back in memory to the occasion shortly 
 after my arrival in this country, when I met 
 «n J^LS1^^** Messrs. Bell and Henderson, who had then just 
 landed, the two first oi the highly educated teachers 
 who were selected by Mr. Elphinstone to commence his great 
 system for the education of the youth of this presidency. I 
 recollect, too, when Dr, Harkness, your present Dean of the 
 Faculty of Arts, arrived here with Professor Orlebar in 1835, 
 as the first Professor of the then infant College. Looking to 
 the great difficulties with which they had to contend, I think 
 
2 * '• V rtiiersity' of' Bombay ' 
 
 A : ? '*; V: ''''»; ; — : r. .. 
 
 we cannot but "bV surprised ali IHe rapid growth, of the educational 
 system in this presidency. 
 
 I find that the first charter of this University was granted 
 on the 18th July 1857. It was a time of darkness 
 f"^h^^ u^^^^^ ^^^ discouragement, when all of us were thinking 
 sity. ' much more of immediate measures of material 
 
 defence than of the more peaceful subjects con- 
 nected with education. It has always seemed to me one of the 
 almost sublime characteristics of that period, that when we 
 were all absorbed in measures relating mainly to the immediate 
 defence and security of the country, men were found who made 
 time to calmly and deliberately carry out the measures connected 
 witii the grant of a charter to an infant University. 
 
 I find that in 1859 the first Matriculation examioation was held, 
 
 when 132 candidates presented themselves. Of 
 
 The First Ma- these Only 22 passed. The cause of so small a pro- 
 
 aminaticm! ^ portion Succeeding will be fresh in the recollection 
 
 of all who took an interest in the University at that 
 period. It was found that a great number of the candidates who 
 would have been well qualified for admission if judged simply by 
 the progress they had made in those branches of learning which 
 were to be the subjects of their University studies, were yet 
 deficient in a complete and scholar-like knowledge of their own 
 mother tongue. I for one, while regretting the disappointment 
 entailed on many an anxious and zealous student, cannot regret 
 the decision at which the examiners of that period arrived, that 
 a knowledge of the student^s own vernacular language should 
 be required as indispensable in any one who applies for admission 
 to this University. It is, I am convinced, one great security 
 for the future prosperity as well as utility of the University. 
 Of the 22 students matriculated in 4859, 15 presented 
 
 themselves in 1861 as candidates for the First 
 E^aminafi^s!^ Examination in Arts : of whom 7 passed ; and six of 
 
 these 7 presented themselves at the final exami- 
 nation for the Bachelor of Arts degree in the present year. Of 
 these 4 passed, two in the First Division and two in the Second. 
 
 It is a circumstance worthy of note, and highly creditable 
 to the successful candidates, that they have all 
 nSter trf Arte! intimated their intention of going up to the exami- 
 nation for the Master of A rts degree. 
 In all the old European Universities I believe the Degree 
 of Master of Arts is conferred without examination on Bachelors 
 of a certain standing; but it is not so in this University. Here 
 the degree of Master of Arts is only granted after an examination 
 
1862.^8if H. B. E, Ftere. 
 
 of a very high standard, similar to that required for honours in 
 otiier Universities, and it is much to the credit of these young 
 men that they shonld voluntarily offer themselves to undergo 
 such an ordeal. I would only offer them this one word of advice, 
 that they should not attempt to grasp their academical honours 
 by hurrying through their studies for the examination. The 
 honour they will attain is substantial and permanent, and well 
 worthy of being sought by patient and laborious study. 
 
 What I have said relates solely to the graduates in Arts, 
 As regards the graduates in Medicine, I find many 
 M^idne^^^ ^° circumstances of peculiar interest. This is the 
 first time that the Grant Medical College has 
 surrendered its privilege of conferring diplomas to the Univer- 
 sity, and that the College duty of testing the attainments of the 
 students has merged, in the examination for a University degree, 
 I would b6?g the successful candidates to bear in mind the 
 greater responsibilities as well as the higher honours which 
 devolve on them by this change. They go forth to the world with 
 the stamp, not of a school, but of a University; while they will 
 find their abilities and industry tasked to the utmost to maintain 
 the reputation of the school of Medicine in which they have 
 been educated, and which boasts among its professors and 
 graduates some gentlemen members of this Senate, who are 
 second to none in their noble profession in professional reputa- 
 tion and scientific attainment. I trust that the young licen- 
 tiates will not rest content with the lowest degree, but will aspire 
 to the higher degree of Doctor, which can only be attained by 
 laborious practical as well as theoretical study, and which will 
 justly confer on them the highest honours the University can 
 bestow. 
 
 While I cannot but congratulate the Senate on the great 
 and rapid progress which the University has 
 sitv Standard^' ^-Iready made, I would venture to remind every one 
 connected with it that we shall have a hard struggle 
 to maintain a generous rivalry with the sister Universities of 
 the other Presidencies. At an examination which took place 
 shortly before I left Calcutta I was informed that nearly 1,100 
 candidates had presented themselves at the examination for 
 matriculation, and the greatest enthusiasm appears to prevail 
 on the subject of University education in Calcutta. The range 
 of University studies there, too, is much wider than it is here. 
 I can only hope that we may here make up in depth for what 
 is wanting in expanse, and that when the time arrives for 
 comparison, we may be found inferior to no University in India in 
 
tJniversity of Bombay, 
 
 thorough scholarship in all those branches which we profess to 
 teach. And I would venture to express a hope that no attempt 
 will be made to lower the University standard in any respect. 
 
 And, Mr. Yice-Chancellor, while congratulating the Senate 
 on the successful result of this first examination for 
 University Degrees, I am sure I only speak the 
 sentiments of every member of the University present in offering 
 the tribute of the warm thanks of the Senate to the highly 
 respected Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. Harkness, who is so 
 shortly to leave us. As the first professor in Elphinstone College, 
 it must be a source of sincere and heartfelt pleasure to him to 
 witness a scene like this before us. He watched over the cradle 
 of the University in its infancy; and now before he finally 
 returns to the country where his own academical honours were 
 gained, he has been permitted to see this University established 
 in its maturity, and promising, I trust, to take its place amongst 
 the great Universities of the British Empire. 
 
 I would, in conclusion, say a few words to you who have 
 this day graduated, and are about to quit this 
 res onsiblutiM^' University for the active pursuits of life. I would 
 beg of you to recollect that you are no longer 
 pupils of any single school, but graduates of a University. 
 Your standard must henceforth be, not that of your masters, or 
 even of the Government to whose service some of you may devote 
 yourselves, but of the whole educated world. You have the 
 character of this University to maintain. Wherever the studies 
 of this University are known and appreciated, you have to 
 establish its reputation, and I trust you will help to remove 
 from the learned men of India the common reproach that we 
 are now compelled to seek professors in every branch of learn- 
 ing, even in the ancient classical languages of your own country, 
 on the banks of the Ehine or the Seine, the Isis or the Forth. 
 
 But while I trust that we may henceforward look for pro- 
 found scholars among the educated Hindoos and 
 Development Parseos, I trust that one of your great objects will 
 literature^^^ ^^ always be to enrich your own vernacular literature 
 with the learning which you acquire in this Univer- 
 sity. Eemember, I pray you, that what is here taught is a sacred 
 trust confided to you for the benefit of your countrymen. The 
 learning which can here be imparted to a few hundreds, or at 
 most to a few thousands, of scholars, must by you be made 
 available through your own vernacular tongues to the many 
 millions of Hindoostan. The great majority of your countrymen 
 can only learn through the language which is taught them at 
 
1862.—Sir H. B, E, Frere, 
 
 their mother's knee, and it must be through such language 
 mainly that you can impart to them all that you would communi- 
 cate of European learning and science. 
 
 Kemember, too, that not only the character of the Univer- 
 sity, but the character of your whole people, is to 
 of'ob^ect^**^^ ^ great extent in your hands. You have two 
 classes of objectors to meet. One is to be found 
 chiefly among Europeans, not, I trust, among those who have 
 lived long in this country, but still so common among those 
 who are not practically familiar with your countrymen, as to 
 deserve your earnest exertions to remove it. They will tell you 
 that the oriental intellect is worn out ; that it may possess great 
 capacity to receive and retain knowledge, but that it has no 
 power to analyse or combine ; that it is no longer capable of 
 producing those results of a high order of intellect of which 
 your ancient literature contains such abundant evidence. I trust 
 that no one connected with the Senate of this University, or 
 who is really able to judge what native intellect is now capable 
 of, will endorse this opinion ; but yet you well know it is widely 
 prevalent, and it rests with you to disprove it. 
 
 Again, you will find among members of your own communities 
 a widespread and deep-rooted conviction that an education such 
 as you have received, tends to sap the foundation of social moral- 
 ity, that it tends to make you presumptuous and self-sufficient 
 despisers of parental and all other authority. 
 
 The conduct which will be the best answer to both classes 
 of objectors is shadowed forth in a superstition 
 re^it^TrtS^ almost Universally prevalent in the wild moun- 
 tains of Germany and Scandinavia as well as in 
 every nation in the East. The legend runs of a magic mirror in 
 which may be imaged all things of the visible or invisible world, 
 but the secrets which are there revealed are not visible to every 
 enquirer ; they are not to be seen by the seer himself, they are 
 only visible to the eyes of a simple teachable innocent child. It 
 always seemed to me that this old and prevalent superstition 
 shadowed forth a great truth applicable to knowledge of every 
 kind : you will find it taught by the philosophers of Greece, of 
 Persia, and of China — in your own Shasters as well as by the 
 example of all the great intellects of Modern Europe. It is 
 this — that if you would seek the knowledge of Newton or 
 Bacon, or hope to wield the intellectual weapons of Locke, you 
 must learn in their spirit, lowly and reverently with a pure as 
 well as with a humble and teachable heart. Remember the 
 
6. University of Bombay. 
 
 great University truths that Arts rest on Morals, and that if you 
 would be wise and learned, the pure heart is as necessary to the 
 successful pursuit of Science and Art as the high and unclouded 
 intellect. 
 
 SECOND CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sir H. B. E. Ere re.) 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and Members of the Senate, — I am 
 glad to be able to meet the Senate in this their Second Convoca- 
 tion, and again to congratulate them on the progress which the 
 University has made during the past year. 
 
 I find that of 143 caudidates who presented themselves at 
 the Matriculation Examination, fifty-six passed, 
 which is a far larger proportion than that of last 
 year, when only thirty passed out of 134 candidates, 
 
 I am glad to see no less than twenty Parsees among the 
 successful candidates, but I must remind them 
 
 Parsees*^ °* that they are still fewer in proportion than their 
 Hindoo fellow-students, and that we must have 
 
 more Parsee candidates, and they must be more successful before 
 
 they can make good their claim to a full appreciation of the 
 
 benefits of this University. 
 
 I am glad, to congratulate the. Directors of the Bombay Pro- 
 prietary School on the appearance of their first suc- 
 pn^tSyS^£)l" cessful students at the Matriculation Examination, 
 but here I must qualify my congratulations by again 
 reminding them that much more is justly expected of them than 
 they have yet effected. The constitution of their school presents 
 many admirable features, it numbers among its students the sons 
 of some of the richest and most respectable Parsee gentlemen. 
 It is I believe entirely self-supporting, and the proprietors, with, 
 as it appears to me, very sound judgment, retain its entire man- 
 agement in their own hands. We might justly expect from such 
 a school, if not the largest numbers, certainly the largest propor- 
 tion of candidates for admission to the University, and of com- 
 petitors for University honors, and I trust that the young student 
 who has now appeared among us will be but the first of many sons 
 of our Parsee worthies who will vindicate by their career at this 
 University their aspiration to be considered as one of the most 
 enlightened communities in British India. 
 
1863.— ^ir J?. B. E, Frere. 
 
 In a greater or less degree what I have said of the Bombay 
 Proprietary School applies to all the schools in the Presidency. 
 
 Schools vs. Col- I find that of the passed candidates— 
 
 25 belong to the Elphinstone College. 
 18 to the Poona College. 
 
 9 do Elphinstone Central School. 
 
 2 do Poona College School. 
 
 1 do Bombay Proprietary School. 
 
 1 do Free General Assembly's Institution. 
 
 66 
 So that the schools of the Presidency furnished but thirteen 
 students for Matriculation, while the Colleges furnished forty- 
 three. 
 
 It is evident from this that the teaching resources of the 
 Colleges must, to some extent, be diverted from their proper 
 object, from preparing Matriculated students for their degree, in 
 order to bring unmatriculated students up to the Matriculation 
 standard. I would not have our Colleges do less, but I would 
 urge our schools to do more, for they may rest assured that their 
 excellence as schools for imparting a liberal education will be 
 measured in no small degree by the proportion of students they 
 may prepare for Matriculation at the University. 
 
 I am glad to congratulate the Poona College on the large 
 number of successful applicants for Matriculation 
 The Poona ^j^q were prepared at that institution. They are 
 20 this year against 6 in the last. 
 
 The facilities which the capital of the Deccan possesses for 
 obtaining a liberal education have of late been greatly increased, 
 and I trust that the Brahmins of the Deccan will take advantage 
 of those facilities, and not yield without a struggle the palm of 
 intellectual superiority to their brethren of Bombay. 
 
 1 am glad to find that the Senate is satisfied that there is a 
 marked and steady improvement in every branch 
 Examination of the examinations. A larger proportion of can- 
 Resuits. didates has passed, while the standards of exami- 
 
 nation have been in no respect relaxed. 
 
 Fifteen out of twenty candidates passed their First Exami- 
 nation in Arts (or Little go). 
 
 Three candidates out of six passed for their B.A. degree. 
 
 In Medicine, five out of thirteen candidates passed their 
 First Examination, and there were tliree candidates, who all 
 passed, one of them with great distinction, for their L,M. degree. 
 
8 University of Bombay. 
 
 At the examination, the first that has ever been held, for 
 honours in Arts, one Bachelor was a candidate, 
 R^ade""^' the ^^^ obtained a high position in the 2nd class. The 
 first m'.a. in result of this examination entitles him, at the end 
 ^^^^^' of five years from his Matriculation to the degree 
 
 of M.A., and I would warmly congratulate Mr, 
 Mahadey Govind Ranade on being the first student of this Uni- 
 versity, indeed one of the first in India, who has passed his exami- 
 nation for his degree as M,A. 
 
 I would note with pleasure another signal mark of progress. 
 
 One of the most respected and trusted of our fellow 
 
 Mr. Ccwasjee townsmen has, during the year, devoted the large 
 
 Jehanareer. g^m of £10,000 to provide a suitable building for 
 
 the Elphinstone College. This is not the place 
 for empty complipient, and the act is only one in a series of 
 deeds of public and private benevolence, but I would congratu- 
 late Mr. Cowasjee Jehangeer for being one of the first Fellows 
 whose name will appear on what I hope will be a long and 
 honorable roll of the Founders and Benefactors of this Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 The Senate has also accepted Mr. Munguldas Nathoobhoy's 
 
 gift of £2,000 to endow a travelling fellowship, 
 
 Nat^obhoy's ^^^ ^ trust the University will not be tardy in 
 
 TravelUng furnishing candidates to take advantage of the 
 
 PeUowship. enlightened liberality of their countryman. 
 
 During the year your second Vice-Chancellor resigned the 
 
 office which he had ably filled from the time when 
 
 Sir Joseph the University was yet in its infancy, feeling that 
 
 Arnould. the pressure of his judicial duties did not allow of 
 
 his devoting so much time and attention as he 
 
 wished to the affairs of the University, and I am glad of having 
 
 an opportunity of thus publicly expressing to Sir Joseph 
 
 Arnould, the high sense which I am sure every member of the 
 
 Senate entertains of the value of the services he rendered while 
 
 he filled the office. 
 
 When I last addressed you I dwelt on the important part 
 which this University seemed to me destined to 
 Un^verlitis on P^^y as the interpreter to India of Western 
 the administra- thought and Western civilization. I believe that 
 affairs^* P"^^^^ some of those who then heard me were disappoint- 
 ed that I said little on the bearing which the Uni- 
 versity would have on the formation of public servants, and 
 through them on the administration of public affairs. You will 
 
1868.— /Sir JJ. B. JE. Frere. 9 
 
 perhaps see the reason of my having said so little on Miis sub- 
 ject, if I say a very few words regarding our English views 
 on the connexion between our English Universities and our 
 English public men, and the public affairs which they administer. 
 And first of all let me remind you that here in India you 
 see but imperfectly, and you therefore can judge 
 in^iifdifS but imperfectly, of the men who influence our 
 Englishmen at Grovernment at home. You see the soldiers and 
 ^^^^^- the sailors, whose strong arms and stout hearts 
 
 enable our writers and thinkers to write and think in peace. 
 You see the active practical men, who throughout our Em- 
 pire in hundreds of varying professions and pursuits, accumulate 
 and distribute wealth, and deal with all that concerns the 
 material prosperity of England ; but the classes you see here 
 form but a small part of our social and political system and 
 the Englishmen who administer affairs in this country are 
 but a portion of the great administrative machine of the 
 English nation. Part, and the most powerful part, of that 
 machinery is rarely seen here, and can scarcely be sufficiently 
 appreciated in this country. I refer to the great body of men 
 who obtain in their youth the advantages of a liberal education, 
 and of whom a comparatively small number even engage 
 directly in what would be called, in this country, the affairs of 
 Government, yet whose influence is most sensibly felt in the 
 administration of public affairs, and has perhaps been more 
 potent than that of any body of men in rendering our country 
 what it is. 
 
 Now I need not tell you that an University education may be 
 University De- regarded as the highest type, and an University 
 gree the stanap Degree as the final stamp of a liberal education, 
 cS.^"^^ ^^''' a<nd I would have the native members and students 
 of the University compare for a moment the im- 
 pression they have themselves formed of the value and effect of 
 this stamp with our English ideas on the same subject. 
 
 I need not remind you how many of our leading and most 
 
 honored public men in England were trained at 
 
 lOT^^fE^^r^h *^® Universities. No one living in India in this 
 
 Universities/^ generation is likely to forget that glorious galaxy 
 
 of contemporary students, which at one University, 
 
 and at one period of its history, gave to India three successive 
 
 Governors-General, and to England a goodly number of her most 
 
 eminent Cabinet Ministers. This is a fact which we are not likely 
 
 to forget, but I would beg you also to bear in mind that along 
 
 with these distinguished public men were hundreds of fellow 
 
 2 
 
10 University of Bombay, 
 
 stndents, their equals and in some few cases their superiors in 
 academical distinction, who, after leaving the University, entered 
 into almost every one of the numerous professions open to edu- 
 cated Englishmen. Some fought as soldiers in India and China 
 and the Crimea; some became Lawyers, and Members of Par- 
 liament; some of the most distinguished applied themselves to 
 teaching to others the knowledge they had acquired, and devoted 
 themselves to learning, and science, and to the service of Grod in 
 various ways, while a great proportion betook themselves to the 
 management of their own estates, and affairs, their land, their 
 counting houses and their banks. 
 
 The fact is that in England we consider a liberal education a 
 necessary part of the claim of any man to promi- 
 catiorf a sine ^^^^ social or political position. It is true that many 
 qua non of so- men do, by force of natural ability or by other 
 oaf pOTltion!^*^' ii^tural and acquired advantages, obtain distinguish- 
 ed positions in society or political life without such 
 education, but they are the exceptions^ and, as a rule, the only one 
 point which all prominent men, in society and politics, of all 
 classes and opinions, have in common, is their liberal education. 
 
 But it may be said a man may be very happy and prosperous, 
 and do great good and possess great influence and enjoyment in 
 life, without a liberal education or indeed, without any educatien 
 at all. I will not detain you to consider how far this is true in 
 the abstract, nor to account for exceptional instances, which might 
 be adduced to prove it ; I can only assure you that this is not our 
 English view, and that, practical hard-headed money-making 
 race as the English are said to be, no man amongst us, as a general 
 rule, aspires to political or social eminence without the advantage 
 of a liberal education, and what is more, no family long main- 
 tains a high position, in the political or social scale, unless its 
 members seek to acquire this advantage. This is a truth which I 
 would wish the successful merchants and bankers of this island 
 more particularly to lay to heart. If they go to England they will 
 find our leading commercial men treat-ed as equals by the most 
 exclusive aristocracy in the world, and occupying a position of 
 the highest influence in the administration of public affairs. 
 You will soon find out your mistake, if you suppose that this 
 position is due to their wealth. You will find that in England 
 the possession of wealth, unaccompanied by that refinement of 
 thought and manner which liberal education alone can give, 
 makes the possessor simply ridiculous, and you will find, if you 
 enquire into the history of particular families, that whereas 
 new born wealth in the hands of men liberally educated or who 
 
186S.—8ir H. B, E. Frere. 11 
 
 rightly value a liberal education for their offspiing, has a 
 tendency to consolidate and perpetuate itself, the most ample 
 fortune entrusted to a man who does not possess and deliber- 
 ately undervalues a liberal education, has a perpetual tendency 
 to waste away, and leave the possessor far worse off than his 
 industrious ancestor who first emerged from poverty by his 
 own exertions. 
 
 I would beg the Native gentlemen of Bombay to bear in mind 
 that what I have told them is mainly true of a 
 .P^?^^S^^ °^ liberal education. It is not simply reading and 
 tion.^'^ " writing, it is not even what is called a good practi- 
 
 cal education highly valuable, if not indispensa- 
 ble, as such knowledge is to many of the most important classes 
 of the community that I now speak of; no amount of mere 
 reading and writing, nor even of purely practical signs pro- 
 perly so-called, can do what I have told you we expect in Eng- 
 land from a liberal education. It must be an education which, 
 whatever its subject, aims at training, purifying and strengthen- 
 ing the intellect, which seeks not merely to impress on men's 
 memories, knowledge which may be useful and. profitable to them, 
 but which aims at training them, to correct modes of thinking 
 and reasoning, and to fill their intellects with the loftiest and 
 most beautiful results of human thought. I cannot now attempt 
 to discuss the reasons why such training must be useful to the 
 student and profitable to the community of which he is a mem- 
 ber ; I can only beg you to receive my assurance of the fact, 
 and to ponder over the reasons of it, that we English hold these 
 views and habitually and deliberately act on them, at immense 
 cost of personal labour and even privations, and that it is my 
 deliberate opinion, shared, I feel assured, by every educated 
 Englishman here present, that the adoption of the course I have 
 indicated as that which Englishmen adopt by long habit, and 
 as it were by instinct, affords the best chance of perpetuating 
 that wealth which is now flowing into this community from 
 every side, and of ennobling it by those attributes which in the 
 opinion of civilized Europe can alone give to wealth permanent 
 dignity and permanent influence. 
 
 Nor will I attempt to point out those branches of lihers.: 
 learning which appear to me most likely to have such a permanent 
 beneficial influence on those who study, not for immediate profit^ 
 but with a view to strengthen and elevate their own intellects. 
 
 There is, however, one branch for which the facilities have 
 lately been largely increased, and which appears to me so 
 
12 Bmversiiy of Bombay/. 
 
 important that I would say a few words regarding it^ I allude 
 to the study of your own classical languages. 
 
 Some discussion has arisen which must, I believe, bear 
 useful fruit regarding the relative merits of the 
 f iD^n^^s! classical languages of this country as compared with 
 Bical languages! the vernaculars, as objects of University study. I 
 will not anticipate the results of this discussion. 
 No one estimates more highly than I do the importance of ver- 
 nacular education ; no one has a higher estimate of the capabili- 
 ties of some of our Indian vernacular languages; no one has 
 higher hopes as to the space which they may one day fill in the 
 literature of India. But I would remind you that the improve- 
 ment of any vernacular language, which has but a scanty 
 modern literature of its own, must depend mainly on the culti- 
 vation of classical languages. However great the natural capa- 
 bilities of a language, it cannot become suited to the wants of a 
 highly civilised people, except by the cultivation of those 
 languages which already have a classical literature of their 
 own. It was the men who learnt, and lectured, and examined 
 in Latin and Greek, who matured the modern English and 
 Grerman, French and Italian, out of the illiterate dialects which 
 served the piu*poses of our ruder ancestors, and it is only by a 
 similar process that we can hope to see the vernacular languages 
 of modern India oeeapy the same position of popular usefulness 
 and permanence. You have now in this University, in the 
 professors of Zend and Sanscrit, unrivalled facilities for the study 
 of your own classical languages. I would beg you who value the 
 usefulness of the University, to take good heed that the oppor- 
 tunity does not pass by unimproved. 
 
 I would in conclusion say to the graduates and under- 
 graduates of this University that Government will 
 graduates.^ every year look with increasing interest to the 
 
 results of the University examinations, and I trust 
 that we shall find in the tests here applied the same unerring 
 touchstone by which to recognize who are likely to be fit for an 
 impartial share in public ofiices. 
 
 The graduates of this University have now opened to them 
 with a far better prospect of attainment than any other part of the 
 educated youth of this country, the highest posts on the Judicial 
 Bench, and an influential share in the most important functions 
 of the public administration ; but I need not remind you that no 
 man who is indifferent to the advantages of a liberal education can 
 hope to fill with dignity or efficiency a seat on the bench, which 
 has been occupied by Macintosh or Sir William Jones. When 
 
1864.— iStV H. B, E. Frere. 13 
 
 England affords you the opportunity of filling offices hitherto 
 reserved for her ablest and most experienced public servants, be 
 assured it is not because she undervalues the office, nor vrill she 
 continue the offer unless you on your part can furnish men who 
 are fit to sit beside such men as an English University can 
 furnish. 
 
 You will not, I am sure, suppose that I would make the Uni- 
 versity degree in itself a passport to the public ser- 
 f ^tts^vmM,kf vice; it must be sought for its own sake, as the 
 test and in itself the great reward of the best educa- 
 tion we can give you. I cannot better illustrate the spirit in 
 which I would have you seek it, than by an anecdote of the great 
 statesman beneath whose statue we are now assembled. It was 
 told me by an officer of our Bombay Army, who devoted his 
 leisure during his furlough to attend the classes in the University 
 of Edinburgh, that he habitually sat beside an old man whom he 
 noted for his diligent attention to the lecturer long before he knew 
 the name of his fellow student. It was Mountstuart Elphinstone, 
 who had long filled the highest offices in this country, and was 
 believed to have twice declined the Governor- Generalship of 
 India. To the close of his life he sought as a privilege that know- 
 ledge, which this University here freely offers to you. Let the 
 same spirit animate you, and you will be worthy of the high pub- 
 lic employment which England offers you, if it can be said of you, 
 as it was of one of the wisest and most learned Cambridge gra- 
 duates of the last generation. 
 
 The purpose of his life — its end and aim — 
 The search of hidden truth, careless of fame, 
 Of empty dignities, wid dirty pelf. 
 Learning he loved, and sought her for herself. 
 
 THIRD CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sie H. B. E. Eeeee.) 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — It is a 
 matter of sincere gratification to me to find in the 
 Ex^Sii^ation^s! report just read, so much cause for congratulating 
 you on the progress made by the University during 
 the past year. The number of Matriculations (56) is still small 
 as compared with the other Universities, and considering how 
 many of these were prepared at the Colleges which ought to 
 reserve their teaching for students already matriculated, it seems 
 clear that the High Schools are not as yet fully adequate to their 
 proper task of supplying the University with students sufficiently 
 
14 Wniversity of Bombay. 
 
 grounded and advanced. Some particular schools sliow a marked 
 improvement over last year, especially tlie Surat Higli School, 
 wliich sent up six successful candidates ; and I trust that if our 
 finances allow of our giving such a staff as the Director of Public 
 Instruction desires for all High Schools, others will be found to 
 emulate that of Surat. I regret to see no admissions this year 
 from the Parsee Proprietary School. I am told that some im- 
 provement has lately taken place in its management, which, it is 
 hoped, will produce a better result hereafter, but I would beg to 
 repeat to the managers of that Institution what I said last year, 
 that, as the only entirely self-supported school, as filled mainly 
 with the children of our richest native merchants, we should 
 look to the Proprietary School as a model to all other High 
 Schools, and I trust the proprietors will not rest content, as they 
 have done hitherto, with providing a merely commercial educa- 
 tion for young men whose future position in life demands the 
 liberal education of gentlemen. I am glad to see among the 
 B.A^s two pupils of the Free General Assembly's Institution. 
 They are, I believe, the first B.A's who have been trained at any 
 but Government Institutions, and the University and Govern- 
 ment must equally rejoice at and congratulate the Institution on 
 such success. 
 
 I also offer a special welcome to the three Parsee gentlemen 
 
 who have this year graduated as B.A's, the first. 
 The Parsees. J believe, of their race. The spell once broken, 
 
 I feel sure they will not be again left far behind 
 in the honourable competition for University distinction. Their 
 friends, of whom they have so many now in England, will tell 
 them that, unless they add to the power of riches the power of 
 knowledge, they cannot hope to stand on a par with the com- 
 mercial classes of England, nor like them to deserve and obtain 
 a really influential share of the government of their own country. 
 It is a gratifying circumstance that one of the candidates for the 
 M.A. Degree went up and passed in Sanskrit, and that four of 
 those examined for what would be called at Oxford the ^' Little 
 go,'' passed, I am told, a very creditable examination in Latin. 
 
 I made particular enquiry as to whether there had been any 
 relaxation of the standard at the examinations 
 Ex^mhmtions! ^^^^ J^^^j and I was glad to be assured that there 
 had not. I trust the University will ever maintain 
 the determination it has hitherto shown, to allow no desire for an 
 early increase of numbers to tempt her to open her gates to an 
 inferior grade of scholars. As far as I can judge, all the changes 
 made during the past year have rather had a tendency in the 
 
1864.— -Str H. B. E. trere, 15 
 
 opposite direction ; and I trust that Mr. Erskine, whom I should 
 have been glad to have seen among us to-day, had his health 
 permitted him, will carry from these shores the conviction that 
 the great principle for which he always contended, and which has 
 been so well maintained by his successor in the office of Director 
 of Public Instruction, is not likely to be departed from in this 
 University. 
 
 In any other assembly than this I could dwell on the noble 
 liberality of those to whom, during the past year, 
 beneSctora! ^^ University has been indebted for numerous 
 benefactions, remarkable alike for their princely 
 amount and for the judicious selection of the conditions which 
 accompany the gift. But I shall best consult the feelings of the 
 benefactors by confining myself to a general expression of the 
 gratitude of the University, and to noting one feature which is 
 common, I believe, to all the benefactions; and that is the sim- 
 ple unostentatious manner in which the gift has been tendered 
 for the acceptance of the University. The tender was often 
 naade through the Grovernment party, perhaps from a traditionary 
 feeling that the Government is a sort of general trustee for all 
 great public funds, partly from a natural difficulty in separating 
 the Government from an institution originally founded and 
 endowed by the Government, and in the success of which the 
 Government takes so lively an interest. But there could not 
 have been a more entire absence of any parade or self-seeking. 
 One of the most munificent benefactors of the University has 
 been a gentleman well known to me, indeed, by his high repute 
 as one of the ablest and most successful of our great merchants, 
 but personally known to me only at a single interview to which 
 I invited him, that I might myself express to him my sense of 
 the obligations, under which he had placed the TJniversity. 
 These gifts were not legacies, given when a man can no longer 
 himself enjoy the wealth he leaves behind him. Tiey are gifts 
 by men in the full enjoyment of life, and keenly alive to all the 
 pleasures that life and fortune can give, but living among you 
 in a simple unostentatious fashion, and setting to the younger 
 members of their community as good an example of steady appli- 
 cation to business and unaffected plainness in habitations, dress, 
 and manners, as they set to all India in the princely munificence 
 of their benefactions. It is the manner and the objects, much 
 more than the princely amount of these benefactions, which 
 make me sanguine that they may be regarded as indications of 
 the same spirit which moved the merchant princes of the middle 
 ages in Europe, and that Arts and Learning may find in the 
 
16 University of Bombay. 
 
 commerce of Bombay the same enlightened patronage which has 
 formed the permanent glory of Florence and Venice. Two of 
 the foundations are further intended to bear the names of two 
 men whose memory will, I trust, not be soon forgotten in this 
 University. Many of the elder members of the Senate will join 
 me in recognising the fitness of such a monument to my valued 
 friend the late Framjee Cowasjee, a man not less remarkable for 
 his effective support of education, and of every judicious project 
 of native improvemeiit, than for his genuine originality and 
 sturdy ind^p«adence of character. I dare not trust myself to 
 say all I would of the fitness of the tribute paid to Lord Canning. 
 But I believe that the honour thus done his memory, under cir- 
 cumstances which rend'Or that honour like a verdict of history, 
 will be deeply felt by all Indiai^ and English statesmen who love 
 India as he loved her, though they may not be able to devote, as 
 he did, their lives and their labors to her service. 
 
 I wottld notice more especially the tendency of some of the 
 foundations to encourage the study of law, for of 
 Systen^Re^ all studies which can be appropriately grafted on 
 markable pro- an University course there is probably none which 
 r^e. ^^ ^"^^"^^ is likely to produce such important results, as the 
 study of law. A great experiment is, as you all 
 know, now going on in India. In the course of little more than 
 a single generation, — within the memory, in fact, of men now 
 living, — many nations, each containing millions of people of 
 diverse races and religions, have passed under the sway of the 
 Sovereigns of England. Diverse in every other respect, there 
 was this one feature common to all, that in no one nation from 
 the Himalayas to Cape Comorin was there any court of justice 
 such as we have been for centuries used to in Europe, — that is to 
 say, open and accessible to all men, dependent on no man, and 
 professing, however imperfectly, to administer to all impartial 
 justice according to one known body of laws. I do not say 
 that substantial justice was not often practically administered 
 in Native States in a manner which rendered it as accessible to 
 all as it would be in many countries in Europe. In some parts 
 of India the private character of the sovereign, or the usages 
 which had descended from former ages, gave substantial security 
 for person and property. But certainly India in the 18th century 
 would never have struck a traveller, as we are told it did in the 
 14th century, as remarkable for the just and equal administra- 
 tion of the law, and I cannot call to mind any single instance in 
 which any nation of modern India could boast of regular courts 
 of justice, possessing the characteristics I have described, as 
 
\ 
 
 1864.— iSfiV H, B. E. Frere. 17 
 
 open to all, independent of all external authority, and professing 
 to administer to all alike one known and uniform body of law. 
 Whenever the British Government succeeded to the sovereignty, 
 this defect was one of the first which it strove to remedy. From 
 the very nature of things it was often impossible to do more than 
 to provide the most just and upright men the Government could 
 obtain, who knew something of the language and people, and 
 leave them to administer justice as best they could, with no 
 other guide than the light of their own conscience and reason. 
 Even this was a considerable step ; because, however imperfect 
 tlie machinery, the men employed belonged to a race which has 
 an almost superstitious veneration for law, and had been trained 
 to guide their conduct by habitual reference either to written 
 find authoritative rule and regulation or to well-known and un- 
 doubted usage. But the British Government was never content 
 with this ; no considerable province was ever annexed to the 
 British Empire without some attempt being made to introduce 
 some sort of written and systematic code of law and practice 
 within a few years after the province became an integral portion 
 of British India, In many cases, as in the Elphinstone Code of 
 1827, which for so many years was the Mofussil law of the 
 Presidency, the system, administered as it generally was by 
 upright and conscientious men, was proved in practice to be well 
 adapted to the transition state of a country where written 
 authoritative law had been long unknown. But neither did 
 the British Government rest content with this. Many years 
 ago under the administration of Lord William Bentinck, to whom 
 India owes so much, a commencement was made of the gigantic 
 work of drawing up codes of law and procedure for all India. 
 The best intellects which England and India could furnish were 
 engaged for many years on the task. Some of the most important 
 portions of the Criminal Code and the Procedure Codes have 
 only within the last few years become law. I can speak from 
 personal observation of the labour of those employed. Sir Barnes, 
 Peacock and Mr. Harrington, the one in some respects the greatest 
 English lawyer who ever sat on an Indian Bench, the other vindi- 
 cating an hereditary title to the fullest knowledge of Indian Law, 
 are at this moment on their way homeward, worn with labours of 
 which the preparation of these codes has been the greatest and 
 the longest continued, and they will, I hope, long be spared to 
 aid still further in the completion of the great work of so many 
 of the bbst years of their lives. It has been sometimes supposed 
 that these codes were intended, or at least destined, to deprive 
 you of the advantages which you, in all the Presidency cities of 
 India, so justly prize, of an administration of Englisk law by 
 3 
 
18 University of Bombay, 
 
 inen trained as our English jndjres are. I can safely say tliat 
 nothing was further from the intention of those who framed and 
 parsed the codes. 1 believe nothing can be further from the 
 probable result. The intention certainly was to do at once, and 
 on system, for India, what has been the aim of our great masters 
 of law in P]ngland for generations past, to embody our law and 
 j^ractice into written systematic codes, but in every case tho 
 guiding principles of law and practice were intended to be thoso 
 of Euiilish law and practice ; and in training our lawyers and 
 judges the model before our legislators has ever been that body 
 of lawyers which gives to England a constant succession o£ 
 jiiviges of whom every Englishman is so justly proud. Nor can. 
 J dr»tibt that the desired result will follow in due time. It is no 
 light task which the English Government set before itself to pro- 
 vide laws and suitable tribunals to administer them to so many 
 imllioTi3 of men ; for you must remember that such tribunals as 
 tlie British Government proposes, require not only a judge to 
 sit oti the bench, but a trained bar, and a knowledge of tho 
 general principles of the law and practice of the tribunals very 
 widely diFused among the community at large. It is in this 
 direction thfut we may hope the University wdl prove here as 
 valuable as Universities have bt en in every country in Europe, 
 as giving that kind of intellectual and moral training without 
 which the most accurate knowledge of the mere letter of the lavy 
 will fail to make a good lawyer in our English sense of tho word. 
 On the other hand, I believe that, in the profession of the law, 
 the scholars of this University will find, as do their brethren in 
 Europe, a most congenial and useful field for their talents im- 
 proved and stimulated by Universjity training. I hope that 
 many of them will avail themselves of the aid so liberally offered 
 them by the benefactors of the University to travel and pejf(3ct 
 themselves in our great pra'^tical English schools of law. 'J hey 
 will there be struck, as early travellers from our own country 
 used to be struck in India, by the spectacle of a whole pcoplo 
 'among whom the law is paramount. But more than this, they 
 will find themselves welcomed as members of a brotherhood 
 which is at once the most liberal in tho admission of members, 
 and the most strict in exacting from them such conduct as is 
 consistent with a profession of which law is the exclusive study. 
 
 And this brings me to note that, during the past as dni-ing 
 
 Impoi-tance of 
 
 former yeai-s, seveial of the foundations connected 
 foreigir ""travel ^viih the University have indicated an apprecnition 
 and Inriian pro- on the part of the founders of the great advantages 
 •'^ ^^^' of foreign travel as a part of University education. 
 
1864.— /Sir H. B, E. Frere. 10 
 
 I believe that in every country whose condition in matters of 
 celucation can be likened to that of India in the present day, the 
 thirst lor furt'ign travel has ever been one of the peculiarities most 
 stro!i<yly marked in tlie educated youth, whose intellect is begin- 
 ning to be stirred by a consciousness that all knowledge is not 
 conipr.liended in tlio teaching of a single master, and that it 
 cannot be gra'^ped by one who never quits the limits of a hermit's 
 coll. If you look at the picture drawn by our greatest living 
 poet of him who, from the earliest ages of classical lore down to 
 the present time, has stood the tjpe of practical exprience and 
 windom, you will find the insatiable passion for travel as for know- 
 ledge marked as the one characteristic which age and years could 
 not obliterate or satisfy. At the time when our present system 
 of modern European education was yet in its infancy, no scholar 
 ever dreamt of aspiring to eminence till he had not only acquired 
 by reading all the learning within his reach, but had seen the 
 manners of mary races in the cities wherein they dwelt, and had 
 exercised his own intellect in personal contact with all that he 
 could reach of the great and wise in other countries. This passion 
 for foreign travel has gone on increasing among all the advanc- 
 ing nations of Europe down to the present day. Among the 
 uuder-graduates of our own Uuiversities there are few destined 
 to hold a high place in academical honours who do not habitually 
 cither travel as far and as often as their means will allow without 
 serious interruption to their studies, or who look forward to be 
 enabled to travel as one of the best rewards which can follow 
 some temporary pause in the labour of learning. I think we see 
 firound us many reasons for hoping that, in this respect, there 
 is a movement going on in the awakening intellect of India, 
 which, in fact, lias marked the dawn of a new era of civilization 
 in every age of which we have any record. It may be necessary 
 to wait with patience till the prejudices which prevent the gratifi- 
 cation of this most natural and wholesome form of education shall 
 be counted among the things of the past; but it would be an 
 insult to the intellect of India at this period to suppose that many 
 years can elapse before men will think with something like 
 incredulity, that it was ever seriously contemplated to treat as 
 out-castes men who had sought to improve their minds by foreign 
 travel. In this as in many other respects the Parsees have shown 
 themselves worthy to load their fellow countrymen; and scores 
 of your fellow townsmen are now living and laboring in England, 
 drinking iu, as they walk iho streets on their daily avocations, 
 knowledge as valuable in its way as SLy that they could derive 
 from books, and quite unattainable by any man who never stirs 
 from his own native province. I trust that we shall not long be 
 
20 University of Bombay, 
 
 able to count travellers of other races by units. Every religious 
 and domestic objection wliich ingenuity could raise has now been 
 dissipated, and the educated youth of this part of India must be 
 well aware, that if they would save themselves from the contempt 
 of their fellow scholars in every other civilized country of the 
 universe, they will talk and think of no other obstacle to foreign 
 travel than such as the benefactions lately made to this University 
 for the benefit of its poorer scholars are intended to remove. 
 
 You have been often reminded that the object of a Univer- 
 sity would be very imperfectly attained if it did 
 uSveMf^men! ^^^ ^^ some sense separate its members from tho 
 general crowd of learners around them, and 
 stamp them with a character peculiarly its own. This is in 
 fact a part of the work of every great place of education, and 
 any one versed iu the social peculiarities of Englishmen can toll 
 with some approach to certainty at wliich of our great public 
 schools or Universities any man with whom he associates was 
 educated. I cannot doubt that here as elsewhere similar results 
 must follow similar causes, and I would wish in this, as in every 
 thing else, that you should set the best models before you, and 
 that you who, in time to come, will be looked on as the founders 
 of whatever character the University is to bear, should consider 
 betimes the immense importance of a correct standard in manners 
 as well as in weightier matters. I would urge this with the 
 stronger emphasis on all the under-graduates and younger mem- 
 bers of the University, because the results must come by an 
 impulse from within. It cannot be impressed, however much it 
 may be modified, by action from without. No course of study, 
 however elevated, no distinction of separate buildings or peculiar 
 costumes, though all tending to the same end, can avail much, 
 unless there be among yourselves the spirit to create a standard 
 for your own guidance in all minor morals, distinct from and 
 higher than that of men who do nob belong to so honoured an 
 institution. You. can hardly doubt what answer I would give to 
 any question as to what standard I would prescribe. When a 
 mighty Emperor, who a few short years ago was reckoned ono 
 of the ablest as well as one of the most powerful potentates of 
 modern Europe, desired to describe his wish to discuss matters 
 with perfect frankness and confidence, he said he wished to 
 discuss them " as a gentleman,'^ and he used an English word 
 to express a character not peculiar to any country or race, but 
 which his sagacious observation had shown him, plays in Eng- 
 land a more important part than in any other country in the 
 world. He had there seen that the character may exists apart 
 
1865.— /SfiV H, B. E. Frere. 21 
 
 from riches, from lineage, or from social rank, from learning or 
 from talent, without one or other of whicli it is rarely seen in 
 otlier societies. He had observed, too, that it is the large 
 proportion of gentlemen in English society, and among those 
 who bear rule among the people, which renders possible that 
 combination of individual liberty with subordination to law 
 which is the most marked characteristic of English society. It 
 
 is this which enables typical representatives of 
 
 Most marked almost every influential class to mingle freely in 
 
 e|xaractoristic of that great assembly which is an epitome of the 
 
 ^^ngis so I ' j]jjg]-g]j nation. Without visible restraint on any 
 
 one beyond what the common good demands, it 
 allows tho proudest and most fastidious to consult for the com- 
 mon good, and on equal terms, with those who in other forms 
 of society it would be almost impossible for them to meet on 
 common ground. As one who has not had the benefit of a 
 University education, I may go a step further and tell you that 
 I believe we owe to our Universities, and to the professions, and 
 great public schools which take their tone from the Univer- 
 sities, tho general maintenance of our standard of what is 
 required of a gentleman, and I trust we may in time look to our 
 Indian Universities for a similar service in establishing a com- 
 mon standard of manners and minor morals which shall be 
 recognized not only by men of diverse professions, ranks and 
 interests, but by those whom diversity of faith and race would 
 otherwise keep asunder. I cannot give you a better proof of 
 the high estimate I have ever had of the capabilities of those 
 natives of India who are trained at this University, than by 
 speaking to you as capable of bearing the stamp of " gentleman 
 and scholar ;'' and I earnestly and confidently hope that, as a 
 rule, it will be borne and deserved by all who claim degrees 
 *rom tho University of Bombay. 
 
 FOURTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sir H. B. E. Frere.) 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — Before 
 offering any remark on the proceedings of the past 
 of the°Senatl°.^ ^^^^ ^ would wish to say a few words on the con- 
 stitution of our own governing body — the Senate. 
 You are aware that up to the present time there has been no 
 limit to the number of Fellows save the minimum limit of 26 
 fixed by the Act of Incorporation. This is far too small a body 
 if the Fellows are expected to take an active part in the work 
 
22 University of Bombay. 
 
 of tlie University. Many deductions must bo made on acccunfc 
 of absence and pre-occupation ; and tlio working rcsiduo of a 
 body limited to twenty-six Fellows, which could be present nb 
 any one time in Bombny, would be very small indot^d. Oti 
 the other hand, there are obvious disadvantnges in ihrowin;:^ 
 the important work of the Uuiversity, especially that of exa- 
 minations, on men who have no special connection with tho 
 University. It is a noteworthy fact that at the first institu- 
 tion of the University much difficulty was found in selecting fib 
 and proper persons to fill the office of Fellows, but now our 
 difficulty is of the opposite cliaracter, and we are forced to selecb 
 from among those who would be eligible and useful as Fellows, 
 and the necessity has become af)parent for fixing somo maxi- 
 mum limit to the number of such appointments. Tho prescnb 
 number on tlie rolls is 127 Fellows, including those who aro 
 Fellows ex-ojjicio, but a large proportion of the wjiole number is 
 non-resident in Bombay. There are, or will fchortly be, ten op 
 twelve vacancies caused by the dea<th or depa.ituro of Follows. 
 We have thought it well not at present to make any greab 
 addition to the numbers on the present roll. I will briefly state, 
 for the informatiou of the Senate, the claims which seem to us to 
 entitle the gentlemen selected to the high honour, 
 
 Tbe Rev. Mr. Beynon is a distinguislicd Canarcse scholar, 
 one of the few who is able to assist tho University 
 Merits of in dealing with that great section of tho people of 
 ed Fellow^^^^ ' ^^^^ presidency who speak the (Janarese tongue. I 
 trust he will remember that we can not yet boast of a 
 single Canarese graduate. Mr. Coke is a graduate of Cambridgo 
 who has long occupied a prominent and most important post 
 in the Educational department of this Government, and 1 feel 
 assured tliat, whatever his future pursuits in life, he will always 
 retain a deep interest in the cause of education in this country, 
 to which many of the best years of his life have been devoted. 
 Mr. Dhunjeebhoy Framjee Nusservvanjeo lias, as I am assured, 
 turned his special attention to the study of tlie ancient languages 
 of bis race. This is a branch, of learning in which the University 
 of Bombay ought to excel every other University in the world, 
 and I trust the day is not far distant when we may find the Zend 
 and Pehlevic learning of our great German scholars at least 
 equalled by that of the Parsees of British India. Few men 
 have done more for the cause of education in Guzerab than 
 Mr. Hope. His claims to a seat in our Senate are so well 
 known that I will only bid him welcome among us. Mr. Kursou- 
 dass Madhowdaas has, by a long and consistent course of self- 
 
1865.— fi^iV J?, B. K Frere. 23 
 
 sacrifice, inseparably connected liis name with the cause of truth, 
 enlightenment, and civilization in India. I feel assured that 
 the spirit which has actuated him will give life and vigour to 
 the action of the University, and to its connection with a most 
 important section of the Hindoo community, which cannot but 
 produce important results. "VVe welcome Kerupunt Luxirnon 
 as the most eminent of native mathematicians in Western India. 
 Dr. Muncherjee Byramjoe Cola and Rao Shaib Maheputram, 
 lloopram, have both established similar claims to a seat in your 
 Senate. They have visited the great Universities of Europe, 
 and have thence brought back something of those Western views 
 of true learning and mental disciph'ne on which we must act 
 in this University if we hope to attain that position which 
 centuries of well directed labour and study have given to the 
 Universities of Europe. To Mr. Mahadowrow Govind Ranade I 
 would offer an especial welcome, as the first of, what I trust 
 will be a long and distinguished roll of Fellows, who will look to 
 this University as their own mother in learning. The first of our 
 graduates who has attained the honours of a Master in Arts, he 
 has Well earned the distinction of being the first indigenous 
 Fellow (jf this University. Captain Sherard Osborn has already 
 earned for himself a name equally honoured in literature and 
 in the service of his country as a distinguished Naval officer 
 and traveller. I feel assured he will not be a passive member 
 of an institution on which the intellectual development of 
 Western India so largely depends. There are many gentlemen 
 liere who have witnessed the architectural glories of our groat 
 Universities in Europe. It is, I believe, a fact which we should 
 all do well to bear in mind that there is not, so far as I am 
 aware, to be seen in them a single building of any kind erected 
 by the Government. All is the work of private munificence, and 
 we owe to a similar source the promise that this University will 
 one day possess a hall of its own suitable in every way to such a 
 body as this University is distined to become. As a founder, a 
 benefactor, to whose princely munificence the University already 
 owes so much, Mr. Premchund Roychund will be regarded by 
 the Senate as a most worthy addition to the list of Fellows. 
 ^Ir. Stedman represents the body of Professors of the Grant 
 Medical College. Possibly further additions may hereafter be 
 needed to fill the vacancies caused by the departure of Doctors 
 Peet, Ballingall, and Coles, whom we have this year lost from 
 our list of Fellows. The Rev. J. V. S. Taylor is distinguished 
 for his accurate knowledge of the dialects of Guzerat. I know 
 of no province in India which affords field for the action of 
 those powers which will be evoked by this University than 
 
24 University of Bombay, 
 
 Guzerat, which combines in so remarkable a degree so much 
 that remains of the civilization of ancient India and so much of 
 the promise of the future. 
 
 The report which we have just heard read again speaks 
 of steady, assured progress as compared with 
 Results ^ of former years. There are two features in it which 
 tions. ^"^"*' seem to me especially noteworthy. First, there is 
 the greatly increased area from which matriculated 
 students have been drawn. Not only is the number of such stu- 
 dents greater than in former years, but in the enumeration of 
 more than thirty institutions from which students have been 
 drawn, I observe the names of many schools from which no stu- 
 dent has ever before been matriculated. This speaks well for 
 the extended influence of the University, and for the hold it is 
 establishing over our schools as the standard of education in this 
 part of India. The other fact which I would notice is that we 
 find among the graduates this day, and holding a very honour- 
 able place among them, the first Sindee scholar who has been 
 educated at this University. I notice this not merely on account 
 of the great personal interest I shall ever feel in a province 
 where so many years of my life were spent, but because it illus- 
 trates, in a very remarkable degree, the influence which an 
 institution like this University cannot but exercise over all edu- 
 cation down to the most elementary. Probably there is no pro- 
 vince in India where there was, previous to the British rule, 
 such an entire absence of education of any kind as in Bind. 
 There were indeed a few traces of the learning of former days. 
 Philologists investigated the language, and discovered that it 
 had once held a high place among the most cultivated and copi- 
 ous dialects of India, and there were yet traces of what in former 
 days had been famous Seminaries of Persian and Arabic learn- 
 ing, but all was of the past. There were no public schools to 
 teach even the very elements of learning. Schools, scholars, 
 teachers, professors, had alike to be created. It might be said, 
 and it was said by many most influential educationists, '' This is 
 a case where nothing can be done but to provide elementary 
 schools — schools for primaiy or popular education, on which in 
 future generations, may be grafted schools of a higher character, 
 as colleges." These primary branches of education were not 
 neglected, but it was decided, and I think most wisely decided, 
 not to rest content with these first steps in education, but to 
 endeavour to train a few of the most promising scholars to join at 
 once the higher institutions for national education which have their 
 seat in this island. We have now the results of this experiment. 
 
1865.— /SiV H. B. E. Frere, 25 
 
 The young Sindee, who has this day taken his degree, 
 
 will return to his own house well instructed in 
 at^^y^^' ^^^* branches of secular English education, such 
 
 as most English gentlemen would desire for their 
 sons, and we may now ask what will be the influence he will 
 there be able to exert in the matter of education ? First, as to the 
 higher classes. To judge of what he may do we must, I think, 
 as has been often suggested by a learned friend of mine, to whom 
 this University owes so much, and who, I am sorry to think, is 
 shortly to leave us — we must, I say, lookback to the time when the 
 young scholars of mediaeval Europe visited the courts of the 
 
 great princes and nobles who in those days thought 
 M^d^°^ ®* it scarcely less glorious to found a college than a 
 rope. " kingdom. The history of that period paints to our 
 
 imagination many picturesque scenes in which the 
 young and travelled scholar who came laden with the riches of 
 Eoman and G-recian learning, displayed his treasures before 
 princes and peers, ecclesiastics and warriors, and by translation 
 placed many of the gems of ancient lore within the reach of those 
 who knew none but the vulgar tongue. May not something of 
 the same kind await him who in these days will carry to the 
 court of Rajpoot Chiefs or Pathan Ameers the stores of Western 
 learning which he has here acquired? The Moulvie who can 
 repeat the Koran with half its commentaries by heart, the Shastree 
 who is a living library of Hindoo literature, men who had long 
 passed in their own courts as miracles of erudition, may find in 
 the young scholar who comes fresh from the teaching of G-ermany 
 or England more profound knowledge of their own sacred books 
 than they themselves ever dreamed of. He will bring, too, learn- 
 ing in many branches of science never before heard of in those 
 regions, all the wonders of physical science, and all the varied 
 history, philosophy, and literature of the great race who govern 
 India. And, withal, prince and peasant, priest and warrior, will, 
 
 I trust, marvel to find in him that modesty which 
 
 Hmmlity the they rarely find in the narrow minds which hold 
 
 wisdom. ^ ^ s-ll *^6 knowledge of those who have been used to 
 
 style themselves the "learned men " of that con- 
 tracted circle. The young stranger knows what they have never 
 learnt, how varied are the aspects, how many-sided the forms, 
 of truth, how unlimited is the field of possible knowledge, how 
 little is the sum of all human science and learning when compared 
 to that which is still unrevealed. All this he has felt, and it 
 has given him that true humility of spirit which learned and 
 unlearned alike instinctively feel is the true stamp of wisdom. 
 But, great as may be the effect of one such scholar upon the 
 
 4 
 
26 Vniversity of Bombay, 
 
 upper classes, liow will it fare with the poor, with those who 
 can neither read nor write, who seem condemned to perpetual 
 ignorance, because it is hardly possible for them to hear a 
 teacher's voice, and the written word is to them sealed by- 
 ignorance of the first elements of learning ? " Would it not 
 
 be better," it may be asked, ^^ that all cost and 
 
 HighOT ^ ver- pains which have been spent in equipping this 
 
 BducationT^^ O'o.e scholar with so many costly gifts had been 
 
 divided so as to instruct hundreds of poor pea- 
 sants in the simple arts of reading and writing ? " I believe 
 that to such questioners tl^e true answer would be that experi- 
 ence shows that one such scholar accomplished, as I have 
 supposed, will do more to promote the primary education of all 
 around him than could possibly be effected by almost any sum 
 of money simply spent in teaching the illiterate to read and 
 write. We are too apt to forget that this work of primary edu- 
 cation is not simply a matter of arithmetical calculation, or of 
 the expenditure of a given sum of money. Were it so, a single 
 decree of any Parliamentary grant would solve the question of 
 popular education, and banish ignorance of at least the ele- 
 ments of learning for ever, but we know that it is not, and 
 never can be so. We know how for years every civilized country 
 in the Western world has laboured, not wholly in vain, but with 
 at best imperfect success, to give to the mass of the people the 
 first elements of education. It is not the want of money, but 
 the want of human hearts and heads capable of applying that 
 money intelligently to the work of teaching, which so long has 
 kept, and will keep so large a proportion of the poorer class in 
 every country unable to write or read. Let us consider where 
 in England or in Germany would popular education be were it 
 not for those who have themselves been educated at a Univer- 
 sity, or at schools which take their tone from the University ? 
 The landlords, the clergy of all denominations, the schoolmasters, 
 the authors and editors, these classes are surely not unimportant 
 agents in spreading primary or popular education. No man of 
 refined education can stand unmoved by the spectacle of a people 
 wholly in darkness. Unless he sat himself up within a barrier of 
 entirely selfish enjoyment he must go forth and act the part of a 
 teacher, and he will teach with an intelligent power a thousand- 
 fold greater than can be applied by him who, however zealous 
 in the cause, has himself no more than a perfect knowledge of 
 the bare elements of learning. These are the reasons why it 
 seems to me that it is a very superficial view of the effects of this 
 University education to suppose that it is in any way antagonistic 
 to the great cause of primary education. On the contrary, I 
 
1866.— /SiV E. B. JS, Frere. 27 
 
 believe that such an education as this University would seal 
 with its approval is the most powerful of levers to move the great 
 mass of popular ignorance, and that every graduate going forth 
 from this University will, in one way or another, prove a valuable 
 recruit in that army of teachers which is needed to act effectu- 
 ally on the millions in this country who are still destitute of the 
 first elements of knowledge. 
 
 FIFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sir H. B. E. Frees.) 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen of the Senate, — 1 
 believe we may congratulate the University that the time has 
 now come when it is no longer necessary for any one speaking 
 from this chair to discuss points of merely speculative and theo- 
 retical interest, since tlje actual working of the University 
 and the practical details of its management afford ample grounds 
 for consideration at the great meeting of the University when 
 we count up our gains and losses of the bygone year^ and review 
 the past w^th the practical determination that the result shall 
 influence our action for the future. 
 
 There appears from the report which has just been read by 
 the Registrar, to have been a moderate, steady, and 
 Ntiml)er of satisfactory amount of progress achieved during 
 Matriculates. ^he year. There has been an increase in the number 
 of students matriculated. There were 282 candi- 
 dates, of whom 111 passed this year, against 241 candidates, of 
 whom 109 passed last year. In this respect, the only notice- 
 able feature is the great increase this year in the number passed 
 for Matriculation by the Poena High School and the Free 
 General Assembly's Institution, and the large number of Insti- 
 tutions which have lately sent one or more successful candidates. 
 This is satisfactory progress when we remember how lately the 
 Elphinstone College and School were almost tlie only Institutions 
 which, educated up to the Matriculation standard. 
 
 I am especially glad to welcome two distinguished students 
 of the University as the first to take the degree 
 Baohelora of ^^ Bachelor of Laws. I on a former occasion re- 
 Law, f erred to the great value of the strict and regular 
 study of theoretical law to the educated youth of 
 India, and of the great practical importance to the country of a 
 body of students who should add a sound theoretical knowledge 
 
XTmversUy of Bomhmf. 
 
 of law to a good general education. I trust the time is not far 
 distant when Government and those who have the task of testing 
 the claims of candidates for admission to the native Bar, and 
 of selecting Judges to sit on the native Bench, will be able to 
 substitute the University stamp of merit and qualification for 
 the present imperfect departmental tests and examinations. 
 
 I am also glad to see the Bhugwandass Purshotumdass San- 
 skrit scholarship awarded to a worthy candidate. 
 Sanskrit Per- I trust the day is not far distant when we shall find 
 sian and Assy- the Parsees of this University devoting to the 
 nan Literature, g^udy of their ancient and sacred languages some 
 such attention as their learned Hindu brethren 
 devote to Sanskrit. The two fields of study have much in com- 
 mon, and though we may not hope to recover from the lost 
 treasures of ancient Persian and Assyrian literature anything 
 approaching in quantity or value to the stores of Sanskrit learn- 
 ing, yet there is enough to be done^ to fire the ambition of 
 scholars who trace the history of their race and faith back to 
 the early days of Persia and Assyria. 
 
 In speaking of the year's progress I used advisedly the 
 
 words " moderate and satisfactory ; " but I would 
 
 Alleged de- not have it supposed because I use no stronger 
 
 fects in the terms that I doubted the progress beinff quite as 
 
 University sys- , ^ .-, . •aj.'j.i 
 
 tern. great and rapid as is consistent with permanence 
 
 and healthy growth. Whatever doubt may for- 
 merly have been felt on the subject, it is now beyond question that 
 this University has taken deep root among the institutions of 
 Western India, that the rising generation of educated natives 
 is deeply impressed with an enthusiastic desire to obtain the 
 benefits of University education and the honours which the 
 University can bestow ; and our danger is now, not that the Uni- 
 versity should languish as an exotic unfitted for this soil and 
 climate, but that its too luxuriant growth should make too 
 rapid a display of flowers and leaves wliile it fails to bring much 
 valuable fruit to perfection. I believe that for some time to 
 come, our main difficulty will be to maintain the high standard 
 of University learning, and to discourage all attempts, by lower- 
 ing that general standard, to increase immediate and apparent 
 results without corresponding security for the completeness of 
 the work done. And this brings me to notice a discussion in 
 which we have all lately taken an interest regarding the Uni- 
 versity standards as applied to Oriental learning. It wasmaintain- 
 ed with great ability by one of our most valued Fellows, of whose 
 claim for respect on account of his great and varied learning 
 
1866.— /8'ir B, B, E. Frere, » 
 
 we cannot speak too highly, that there was something defec- 
 tive in our University system, because we did not educate San- 
 skrit scholars up to the standards of the old Shastris; and some 
 fear was expressed of a supposed intention to substitute a com- 
 paratively easy classical language like Latin for the venerable 
 mother of Indian tongues. 
 
 The answer to the first objection is that, in the words 
 
 which I have heard used by our learned Yice- 
 
 Primary ob- Chancellor, the object of this University, as in Eng- 
 
 iersity. ^ ^' land, is to establish a standard for the education 
 
 of men — not as mere means of teaching savants. 
 I trust that the two objects are not entirely incompatible. I 
 look to this University as a great means of arresting the lamen- 
 table decline in the knowledge of the ancient languages of India, 
 and I trust that there are pupils of this University who will rival 
 the profound learning of Shastris of old; but let us ever remem- 
 ber our primary object is to educate men, men fitted for every 
 walk of life in which high education is needed, complete as far 
 as the University can make them in every moral and intellectual 
 faculty — and not to produce prodigies of learning in one particu- 
 lar branch, the especial cultivation of which renders them 
 necessarily defective in general adaptation to the business of the 
 
 world. So with the study of Latin. No one, 1 
 Latin versus hope, would ever dream of comparing it as a Ian- 
 Sanskrit, guage in completeness, in copiousness, or in all 
 
 that constitutes the perfection of language, with 
 Sanskrit; but while there is a large majority of Indian youths 
 to whom the study of Sanskrit is natural as the classical 
 language of their country and mother tongue, there are many 
 for whom it has no special fitness, compared with a language like 
 Latin, which has for centuries been the classic language of all 
 the great nations of Europe. There are, I trust, many students 
 in this University who will find in the study of Latin all the 
 benefit that has been experienced by the great students of Europe 
 for the last eighteen centuries ; but it is no part of our object 
 to purchase this benefit by the sacrifice of aught that is fairly 
 due to Sanskrit. 
 
 In reviewing our losses and our gains during the past year, 
 
 there is nothing of more permanent interest than 
 
 FliK-tuationa the fluctuations of the governing body of Fellows. 
 
 bodyof FeUows^. I^ ^^ a necessity of our position that every year 
 
 should give us cause to note the loss of several 
 
 wheat our previous meetings were active and matured members of 
 
 the University, some removed by death, some by the inevitable 
 
30 University of Bombay, 
 
 fluctuations of the pubKc service, or by change of residence. 
 We have sometimes the pleasure, as in the case of my honoured 
 colleague, to welcome back to the body of resident and active 
 Fellows, those who had taken a prominent share in the labours of 
 the University in its earlier years, and who, while absent from 
 among us, have borne an honourable and distinguished share in 
 the Government of sister institutions in other parts of India. 
 And, in all cases, we have done our best to supply by fresh 
 additions to the number of Fellows our losses during the past 
 twelve months ; and by adding the names of discreet and learned 
 men, fitted by their ability, learning and influence to give weight 
 to the deliberations and action of the Senate, we have hoped to 
 make up, as far as possible, for the injuries inflicted on us by 
 time. But there are some losses which we cannot hope to replace. 
 The report which the Registrar has read alludes in fitting terms 
 to the loss of our late Vice-Chancellor (Mr. Kinloch Forbes), 
 and he could have no more fitting eulogy than the sorrow thus 
 
 expressed, of the Senate over wjiich he presided ; 
 
 ^' Klniocii ijuf, X may be pardoned if I point the late Mr. Elinloch 
 
 love of .iustice.^ Forbes out to , those of my own countrymen who 
 
 desire to aid in the great work of the University, 
 as a bright example of what they have it in their power to do. 
 It was not his intellectual ability, great as that was, nor his 
 learning and accomplishments, though we know them to have 
 been profound and varied ; but it was the innate English love of 
 justice which, with such singular modesty, was his great 
 characteristic, which gave him such a hold on the sympathy of 
 all with whom he came in contact, and which was the true secret 
 of his power. There is another name which we miss from this 
 year's roll of Fellows, and which we could ill spare. I have 
 elsewhere had opportunities of expressing the obligations of 
 Government to the late Mr. Jugowiath Sunkersett in his general 
 character as a public citizen, and I would now but allude to his 
 loss as one of the earliest, ablest and most consistent promoters 
 of native education in this Presidency, and one whom I would 
 
 hold up to my young native friends as an ex eel- 
 example^ of ^a 1^^^ example of what an educated Hiadu gentleman 
 Hindu gentle- in the present day may achieve — always cautiously 
 ^^^* and wisely progressive, liberal as well as conserva- 
 
 tive, careful of the wants and wishies of his own community, 
 yet never unmindful of the good of the community at large. I 
 feel certain, Sir, that even without the appropriate movement 
 to his memory which the Registrar's>&report records, the name of 
 such a man will not easily pass from,^our remembran'^. 
 
1867. — Sir Alexander Grant, Ba/rt. 81 
 
 SIXTH CONVOCATION, 
 
 (By Sib Alexander Grant, Bart., LL.D.) 
 
 HoNOiTEABLE SiR, — Before this Convocation, the last at which 
 your Excellency will preside, is dissolved, we, the Fellows of 
 the University of Bombay, crave permission to approach your 
 Excellency with an expression of our heartfelt gratitude for the 
 many benefits, which as our Chancellor and as head of the 
 Government of Bomb ay, you have conferred upon this University ; 
 and of our great regret that your connection with us in these 
 capacities is now so soon to terminate. 
 
 Nearly five years ago it was your Excellency's first public 
 act on arriving here as Governor of Bombay, to preside in this 
 place and to award the first Degrees which were given by this 
 University. 
 
 Not only at our first, but at all subsequent, Convocations, 
 your Excellency has done us the honour of presiding. Every 
 student who has hitherto been deemed by this University worthy 
 of a Degree, whether in Arts, in Law, or in Medicine, has 
 received that Degree, accompanied by appropriate and impres- 
 sive woi*ds, from the hands of the Governor of the Presidency. 
 And annua^y in your place as Chancellor, your Excellency has 
 Bever failed to address us on topics connected with our progress 
 aad policy. Your Excellency's speeches, delivered on these 
 occasions, are preserved in our Calendars, and we trust that they 
 may ever be referred to by our successors, as containing some of the 
 most important principles by which, their course may be guided. 
 
 The part thus taken by your Excellency in our proceedings 
 has given this University a peculiar prestige as neither of the 
 Universities of Calcutta or of Madras has been similarly distin- 
 guished by its respective Chancellor. 
 
 While acknowledging the benefits of the lively interest 
 which your Excellency, as our academical head, has thus shown 
 in our welfare, we beg also to thank you for the equally valu- 
 able forbearance which, as head of the Political Government, 
 you h.ave exhibited towards us. 
 
 A University like ours occupies necessarily a delicate position. 
 
 Its members are all appointed by the Government ; 
 
 The delicate it derives all its current resources from the Impe- 
 
 ^idylSfcy! *^^ rial Treasury ; and its acts are all subject to veto 
 
 from the local administration. Under such 
 
32 University of Bombay, 
 
 circumstances, — especially in India where it is often felt that all 
 else except the Government is uncertain and fluctuating — there 
 cannot but be a tendency for a University to lose caste, as it 
 were, and to come to be regarded as a m«re office or department 
 of the State. What is to be apprehended from this tendency is 
 not only a loss of dignity to the University itself, but also a 
 loss of the highest kind of efficiency in its working. 
 
 For, the mission of a University in a country like this, 
 
 is nothing else than to create an intellectual and 
 
 ^ mission vital soul among the people ; and there can be no 
 
 gity. * ^^^^^' question whether this mission is likely best to be 
 
 fulfilled by persons feeling themselves nominated 
 
 merely to carry out the views of a Government, or by the free 
 
 and enthusiastic action of men feeling responsible to themselves 
 
 for the good or bad success of the University. 
 
 It is under jealous and centralizing administrations, that 
 a University like ours tends to lose its liberty. 
 ]^eral senti- But your Excellency's administration has ever been 
 Chancellor. ^ characterized by the most large and liberal senti- 
 ments. And these sentiments you have especially 
 manifested towards us. You have increased our academical 
 body by the admission to it of persons from almost all sections of 
 the community. You have accorded personal sympathy and 
 public sanction to our acts. You have encouraged us to settle 
 in our own assemblies all questions falling within our province. 
 
 For this faith and trust in us, we beg. Sir, especially to 
 High stand- thank you. Knowing the interest you have felt in 
 ard of scholar- our welfare and success, we can well imagine the 
 ®^P* possibility of doubts arising in your Excellency's 
 
 mind as to that policy of strict and severe examinations which 
 we have always adhered to, and by which we have kept down 
 the number of our Matriculations and Degrees to a small frac- 
 tion of those exhibited by the sister Universities of Calcutta and 
 Madras. But if such doubts have arisen, your Excellency has 
 never given expression to them. On the contrary, you have 
 again and again approved our course, and have seemed fully to 
 share our belief, that our work if slowly advancing, has a solid 
 foundation ; and that it is of more importance to create a high 
 standard of scholarship in this country, than to multiply, ever so 
 much, the number of persons possessing nominal distinctions at 
 the hands of a University. 
 
 While leaving our Examination standards, as an academical 
 matter, to be settled academically, your Excellency has never 
 
1867.— iSiV //. B. E, Frere. 83 
 
 failed in your political capacity to give high recognition to the 
 
 value of all the Degrees and honours conferred 
 
 Eocojjnition j^y ^j^q University. By bestowing many personal 
 
 of University ^'i ,■ .- "^ j j. x. • x xi. 
 
 men. distinctions on our graduates, by opening to them 
 
 generally appointments in the Revenue Service, and 
 by assigning to them rank with the Sirdars of the Presidency, 
 your Excellency's Government has held out the most efficacious 
 encouragement to perseverance in academical studies. 
 
 The period of your Excellency's administration is nearly 
 co-eval with that of the public existence of this 
 Results ob- University. During that period the number of oar 
 t^l"regimeofl? graduates has risen from 8 to 70, that of our 
 H. B. E. Frere. under-graduates from 106 to about 500. The num- 
 ber of our Fellows has been increased from 36 to 
 175. During the same period, by the munificence of eminent 
 citizens, three noble college buildings for affiliated Institutions 
 have been commenced and are now nearly finished; two splendid 
 donations have been received for the erection of a University 
 Hall and Library, which we hope shortly to see rising on the 
 Esplanade; six endowments in the form of Scholarships and 
 Prizes have been entrusted to us ; and handsome gifts in the 
 shape of a University Seal and Mace have been received. With 
 the history of all these things the memory of your Excellency's 
 administration will remain associated. And, as the noble-minded 
 Lord Elphinstone was regarded as the founder of this Univer- 
 sity, so we shall take the liberty to regard your Excellency as 
 our Second Founder. Lord Elphinstone's Arms were incorpo- 
 rated with those which we bear, and we will now ask your 
 Excellency to permit your bust, (to be provided at the expense 
 of the existing Fellows and Graduates) to be placed in our 
 future University Hall, surmounted by a shield bearing your 
 Excellency's Arms, in perpetual token of our grateful apprecia- 
 tion of your rule. 
 
 In conclusion, we respectfully bid your Excellency farewell, 
 and wish you a long and happy life, in that high sphere to which 
 you ar3 now going, and where we feel sure you will continue to 
 watch over the welfare of the University of Bombay, as being 
 the part not least interesting to you of this Empire of India. 
 
 The Chancellor Sir Henry Bartle Edward Peere, K.O.B., 
 G.C.S.I., then replied as follows : — 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — ^I feel 
 it very difficult to find words to express the deep and heartfelt 
 
34 University of Bombay. 
 
 gratification with which. I have listened to the address which 
 you have just read^ following upon the Eegistrar's Report of the 
 steady and most satisfactory progress which has been observable 
 in the proceedings of this University during the past as in 
 every preceding year since its foundation. I cannot but feel 
 that yau have estimated the share I have personally had in pro- 
 moting the success of the University more favourably than I 
 deserve, but I prize that estimate because I feel assured that 
 the favourable view you have taken of what I have done while 
 Governor of this Presidency is founded not on mere personal 
 partiality, but on sympathy with the great objects we all of us 
 have had in view. 
 
 I have endeavoured ever since I came to this Government 
 
 to promote, as far as lay in my power, the efiiciency 
 of^th^^U*^i^r^ ^ independence of this University, because I 
 sity. believe that it contains the germ of some of the 
 
 most valuable gifts which England could bestow 
 upon India. You have spoken of the " forbearance '' which, as 
 head of the ^'Political Government," I have exhibited towards 
 the University, and you do me no more than justice in inferring 
 that what you term "forbearance'' has not been the result of 
 lukewarmness or indifference but of a clear conviction that the 
 Political Government of this country could hardly commit a 
 greater mistake than by attempting to convert the University 
 into a " mere office or department of the State.'' I have ever 
 felt most strongly the importance of those truths which you 
 have so well expressed in your address that any loss of dignity 
 or independence in the University involves also a loss of the 
 highest kind of efficiency. During all the years that I have 
 passed in this country I have felt a continually deepening con- 
 viction that, whatever absolute power may do to impress any 
 particular image on the material with which it works, it cannot 
 create any principle of life in institutions or communities, and 
 that the vital force which lives, and grows, and has the germ 
 of further life and further growth, can only result from true 
 natural organization, and is infinitely more potent and valuable 
 than any dead image which external power can impress. It 
 
 has been the object of this Government to draw to 
 
 The valuable the Senate of this University all the independent 
 
 Senate thought and educated ability which is within our 
 
 reach, and we firmly believe that no man worthy 
 to be a Fellow of this University would consent to serve as a 
 mere nominee of Government, bound in any way to prefer the 
 behests of that Government to the dictates of his own conscience 
 
1867.— 5iV H. B, E Frere, 35 
 
 or independent convictions. It is a noteworthy circumstance 
 that this University stands almost alono among the great institu- 
 tions of this country, as managed by the unbought exertions of 
 those who direct its action ; and we of the Government attach a 
 double value to whatever it does, because the progress it achieves 
 affords an excellent practical refutation of the doctrine that no 
 good or useful service to the State can be expected unless 
 directly paid for in money or money's worth. We have a strong 
 conviction that here, as in every part of the world, men will 
 serve their fellowmen truly and laboriously for honour, for love, 
 and for conscience sake, and we thank you for teaching this 
 among other truths that great service may be done the State 
 though it be not paid for in money. Under these circumstances. 
 Sir, I and my colleagues in this Government have 
 forb^rance! ^®^^ that, if forbearance on the part of Government 
 is sometimes needful, still oftener is forbearance 
 called for on the part of the Senate when the habits and lan- 
 guage of the Government may seem to imply a desire to dictate 
 which in reality does not exist. Generous trust and forbearance 
 on both sides are needed to insure life and growth in the joint 
 work. You have alluded to the jealousy which centralizing and 
 absolute Governments naturally feel as regards any independent 
 institutions, the main object of which is the cultivation of free 
 thought. I would say a very few words on the reasons why we 
 believe that the Government of British India need entertain no 
 such fear. In almost every other parallel case that we know of 
 it has been more or less the object of the governing 
 Policy of other nation to treat a dependency like British India as 
 tions.^^^^^ ^' ^ conquered possession, to be administered for the 
 benefit direct or indirect of the governing power, 
 and, in proportion as this spirit animates the action of the 
 Government so will it harve good reason to dread the independent 
 growth of institutions like this. But England has^ as I need not 
 remind you, no such purpose, and need have no such fear. From 
 the day when the sudden brilliancy of the achievements of her 
 sons in this distant country first startled the Parliament and 
 people of England, from the days of Clive and Warren Hastings 
 to this hour, there has ever been a continual protest on the part of 
 those who mould the thought and direct the action of the British 
 nation, against the doctrine that India is to be 
 India to be administered in any other spirit than as a trust 
 administered as fi^om God for the fifood STOvernment of manv mil- 
 
 A TRUST PROM & ° i i n^n 11 t 
 
 God. lions ot his creatures; and, however fitfully and 
 
 imperfectly this purpose may have been carried 
 
 out, it has in every generation grown in strength, and was 
 
36 University of Bombay, 
 
 never more powerful tlian at tlie present moment. However 
 firmly England may resolve that no force shall wrest from lier 
 the Empire of India, the root of that resolve has always been 
 a deep conviction that to surrender that Empire would be to 
 betray a high trust. England desires to administer India as 
 she would administer her own colonies with a single eye to the 
 benefit of the dependency and with a strong assurance that 
 whatever is truly good for the dependency must benefit the 
 Empire at large. To a rule of this kind such a 
 University "a University as you would form can be nothing 
 auSliary^"^^ to ^^^ ^ most valuable auxiliary, training minds to 
 Government. understand and appreciate as well as to promote 
 the great purpose of the ruling power. And even 
 in the short life of this University and the schools which furnish 
 its Graduates, I think we find practical proof that this view is 
 the sound one. As I once before remarked from this chair, I 
 remember the opening of the first English High School in this 
 Presidency, and now, wherever I go I find the best exponents 
 of the policy of the English Government, and the most able 
 coadjutors in adjusting that policy to the peculi- 
 The useful- arities of the nations of India, among the ranks of 
 cated Indians!^' those educated natives, for increasing whose num- 
 bers and for raising whose standard of attainments 
 this University is designed. It is not only hei'e in Bombay but 
 from every part of the Presidency I receive testimony to this 
 fact. From Sind and from Canara, from Kattyawar and Guzerat, 
 and from the furthest parts of the Decoan, I have the concur- 
 rent evidence that, wherever progress, whether intellectual or 
 material, is observable, there the natives who have received a 
 good English education are among the most active in the 
 good cause. And it is to be remarked that this is not observable 
 of Government servants only. It is a healthy result of extended 
 education that it has contributed to cause a diminution of that 
 craving for Government employ which in former days was 
 almost universal. No close observer can fail to have been struck 
 by the increasing popularity of independent employment of 
 every kind. But I do not find that this has been accompanied 
 by any increase of what we in England would call Radicalism. 
 On the contrary, I find among the educated natives, who are 
 independent of Government service, the strongest appreciation 
 of the benefits of British rule. It is not among 
 The loyalty the best educated natives that we generally find 
 Press. ^^ ^^® warm admirers of native misrule or those who 
 
 sigh for the restoration of effete dynasties. This 
 i& remarkably evident in the native press, which from being 
 
1867. —Sir H. B. E, Frere. 87 
 
 generally in the hands of educated natives, writing anonymously, 
 would naturally betray, if it existed, any prevalent spirit of dis- 
 loyalty to the British Grovernment. But I bear willing testimony 
 to the fact that, whatever may be its defects in other respects, 
 the usual spirit of the native press in this Presidency is one of 
 spontaneous respect for and sympathy with the British Govern- 
 ment. Individual rulers may be criticized severely, perhaps 
 unjustly, but as regards the Government at large the prevail- 
 ing tone of the native press is at least as respectful as in 
 England, and its criticism is often expressed with remarkable 
 ability. I would, before concluding, once more state very 
 emphatically my convictions of the soundness of that policy which 
 has led the University to insist on strict and severe examina- 
 tions, which by limiting the number of admissions to the Univer- 
 sity, and by raising the tests required for its honours, has 
 made its growth appear less rapid than it otherwise might have 
 been. I am convinced that what has thus been lost in rapidity 
 of growth has been gained in soundness and permanence of 
 result, and it is this rigour of selection which has justified the 
 Government in recognizing the University Degrees as a mark 
 of social rank and official qualification. It has every year 
 been a pleasing duty of the University to ac- 
 knowledge the munificence of its benefactors. The 
 benefactors have been hitherto almost exclusively citizens of 
 Bombay ; but I am glad to observe in your report the record 
 of a scholarship founded by the Jam of Nowanuggur, a Kat- 
 tywar Chief. This is, I trust, the precursor of other foundations 
 of local scholarships which will perform for this University the 
 same service as has been rendered in earlier days to our English 
 Universities by their local foundations. In now 
 far^elT^^^^^^ taking leave of the University of Bombay, it is a 
 satisfaction to me to know that I leave behind me 
 colleagues who I believe concur with me in the views I have 
 endeavoured very inadequately to express regarding the work of 
 this University, and the soundness of the foundation which has 
 been laid by yourself and by your accomplished predecessors 
 in your great office as Director General of Public Instruction 
 in this Presidency. I feel assured that you will have every sup- 
 port in your good work from my successor, who will come among 
 you with a name not undistinguished in one of our great store- 
 houses of active thought and learning to which the freedom 
 and the power of England owe so much. It is a great gratifica- 
 tion to me to know that you propose to perpetuate the memory 
 of my tenure of office as your Chancellor. Few things will give 
 me greater pleasure in other lands than to know that I have 
 
38 University of Bomhay. 
 
 contributed to carry out any great work begun by one wlio was 
 loved and lamented like Lord Elpliinstone, a work which was 
 foreseen and hoped for by his great namesake and predecessor, 
 and for your purpose in connecting my name with theirs I 
 heartily thank you. But whatever we may attribute to indi- 
 vidual agency or may hope for from individual exertion, there 
 is ever present to our minds in this and in every other great 
 work in this country a prevailing sense of an over-ruling power 
 in comparison with whose agency the mightiest works of man 
 are dwarfed to iqsigniftcance. Philosophers tell us of the 
 evidence which is afforded by the shores of. some of the fairest 
 regions of the earth that some great subterranean force is 
 already at work gradually upheaving or submerging the whole 
 continent. It has always seemed to me that this afforded no 
 unfitting image of our work in this country. We may terrace 
 . and adorn the hill sides, we may trim the vine slopes and plant 
 the olive and orange ; but there is a power which, though unseen 
 and often unobserved by us, is ever working with a silent energy 
 of which we can have no conception to raise or depress whole 
 nations. That that great power may bless and prosper the great 
 work that you have in hand and make it fruitful in good results, 
 of which we can have now no clear conception^ is my fervent 
 hope, and in that hope I now bid you^ Sir, and this Con- 
 vocation^ farewell. 
 
 SEVENTH CaNVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sir W. R. Fitzgerald, G.C.S.I., D.O.L.) 
 
 Mr. Vice-Ohancellor, and Gentlemen of the Senate, — To all 
 of us, I think, who have listened to the very com- 
 b"^^S^^^^u°* plete and clear report just read by the Registrar, 
 veraity. ^' the account that he has given us of the progress 
 and of the prospect of this University musfc be 
 highly satisfactory ; and to most of you, gentlemen, who have 
 attended previous Convocations, it must be a source of gratifi- 
 cation to find that the progress established in former years has not 
 only not been lost, but that Ihe University continues in the same 
 onward and steady march of success that has called for congra- 
 tulation hitherto. * 
 
 For myself, gentlemen, a devoted son of one of our ancient 
 
 Universities — who look back to her still at a great 
 
 Yalne ^^»i- distance of time, and in this distant country, with 
 
 tion! ^ ^^^' an affection and attachment that as many of you as 
 
 are University men can well understand, and to 
 
1868.— Sir W, R, Fitzgerald, 39 
 
 whom the recollections of her are forcibly and yet pleasurably 
 recalled by the proceedings of this day — it is a source of great 
 gratification to find myself privileged to be present amongst you 
 on this occasion. From the first moment of my enteriog into the 
 exciting contests of public and parlian>entary life — in the per- 
 formance of public functions, in the hours of business, and in the 
 moments of relaxation, I have never ceased to feel the value of a 
 University education. And that not because it is merely the 
 completion and the complement of that course in which a man 
 obtains the knowledge which is power, but because that know- 
 ledge is obtained accompanied by all the refining influences which 
 an academic life is so calculated to exert. And I rejoice to be- 
 lieve that here in this distant land this young University is ful- 
 filling all those noble functions which for centuries past the sister 
 ancient Universities of our own land have so efiiciently dis- 
 charged. 
 
 There are some points in the report which has been read to 
 us upon which I wish, with your permission, to 
 Hi|^ 8t^<^- make a few passing observations. And, first, — it 
 tricuiation. ' i^i^y be a remark that has been made by my prede- 
 cessor and by many of you before, but it is that 
 which has very f orcibl;^ struck my own mind, and therefore I 
 desire to draw attention to it — I rejoice to find that the Univer- 
 sity is firm in maintaining the high standard it established for the 
 matriculation examination. It may be a matter of regret that 
 more candidates did not succeed in obtaining admission within 
 our walls ; — I think only one-third or less of those who present- 
 ed themselves have succeeded, according to the report, in the 
 matriculation examination ; but still I am glad the severity of 
 the matriculation test is so strictly preserved. The importance 
 of it is obvious. If the matriculation test is lowered, and the 
 standard of the after examinations is maintained, it is obvious 
 that it will only lead to the failure of a greater number in the 
 more important examinations, — lead to the disappointment of 
 the students, and the discredit of the University. But if after 
 such an experience it were to result that the standard of the 
 ufter examinations was lowered, then the value of the University 
 distinction would be lost, and the influence of the University 
 v^ould be impaired. And not only this, but it must be recollected 
 that the maintenance of a high standard in the matriculation 
 c'x;iminntions has an important effect upon general education 
 throughout the country. The schools from which the students 
 uro drawn are compelled by this circumstance to maintain a high 
 standard ; and thus it is that indirectly, by maintaining the 
 
40 University of Bombay. 
 
 severity of the matriculation test, tlie University establishes a 
 higher standard of education for those whose means and pros- 
 pects do not lead them to aspire to a University training. I 
 hope, therefore, that in future, as hitherto, the University will 
 be firm in maintaining ' the strictness and severity of the matri- 
 culation test. 
 
 There has lately been somewhat of a controversy between 
 
 my honourable and valued friend the Vice-Chan- 
 it "^ofthT Bom' ^^'^^^^ ^^^ ^^ official on the other side of India 
 bay\rniversity' with reference to the merits of the systems pursued 
 
 in the three Universities of India. I am not going 
 to enter at all into a comparison of those systems, or of the merits 
 or distinctions of the three Universities. I will only say that I 
 am amply and fully satisfied with the statement which the Vice- 
 Chancellor has made as to the position and the merits of the 
 University of Bombay. But there is one thing that he brings to 
 notice which is peculiar to this University, and which I hope 
 this University will be firm in maintaining; and that is, that 
 whereas in the other Universities the examinations are not con- 
 ducted solely at the head-quarters of the University, but at 
 various towns and other places throughout the country, and are 
 conducted by means only of written papers without any oral 
 examination, that in the case of the Bombay University, over and 
 above an examination upon paper upon fixed subjects, there is 
 also a probing and searching oral examination which must test 
 the merits of the candidates, all of whom have to appear for their 
 examination in Bombay. This, too, I hope will be maintained. 
 It gives to you, gentlemen (turning to the new graduates), to 
 whom I have had the pleasure to-day of presenting the certi- 
 ficates of the degrees you have obtained, — it gives you the power 
 of saying to all who see that certificate in your possession, — " I 
 not only have obtained a degree which shows that I have ac- 
 quired a certain amount of knowledge, but that certificate has 
 been given to me after a more searchiag and a more difficult 
 test than that which is applied by any other University in India.^^ ] 
 Well, Sir, there was another point which struck me in the 
 
 report which the Registrar has just read, and I 
 
 i^^M^?*^ *o^ think it is one which ought to give us all unmixed 
 
 tion, ' satisfaction; and that is, that in the list of those 
 
 whom he has read out to us as having successfully 
 passed the matriculation examination, we find that there is not a 
 part of this Presidency — that there is scarcely a district — which 
 has not sent up its successful candidates to represent it within 
 the walls of the University. It might well be expected that in a 
 
1868.— /Sm- H. W. R. Fihfjcrahl. 41 
 
 youni^ University like this the candidates would be almost 
 exclusively drawn cither from this city or from the centries of edu- 
 cation throughout the country ; but instead of that we find by 
 that list which the Registrar read, as I have said, that there is 
 not a district of this Presidency from north to south, fit)m east 
 to west, which is not represented in it. And it shows to us this, 
 that a sense of the value of a University education is not confined 
 only to those who are brought into communion with the professors 
 and teachers connected with the University, but that it has 
 taken wide root throughout the Presidency, and is felt by every 
 class of tlie people. 
 
 It is a matter of congratulation, I think, that what may be 
 pointed out particularly in the report which has been read to 
 us is the number who have succeeded in obtaining degrees in the 
 Faculty of Arts. Now, that implies a more general and a more 
 liberal, a more enlightened course of studies, than that whicb 
 probably has been followed by those who have obtained degrees 
 in special faculties. There is a wider extent of learning, a wider 
 field of study required for a degree in Arts than that which 
 necessarily would be required for the degree of L.M., and I think 
 it is a matter of congratulation that the great success which has 
 been manifested in the examinations, has attended those who 
 have sought to graduate in Arts. 
 
 It is a matter of congratulation, too, that large success has 
 attended the examination in Law, because the 
 tion in^Law.^"^' T^^iversity examination in Law is not an examina- 
 tion in the knowledge which qualifies a man to be 
 a successful practitioner, — it is not a knowledge of cases and 
 decisions and practice — it is a knowledge of the principles of law 
 and jurisprudence ; it is a knowledge of the history of law ; and 
 so, is of infinite value in this country in particular. And Pll tell 
 you why. The British Government has been engaged in intro- 
 ducing into this country a fixed code of law which applies to 
 many of the relations of life. It requires here for the due admin- 
 istration of law — for an enlightened view of law as it ought to 
 be administered in this country — a knowledge of the ancient 
 laws as applying to inheritance, to property, to succession, to 
 marriage, to religion, and to many other subjects of that kind ; 
 and it is a great satisfaction to find that there are young men 
 who seek to distinguish themselves not only with a view to 
 success in their professions, but also to obtain that wider and 
 more enlightened view of law which will make a successful 
 prosecution of their profession hereafter most valuable. 
 
42 University of Bombay. 
 
 It is to be regretted, as regards tlie degree in Medicine 
 and the degree in Civil Engineering, tliat equal 
 Eng2aeei?ng^^ success has not attended the students who have 
 desired to graduate. But still it is a satisfaction 
 to find that there are young men now seeking degrees in these 
 faculties, and I will tell you why. I believe there is nothing 
 more important than the influence which the University is dny 
 by day exercising amongst us in teaching the rising generation 
 here not to look to Government employ only, not to look to the 
 interests of patrons or to the favour of the " Sircar/* but to 
 know that they have always before them an independent career 
 in honourable professions, — that they have equal honours, if not 
 greater, to attain by means of their own exertions, — feeling sure 
 as I do that such a result, — a desire amongst the enlightened 
 native youth of this country to pursue liberal professions here — 
 would tend as much to secure good and enlightened Government, 
 that would render the people happy and contented, as any 
 exertions on the part of those who are concerned in the 
 administration. 
 
 There are several other points, Mr. Vice- Chancellor, which 
 I should desire to draw attention to, but I feel I 
 tl^^UniversFty^ ^^ trespassing too long upon your time. I cannot, 
 however, refrain before I sit down from alluding 
 to that letter which you read just before I commenced my ad- 
 dress to this Senate, and from which we learn that Mr. Cowasjee 
 Jehangier, one of the most enlightened citizens in this city, 
 who has been always amongst the first to promote the highest 
 interests of his people, the highest interests of society here, 
 and to promote the best interests of this University in parti- 
 cular, as he was amongst the first, is now the very latest 
 benefactor of the University of Bombay. And I do not think 
 that there is anything which is more pleasing, in looking back 
 to the past history of this University, than to find that alike in 
 times of prosperity as in times when prosperity is past, there 
 are enlightened men amongst the native community of this 
 country who, feeling and knowing the duty tliey owe to society, 
 are desiring to dis^charge that duty by nobly supporting this 
 most valuable institution. I see near me a friend and colleague 
 of my own, who himself must feel the greatest pleasure in a 
 portion of that report which refers to a Travelling Fellowship 
 established hy him — I mean Mr. Munguldass Natijoobhoy. It 
 must be a satisfaction to him to find that the first person who 
 has obtained the Travelling Fellowship which his munificence 
 has established, has distinguisked himself by attaining the 
 
1869.— 6ftr W. R, S. V. Fitzgerald. 43 
 
 honour of the membprship of the College of Physicians and the 
 membership of the College of Surgeons of London, has in open 
 competition obtained admission to the Medical Service of this 
 Government, and is now pursuing those studies which will lead 
 hitn hereafter to a distinguished career. I do not think that 
 there is any other point which I desire particularly now to press 
 upon your attention, but I cannot refrain from expressing the 
 pleasure I fenl at the interest which is taken in the success of 
 the University, as manifested by the crowd that surrounds me 
 in this room, of all classes of the community. 
 
 There has been, as we have seen in the journals, a consider- 
 able discussion going on for some time as to the 
 liihTufe "*^" respective merits of Native and European rule in 
 this country. I do not desire to enter into that 
 point. I believe we have given to this country a certainty of 
 administration of justice, a certainty of the tenure of property, 
 and the knowledge that all are equal in the eyes of the law. 
 And by the institution of a University such as this, we are 
 conferring benefits, not perhaps so direct and tangible, but I 
 think not the less valuable and important. We are teaching the 
 youth of this country not to value knowledge only for the power 
 and the success it brings, but for the self-improvement it gives 
 the student, — teaching him to value knowledge for itself. We 
 teach him, further, that it is his duty, by cultivating the highest 
 qualities which God has given him, to fit himself to fulfil his 
 highest duties, and in doing this I am sure we confer upon this 
 country benefits even more extensive or more important, or at 
 least equally important, with those institutions which secure to 
 all the benefits of a settled and enlightened Gover^ment. 
 
 EIGHTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Sir Wm. Egbert Seymour Vesey Fitzqebald, G.O.S.I., D.L,) 
 
 Mr. Vice -Chancellor, and Gentlemen of the Senate, — ^You 
 referred, Mr. Registrar, in the report you have 
 Unklrsity!*^^ just read, to the occasion on which I 'lately met the 
 members of the University; and a deeply interesting 
 and important occasion that was. To-day I meet you again at 
 an assembly of a more ordinary character, of which each year 
 will bring us the anniversary ; but I congratulate you, Mr. Yice- 
 Chancellor, and you, Gentlemen of the Senate, that to-day I see 
 around me, eren on this more ordinary occasion, an assemblage 
 
44 Vniversity of j^omhay. 
 
 as numerous and as important as tliafc whicli graced the ceremony 
 the other day, in which, from its novelty, so many were likely to 
 take part, and in which, from the presence of the nobleman who 
 is about to undertake the government of this great country, there 
 was no doubt considerable interest and curiosity. But the pre- 
 sence, Sir, of so many upon this, as I have said^ more ordinary 
 occasion, shows that not only those who are connected with 
 Government and with the administration of affairs in this country 
 — not only those who retain a cherished recollection of academic 
 life, here, far away from the seats where they passed that life — 
 not only those who take an interest in University affairs, because 
 friends of their own, near relatives perhaps, have been connected 
 with the University, and have won in youth the prizes which, 
 after long years of active life and toil, believe me, are most 
 highly cherished to-day — that not only all those take an interest 
 in the proceedings of this University ; but I also see around me 
 many of our native fellow-countrymen who themselves probably, 
 — nay, certainly — had not the advantages of an University edu- 
 cation, and their presence shows that the interest in the proceed- 
 ings and prosperity of this University has taken deep root. 
 And I trust that that interest will day by day increase. There 
 are several points, Mr, Vice-Chancellor, in the report that has 
 just been read, which, I think, are highly gratifying and deserv- 
 ing of notice. In the :&rst place I must congratulate the Univer- 
 sity upon that which is a proof of its steady growth and pros- 
 perity. This year we have upwards of 600 candi- 
 dates for Matriculation ; last year we had only a 
 few — above 400 — that is to say, that there is this great increase in 
 the desire of the Native youth of all castes and creeds to attain 
 University distinction, that in twelve short months the number 
 of candidates for her honours has increased by 50 per cent. 
 There is another point, Sir, which I think is also of interest. 
 When I addressed this Senate last year I congratulated them that 
 there were candidates for Matriculation appearing before them 
 for examination, coming from every part of the presidency — 
 that from north and south, from east and west, the youth knocked 
 for admission at the doors of the University. But this year we 
 have seen a still greater proof of the growing influence of the 
 University, because I observe amongst those who have applied 
 for Matriculation in this University two from Indore, from the 
 territory of His Highness the Holkar, and also that there are 
 two who became members of this University from Central India. 
 This shows that the influence of this University will not be con- 
 fined to this presidency, but will spread far and wide, and shed 
 its light over the provinces that are contiguous to our owii» 
 
1869.— 6^M- W, B. S, V. Fitzgerald. 45 
 
 There is another fact to which I would draw attention, in which 
 I myself take particular interest, and that is that 
 EnsriK^erinff^ ^^ ^^^^ y^^^ ^® have admitted to a degree in engineer- 
 ing, for engineering acquirements, a member of the 
 Poona Engineering College. Last year I ventured to impress 
 on the young members of this University — and I desire to impress 
 it upon them again — that there is no career which will more 
 certainly ena,ble them to be of use to their country — no career 
 in which it is more certain that they will attain honour and 
 distinction — than that of civil engineering. At present, unfor- 
 tunately, among those who conduct the enojineering works in 
 this country^ there are not many who are natives; but I would 
 remind you that you live in a country which is studded with 
 the remains of the most magnificent architecture — that you 
 live in a country where there are the remains of vast works of 
 irrigation and works of public utility — that these were carried on 
 by your forefathers long before they had the advantage of that 
 education which is now vouchsafed to you ; and I ask you, will 
 you not advance in the same course, will you not avail yourselves 
 of the opportunities that are oifered to you, and thus qualify 
 yourselves for entering into the service of the State, which is 
 bent upon promoting, as far as its means will allow, all those 
 works that shall increase the wealth, the happiness, and the 
 prosperity of the country ? Mr. Vice-Chancellor, you have 
 referred to a munificent act on the part of adistin- 
 ac^ "munificent guigj-jed member of our Senate. Those who know 
 him and who know his family will, I am sure, 
 not be surprised that he has again come forward to extend this 
 munificent liberality to the University : and I feel I should be 
 wanting in my duty, Mr. Sassoon, if I did not publicly tender 
 to you my acknowledgments on behalf of the University. In 
 Services of *^® course of your report, Mr. Registrar, you refer- 
 Sir Alexander red to the services of Sir Alexander Grant. lam 
 Grant. ^^^e that there is no friend of the University, that 
 
 there is no friend of the youth of this country, that there is no 
 friend of India, who will not feel that we sustained a very great 
 loss by the retiring of Sir Alexander Grant. He has retinned 
 home to undertake new duties, and in them I do not doubt he 
 will earn for himself as much distinction as he earned here in 
 India in the cause of education; and I am sure that it will be 
 a gratification to every friend of this University to know that, 
 although removed far from us, although he has now to take 
 charge of another academic institution, he yet continues to feel 
 the deepest interest in all that concerns education in this country, 
 aad in this University in particular^ and that I have reason to know 
 
46 University of Bombay- 
 
 that lie is exertiag all the influence lie possesses to encourage 
 the Government at home to lend that fostering aid to the educa- 
 tional cause in this country which, during his residence here, 
 he never failed to impress upon every one around him. I 
 do not know, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, that there is much more in 
 the report for me to notice ; but 1 would desire to say that I, for 
 my part, am equally desirous to give encouragement to the 
 youth of this Uuiversity, and I propose, Sir, with your permis- 
 sion, in future years to give a gold medal, for which an examin- 
 ation shall be held under sucb rules and regula- 
 lor's Medal! tions as you and the Senate may deem fit, only 
 
 hoping that, as at the Universities at home the 
 Chancellor's Medal is considered about the highest honour the 
 graduates of the University can obtain, so in this University like- 
 wise, not only during my time, but during the time of those who 
 succeed me, the obtaining of the Chancellor's Medal may be an 
 object of ambition to every junior member of this University. 
 
 And now let me say one word to the younger members of 
 
 this University. I have tried to impress upon you 
 
 pnirersity life, ^he importance of One particular branch of study 
 
 its influence and • x t • tt • 'i. u i. t t. xi i 
 
 its end. iti this University ; but i beg even those who are 
 
 not intending to pursue this particular study — I 
 beg you to consider what are the duties that being members of 
 the University imposes upon you. I would have you to regard 
 the University not merely as an institution where you can obtain 
 knowledge and distinction. Believe me. University life has a 
 higher influence and higher ends. Knowledge is not only power, 
 but knowledge produces refinement of mind and feeling. It is 
 impossible to become acquainted with all that is great and noble 
 amongst the great men whose works you will study, who being 
 dead yet speak — it is impossible for you to become acquainted 
 with what is great and refining in literature, without also being 
 raised in tone of character, and coming to feel what is great, 
 what is noble in heart. And I would have you to cherish the 
 honour and the reputation of your University. Those who are 
 around me who are acquainted with what the effects of academic 
 life are at home, those who have had the advantage of acadmic 
 education, know that wherever they may meet, in whatever 
 clime they may be brought together, the members of a Univer- 
 sity at once sympathize with each other. They have a pride in 
 the distinction earned by those with whom they have been at 
 the University, and long after they have left the University there 
 remains a noble rivalry in the after-pursuits of life, which is the 
 Teigr best and high^t {stimulus to exertion. And I would have 
 
1870.'-Rev. John Wilson. 47 
 
 you all feel the same. It is not only — in tlie words I addressed 
 to each one of those who received at my liauds a degree this 
 day — it is nob only that tliey are in their life and conversation 
 to be worthy of tlje distinction that they have now earned, but 
 I would ask you, in the interests of the University, in the pride 
 you take in her, continue tlie same desire to learn distinction: 
 and I pray that your after-life may reflect lustre, may reflect 
 credit, on the University with which you are connected. I ask 
 you all to join with me in wishing " Floreat Academia," 
 
 NINTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Rev. John Wilson, D.D., F.R.S.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — I am sure we all deeply regret the 
 absence on this occasion of our Governor, the Right Honourable 
 Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, our Chancellor. The deep interest 
 which His Excellency tjikes in the prosperity of the University; 
 his ready, eloquent, and effective advocacy of its claims; and the 
 encouragement which he gives to it in various ways, we most 
 highly appreciate. We all deeply sympathise with the object of 
 his absence, that of welcoming, along with our distinguished 
 
 Viceroy, the Earl Mayo, and the other magnates 
 th^*^D°?^ *f ^^ ^^^^ great country, the second son of our most 
 Connaught. Gracious and Illustrious Queen Victoria to the 
 
 shores of India. We ourselves (I venture to speak 
 not only for this large assembly, but for the whole of tha 
 West of India) most cordially join in that welcome. We, the 
 dwellers on " Cambay*s strand,^' unite our most cordial felicita- 
 tions with those of our fellow-subjects sojourning near ''Ganges' 
 golden wave '^ on the arrival, in this distant land, of our Sailor 
 Prince, who is gracefully carrying the expression of the imperial 
 and personal interest of her Majesty in all her subjects to the 
 remotest places of the globe. We go further than this, and 
 humbly beg His Royal Highness to spare as much time as he 
 conveniently can for this most populous and rapidly growing 
 city, with its numerous and diversified tribes and tongues con- 
 gregated together, with its capacious and beautiful harbour, 
 with a commerce the most valuable of the " Greater Britain,'' 
 needing the protection of the Royal Navy, with most curious 
 and instructive antiquities within easy reach, some of which 
 extend back beyond the Christian era, and with the most pic- 
 turesque and sublime scenery in its neighbouring isles, hills, and 
 mountains. 
 
48 Vhiversity of Bombay, 
 
 Before making a few general remarks on our University and 
 its varied studies^ and the prospects of education in 
 Exam?n^^ions°^ India, especially in its higher departments, I shall 
 briefly advert to the report which has now been 
 read, by order of the Syndicate, by our valued Registrar, Mr. 
 Taylor. That report, generally speaking, we must all feel to be ' 
 satisfactory and even gratifying. The only qualification which 
 some may be disposed to make of this remark may have refer- 
 ence to the results of one or two of the examinations held this 
 season, which have not altogether come up to our expectations. 
 It has certainly been a disappointment, for example, to the public 
 as well as to ourselves that, of 803 candidates who presented 
 themselves for Matriculation, only 1 42 have successfully passed 
 the examination, while of 600 candidates last year, 250 passed; 
 and that of 100 undergraduates who presented themselves at the 
 First Examination in Arts, only 34 have passed this year, while 
 of 77 candidates last year, 40 passed. I am not prepared to say 
 or insinuate in this place, that any fault exists in any quarter in 
 connection with these results. Possibly the great body of the 
 candidates who appeared for trial were on no reasonable expect- 
 ancy fit for entrance into the University. Possibly some incidental 
 errors of system may have been made by some of the examiners 
 (competent and conscientious though they assuredly are) either 
 in constructing their questions or assigning their marks. The 
 time allotted for answering each paper is only three hours, and 
 demands should not be made iu excess of this time. Candidates 
 are entitled to the benefit of each of their answers in so far as 
 they are correct, while deductions, of course, are to be made for 
 errors and defects. Possibly the instructions given to the 
 examiners by the Syndicate should be extended, or a conference 
 of certain classes of examiners held, as of those both in the first 
 and second languages, before the questions to be given are print- 
 ed, and before the results of examination are declared. Trans- 
 lations made from English into the Oriental languages, and from 
 the Oriental languages into Euglish, are certainly a test of the 
 knowledge of English, as well as are the questions put and 
 answered only in English. Our most satisfactory examination in 
 Arts this year was that for the degree of B.A., at which 20 of 46 
 candidates passed. The other examinations do not require any 
 special remark. The public, I think, may have confidence, from 
 the very strictness practised, in the proficiency of our graduates, 
 to whatever faculty they belong. I distinctly see, both from the 
 feeling which I observe among students and the improving ap- 
 pearances of the colleges, a great increase of graduates in Medi- 
 cine, Law, and Civil Engineering, who doubtless will promptly 
 
1870. — Rev. John Wilson. 49 
 
 obtain employment and remuneration for the services which they 
 may render to Government or the community. 
 
 All our prizes and scholarships, we have reason to believe, 
 
 have been salutary stimulants of study and exertion 
 s ?"f ^^ ],• ^^^ during the past year, a circumstance which must 
 
 be pleasing to their liberal founders. The essay 
 which gained the Manockjee Limjee Gold Medal for 1868 is a 
 very creditable production. Though it is not an object with 
 our University to give instruction in the more mechanical of 
 the fine arts, for which we have in Bombay a separate school, 
 founded and endowed by the Jamsetjee family, we have given 
 encouragement to the study of architecture, in connection with 
 engineering, hy prescribing the subject of this essay. We have 
 done this, remembering the architectural achievements of India 
 in past ages, and that still 
 
 " ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 
 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros." 
 
 The physical geography of India, viewed in connection with 
 its history, the subject of the essay for 1869, belongs to our 
 course of instruction. Our Sanskrit scholarships, endowed by 
 Mr. Bhagawandas Purushottamdas, and by Mr. Vinayakrao 
 Jagannath Shankarshet, and our Latin scholarship endowed by 
 Cowasji Jehangier Ready money, c.s.i., have proved to be very, 
 useful. So, doubtless, will be the prize in books established 
 through the liberality of one of our European Fellows, the 
 Honourable Mr. Ellis, who will be long remembered in the Bom- 
 bay Presidency as a wise, faithful, and efficient administrator, and 
 as the first successful advocate of an educational cess for this 
 country. 
 
 The Sassoou endowment for a Hebrew scholarship was 
 noticed at last Convocation. The regulations formed for that 
 scholarship will, we hope, encourage the study of a most ancient 
 language, on the highest grounds of undying importance. 
 
 Most gratifying to all our feelings is the commemoration 
 through this University of the late Mr. James J. Berkley, one of 
 our first Fellows. Looking to the Sahyadri Mountains (literally, 
 the '^ Eange of Difiiculty '' ) in oar neighbourhood, with the 
 courageous eye of true practical science, he determined to do 
 his best to carry over them a pathway for our steam-car- 
 riages, acting perseveringly on the determined resolution, 
 
 *' Inveniam viam aut faciam." 
 
 His efforts, through the aid of Providence, were crowned with 
 the success which we all appreciate; and we now surmount, 
 what at one time were the almost unpassable barrier-walls of 
 7 
 
60 Vnwersity of Bombay. 
 
 the Dakhan, in about an hour and a quarter, luxuriously seated 
 in fleet conveyances, with nothing to do by ourselves but to look 
 out from the windows of our convenient apartments, and admire 
 in our ascent the sublimities of height added to height, and 
 depth added to depth, and clothed with all the diversified vege- 
 table drapery of the tropics. It is pleasing to remember the 
 delight which Mr. Berkley took in the work of himself and his 
 able associates as it advanced; and how eloquently and forcibly 
 he descanted upon it in this hall before the Mechanics' Institu- 
 tion, of which he was the president and ornament, and before the 
 public of Bombay, 
 
 With respect for the judicious liberality of the Chiefs of 
 Junagadh and Nav^nagar, and with tender interest in the loss 
 of the young but promising and brave officers Hebbert and 
 LaTouche, who fell at the Tobar Hill, we must contemplate the 
 endowment which their Highnesses have offered and we have 
 accepted. 
 
 I hope that the regulations, now due, for the Grold Medal in 
 Law, commemorative of the late Honourable Mr. Justice Forbes, 
 one of the most accomplished members of our Civil Service, and 
 the ingenious, inquisitive, and successful historian of Gujarat, 
 who has done for that interesting and important province what 
 Colonel Todd has done for Rajputana, will soon be submitted to 
 the Senate. 
 
 Since I came into this room there has been put into my hands 
 a gold medal denominated the Chancellor's Medal, and presented 
 to us by Sir Seymour Fitzgerald. It is a very beautiful and 
 massive medal, and reflects much credit on the Bombay Mint, 
 where it was executed. I am sare it will be highly appreciated 
 by the youth of this University, and I hope that when we meet 
 here next year, the Chancellor himself will have it in his power 
 to put into the hands of some successful student this token of his 
 high regard for this University. 
 
 To advert now to more general matters connected with our 
 
 University : I would say that the list of our 
 
 Fellows and Fellows represents every class of the community, 
 
 tions.^^ ^*" European and Native, able to do it service, includ- 
 ing, besides those appointed jure dignitatis, 
 
 gentlemen of University culture and training; of intimate 
 
 acquaintance with the Oriental languages, manners, and customs ; 
 
 of legal, scientific, medical and engineering skill and experience ; 
 
 of special influence in large sections of the native community; 
 
 of generous liberality to the University as an institution ; of 
 
 qualification as examiners of our entrants and candidates for 
 
1870.— i2ev. John Wilson. 51 
 
 degrees ; and of marked success in our own graduation, or of 
 local academical distinction before this University was formed. 
 Now, when we have obtained such an extended constituency as 
 til at which we possess, the annual appointments to the Senate 
 need not perhaps be so large as they have been for some years 
 past. It is a great mistake to appoint to our Fellowship gentle- 
 men, whether Natives or Europeans, for the mere enhancement 
 of their social position in the community. 
 
 Our bye-laws regulating our curriculum of study have been 
 very carefully framed, and should not be interfered 
 of StudS "^ with without much deliberate consideration, and 
 without being subjected to the test of experience. 
 I think that for our Matriculation Examination the prescription 
 of a course of reading in general history in one or other of 
 our most approved authors (as Fraser-Tytler, Dr. Schmitz, 
 Dr. Taylor, and Dr. White) would be better, because more 
 comprehensive and generalized, than the prescription by the 
 Syndicate of the four select histories of Greece, Rome, England, 
 and India, now in use. To this general history I think we 
 should add, under the heading of " G-eneral Knowledge," some 
 elementary knowledge of the classification of animals, and of 
 the geological formations revealed in the crust of the earth. 
 Dr. Oldham, the able and enterprising head of the Geological 
 Survey of India, has justly complained to the Government of 
 India of the want of even the most rudimental knowledge of 
 natural history on the part of many who might otherwise find 
 employment connected with that survey, profitable both to 
 themselves and the State. Independently of the improvement 
 of their observational powers, our young men, by such a study 
 of the works of God as I now venture to recommend, would 
 confer great advantages on their native land. We may be 
 assured that the mineral resources of India will not be fully 
 discovered and brought to light till the sons of India themselves 
 receive at least such an amount of elementary instruction as that 
 at which I have just hinted. I may venture to say, from 
 personal knowledge, that His Excellency the Viceroy feels much 
 interest in this matter, as he does in everything likely to call 
 forth the natural resources of this great and marvellous country. 
 
 After our next examinations no cognizance, according to 
 Vernacular °^^ present byc-laws, will be taken of the vernacu; 
 versus Classical lar languages of India in connection with our 
 languages. higher examinations. In common with some of 
 
 our best linguists and educationists, European and Native, I 
 personally regret this circumstance, though I cordially rejoice in 
 
6^ University of Bomhay. 
 
 the signal success wliicli lias attended our introduction and 
 extended use of the classical languages both of the West and of 
 the East. Of these classical languages the best for style,, and 
 the simple^ chaste, and appropriate expression of thought, are 
 the Latin and Grreek; the best for philological science and 
 research is the Sanskrit; the best (as an ancient tongue) for 
 elevation and sublimity, the Hebrew, with its cognates; and the 
 best for richness, power and delicacy, and universality of appli- 
 cation, the English, drawn from many sources. We deliberately 
 include the English among the classical languages. Jacolj 
 Grimm has justly pronounced it one of the most noble ever used 
 for human utterance. It contains wonderful and undying 
 creations and compositions, such as those of our Shakespeare and 
 Milton, which will be read and studied to the ends of the earth. 
 I much regret that we have not yet included the 
 lamraaffe'^^^^^^ Persian in the list of our prescribed classical lan- 
 guages. The proposal to put it in this position 
 was lost in the Senate only by a single vote ; and it may be yet 
 renewed with the prospect of success, as some who voted against 
 it are prepared to withdraw from it their opposition. Let all 
 dubitants in this case listen to what Max Miiller says of th^ 
 Persian : — '*^ As to Persian ; this was long the language of the 
 most civilized and most advanced nation in Asia. In the first 
 centuries of the Islam, Persians were the teachers of Arabs, and 
 among the early Arabic authors many names are found of 
 Persian origin. Persian literature again was the only source 
 whence, in the East, a taste for the more refined branches of 
 poetry could be satisfied, whether through originals or by the 
 medium of translations. In fact, Persian was for a long time 
 the French of Asia, and it is still used there as the language of 
 diplomatic correspondence. Hence many terms connected with 
 literary subjects, or referring to other occupations of a society 
 more advanced in civilization are of Persian, i,e., of Arian, origin." 
 To this it has to be added, that the principal Muhammadan 
 histories of India are in Persian ; and that many Persian words 
 are found in the Urdu, Kurdish, Turkish, and other Caucasian 
 languages. It affords abundant scope for study, from the 
 grand epic of Firdausi of the commencement of the eleventh 
 century down to the latest authors of Ispahan and Teheran. 
 It is through it that we have to arrive at the definite meaning 
 of many Zend and Pehlvi words still but imperfectly understood. 
 
 Of our professional studies, legal, medical, and engineering. 
 Professional modifications founded on experience will doubt- 
 Studies, less require from time to time to be made. A 
 
1870.— i^ev. John Wilson. 63 
 
 new degree in Law, that of Licentiate in Law, has been 
 asked by some of our undergraduates. It will, I presume, be 
 the duty of the Faculty of Law to advise us, in the first instance 
 at least, as to the disposal of this application. I hope that the 
 Faculty of Civil Engineering will receive important accessions 
 by the introduction into it of the eminent professional gentle- 
 men just nominated members of our Senate by His Excelkncy 
 the Governor in Council. 
 
 I would now, in conclusion, say a word on the progress of 
 the higher education in Western India, during the 
 Progress of forty-one years that I have been connected with 
 tionhTBomay!* ^^^^ country, I may say that I witnessed its com- 
 mencement, for when I arrived in this place there 
 were only about eighty native boys learning the rudiments of 
 English in the Native Education Society^s school patronized by 
 Government, and about the same number in private seminaries 
 in the town and island. I remember hearing the gallant, gener- 
 ous, brave and learned soldier, and accomplished and successful 
 political officer. Sir John Malcolm, encouraging the native gen- 
 tlemen to persevere in the work thus feebly begun, that there 
 might be a constituency for the Elphinstone Professors, selected 
 from home, when they might arrive. I remember welcoming to 
 Bombay the first Elphinstone professor. Dr. John Harkness, who 
 was among my own fellow-students and friends at the University 
 of Edinburgh, as were Mr. Eisdale, the first academical instruc- 
 tor in English and the Western sciences in Puna, and Dr. More- 
 head, the first Principal of our Grant Medical College. At his 
 first lecture, which was an excellent one. Dr. Harkness had 
 present, with others, only some half dozen of students, a couple 
 of whom were lent to him for the occasion from the Mission 
 Institution which I myself had before this been instrumental in 
 founding. The original supply of students for the higher or 
 Collegiate Department of the Elphinstone, or Government Insti- 
 tution, was principally the production of two most accomplished 
 and devoted teachers from Scotland, Messrs. Bell and Hender- 
 son, afterwards constituted professors, and of whose success in 
 teaching, united with that of Dr. Harkness and Mr. Orlebar, a 
 Mathematical professor from Oxford, such men as Dr. Bhau Daji 
 and Messrs, Dadoba Pandurang and Vinayak Vasudeva are the 
 monuments, as Professor Keru Lakshuman Chhatre, one of the 
 most accomplished and advanced Mathematicians in India, is of 
 Mr. Eisdale's work at Puna, For what has followed all this, 
 both in this presidency and the neighbouring States, by the 
 multiplication of most able Collegiate instructors, I refer you^ 
 
j54 University of Bomhay. 
 
 gentlemen of tlie Senate, to the Reports of the late Board of 
 Education, and of the Director of Public Instruction, to the 
 Reports of the various Missionary Institutions and Educational 
 societies, and to our own Calendars. Due preparation was made 
 for the University ; and the University has given a» great im- 
 pulse to the higher education in all our provinces. It has done 
 more than this, It has introduced a great improvement in the 
 quality of that education. The books prescribed embrace the 
 literature and science of the West and Bast, without those 
 eliminations in deference to prejudice and fear of change which 
 were too often formerly made, especially in the Government semi- 
 naries. The consequences are the extension of the 
 EesTilts of knowledge of what is of most importance, a com- 
 tion.^^ ^^^' parison of the different courses of thought and 
 discussion and historical representation, the gene- 
 ration of a more catholic and tolerant spirit, the extension and 
 improvement of the native press and native authorship; the 
 advancement of popular education, embracing that of females, 
 so long neglected, the awakening of salutary inquiry about the 
 duty, the deliverance and the destiny of man, and the commence- 
 ment and progress of important reforms in the Indian commu- 
 nity, having respect both to the present life and that which is to 
 come. With reference to these matters, I was struck with a 
 remark made to mea few years ago by a most acute and observ- 
 ant native gentleman, one of the first Fellows of our University, 
 the late Mr. Jagannath Shankarshet. " We must be prepared^'' 
 lie said, '^ to take the natural consequences of education as well 
 as the gift itself." What is here witnessed is perhaps more 
 conspicuously revealed in another of the sister presidencies, I 
 mean that of Bengal. I do not specially allude to any new religi- 
 ous organizations which, have been there formed, on which I do 
 not wish, to make any observations in this place, either approba- 
 tory or condemnatory. Let us remember that India is an empire 
 with various tribes and tongues of mutual peculiarities and even 
 uncongenialities, and not a single homogeneous and consoli- 
 dated nation. It has several distinct and marked centres of diffu- 
 sive illumination and civilization. Among these Calcutta, the 
 capital of the North-West Provinces, Lahore, Bombay, and 
 Madras are the chief. Let Calcutta and its acute, ingenious, and 
 in intellectual life not inactive Babus (I have no sympathy with, 
 the exaggerated and distorted caricature of them made by the 
 great Macaulay) act vigorously on Bengal, Behar, Tirahut and 
 Orissa and the interesting and but recently appreciated sub- 
 Himalayan provinces lying to its north and north-east. Let 
 Allahabad, aided by Delhi and Oude, act effectively on the great 
 
• 1871.— Mr. Justice Oibhs. 55 
 
 river valleys, which were once the seats of ancient Indian power 
 and empire. Let Lahore, with its sturdy and determined races, 
 deal with the whole country and its environs, of the Pancha- 
 nada, now the Panjab, so often referred to in the most ancient 
 Indian song. Let Bombay, with the irrepressible power of its 
 people, occupy itself with the fair provinces of the Maharashtra, 
 in the fullest sense of the word, whether under European or 
 Native government, the fertile lands of Gujarat, the less produc- 
 tive Sindh, the country of the lower Indus ; and let Madras have 
 the whole of the Dravidian provinces to the south, so separated 
 by language from the Northern provinces, and in which it has 
 already accomplished no small measure of good. Let us every- 
 where provoke one another to zeal and good works. Let us be 
 
 friends of India to its farthest extent, asking the 
 toS'!^^ °^ ^^^" Wessing of God on all our endeavours as an empire, 
 
 as a people, and as supporters of educational, phi- 
 lanthropic, and divine enterprize, to promote its well-being. 
 Let us who are Britons, particularly remember the providential 
 obligations imposed upon us by our wonderful, and, to a great 
 extent, unsought acquisition of power in this great and 
 wondrous land. Let the diffusion and maintenance of light, life 
 and love be our endeavour, and continuous and bliss-giving 
 work. 
 
 Be these thy trophies, Queen of many isles, 
 
 On these high heaven shall shed indulgent smiles. 
 
 First by thy guardian voice to India led. 
 
 Shall truth divine her tearless victories spread j 
 
 Wide and more wide, the heaven-born light shall stream. 
 
 New realms from thee shall catch the blissful theme. 
 
 TENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable Mr. Justice Gibbs.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — It is, I am sure, a subject of 
 sincere regret that the pressure of important business in the 
 Northern part of this Presidency has detained His Excellency 
 the Chancellor, and prevented him from presiding over the 
 present Convocation. It is an absence we the more regret, as 
 the interest he takes in the education of the people over whom 
 he rules has been manifested on so many occasions, while his 
 thoughtful care for this University is shown in the foundation 
 of that which it is hoped will be its highest prize, the 
 Chancellor's Medal — a distinction which was offered for the 
 
56 University of Bombay. 
 
 first time at tlie examinations just over, but which I regret the 
 Examiners did not feel themselves justified in awarding. 
 
 The present is the Tenth Convocation for conferring degrees, 
 and I think I may be allowed, therefore, in a brief 
 the"ms^^^^ °^ manner to review the past, and consider some of 
 its results as guides to us for the future. In 1862 
 the first degrees were conferred; they consisted of four B,A's 
 and four L.M^s. These were the first eight names on the 
 roll of graduates. Since then the numbers have increased 
 yearly. Our first M.A^s were conferred in 1865 ; our first LL.B's 
 in 1866 and L.C.E's in 1869. Our rolls show after the degrees 
 conferred to-day, M.A., 28; B.A., 116; LL.B., 29; L.M., 25 ; 
 L.C.E., 6 ; while 1,227 students in all have matriculated. In 
 reviewing the returns for the past twelve years it appears that 
 4,567 students have presented themselves for the Matriculation 
 Examination, of whom 1,227 only have been successful. This 
 small proportion of passed candidates has often been the subject 
 of comment, and blame has been sought to be attached to the 
 Examiners for want of system or for over-strictness. Last year 
 out of 839 candidates, 142 passed, and in the present year out 
 of 877, 142 only were sucessful. Now the main cause of the 
 failure of the 735 in the last examination was their being 
 unable to qualify in English. I believe those who failed in 
 other subjects, and yet qualified in English, were very few 
 indeed. You will, gentlemen of the Senate, I feel sure, agree 
 with me that Examiners more competent, more conscientious, 
 more anxious to do their duty, both by the students as well 
 as the University, could not have been chosen, than those 
 who examined this year ; — and yet, without tightening the 
 bands of the standard too closely, but after giving every 
 chance to the candidates, the result as to numbers appears even 
 worse than in the previous year, and has, I am aware, again 
 formed the subject of comment. But the almost constant pro- 
 portion of passed to unpassed which each year's returns from 
 1859 show, to my mind, point but to one cause — not the over- 
 strictness of the Examiners or a too high standard, but the 
 simple fact that the students come up before they are properly 
 prepared. They have not profited by the advice of Sir Bartle 
 Frere, when Chancellor, not " to attempt to grasp their 
 academical honours by hurrying through their studies for the 
 examination.'' This subject has led me to inquire into the 
 results of the Matriculation at the other Indian Universities, 
 and I find from the last '^ Statistical abstract relating to British 
 India," laid before Parliament and made up to March 1869, that 
 
1871.— Mr. Justice GMs. 57 
 
 in Calcutta the percentage of passed men, calculated for the first 
 ten years, is one-half or 50 per cent. In Madras it is greater 
 than in Calcutta, being about 60 per cent., while in Bombay for 
 the same period it is only rather over one-third, or say 34 per 
 cent. These statistics have also enabled me to draw your attention 
 to another very interesting circumstance ; that is, a comparison 
 of the numbers who in the first ten years presented themselves 
 for Matriculation, compared with the male population included 
 in the territorial ranges of the Universities. The figures from 
 the same return show the following results : — 
 
 Males. Candidates for Matriculation. 
 Calcutta, including Bengal, j 
 
 Cenl/p.?vt elTn^ «'.0»0.0<"' 13,185 or 1 in 4.660 
 
 British Bormah. ) 
 
 Madras... ... ... 15,000,000 2,993 or 1 in 6,000 
 
 Bombay, including Sind ... 7,000,000 2,679 or 1 in 2,600 
 
 Now, bearing in mind that under the sister Universities the 
 Matriculation Examination is conducted at 33 places by Cal- 
 cutta, and at 18 by Madras, while we conduct it solely in Bom- 
 bay, to which place candidates come from Sind and Gujarath in 
 the North, the Berars on the N. E., and the confines of Madras 
 on the South, we may, I think, congratulate ourselves on the 
 greater desire for a University education which the Natives 
 under our own Presidency evince than those residing in either of 
 the others. 
 
 The following is a comparative statement of the degrees 
 conferred by the three Universities, including the Convocations 
 of 1870 :— 
 
 M.A. 
 
 B.A. 
 
 LL.B. 
 
 B.C.E. 
 
 L.O.E. 
 
 M.D. 
 
 B.M. 
 
 L.M. ^ 
 
 1,082 236 143 
 
 Here Bombay shows as to numbers at a disadvantage, but it 
 must be borne in mind that we have, from the first, fixed and 
 demanded a higher standard for most of our degrees than have 
 Calcutta or Madras — in fact, they have within the last few years 
 been raising their standard and are still considering the subject, 
 so that any comparison drawn from the proportion of graduates 
 to under-graduatGs would only be liable to mislead. The results 
 8 
 
 Calcutta. 
 
 Madras. 
 
 Bombi 
 
 23 
 
 
 23 
 
 580 
 
 164 
 
 78 
 
 294 
 
 62 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 *.. 
 
 35 
 
 ••• 
 
 4> 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 ».. 
 
 15 
 
 2 
 
 ... 
 
 126 
 
 1 
 
 22 
 
58 University of Bombay, 
 
 of these few comparisons I have drawn between the three Uni- 
 versities willj I think, satisfy yon, gentlemen of the Senate, that 
 Bombay has not failed in her duty, that although the number of 
 her graduates is small, yet that having from the first fixed high 
 standards for her examinatious, she has ensured that those who 
 hold her degrees have merited their honours by the soundness 
 and extent of their learning. On the report just read by the 
 Registrar, I have but few observations to make. The most 
 notable fact is that to-day the first European British-born 
 subject has been enrolled among the graduates of the University, 
 the son of one who long laboured in the cause of education in 
 Bombay, who was a Fellow of this University, and a frequent 
 Examiner of its students, and whose sudden removal from the 
 scene of his labours was a matter of deep regret. 
 
 I next notice the submission for competition of two new prizes 
 „ p . besides the Chancellor's Medal, viz., the James 
 
 ew mes. Berkley Gold Medal, unfortunately not awarded, 
 and the Ellis Scholarship for the best proficient in English in 
 the B.A. Examination, which has been won by a Muhammadan 
 gentleman of the Khojah sect — one of two brothers who, having 
 broken through the strong sectarian prejudices of their race, 
 have competed in the ranks of the educated youth of the Presi- 
 dency, and have both succeeded in their object. Some important 
 changes have been made in the regulations. The Senate, 
 approving of the measures proposed by the Syndicate, have done 
 away with special examinations for the various scholarships and 
 prizes and have attached them to the general examination — a 
 course which, without lowering the standard required for their 
 acquisition, is from convenience and economy much to be desired; 
 all graduates in law have also been now permitted to compete 
 for honours, and thus a greater impetus has been given for the 
 study of the higher branches of legal science. These, gentlemen, 
 seem to me to be the only observations the report calls for. 
 Since I have come to this Convocation a letter has been placed 
 in my hands with a request that I should notice it to you at this 
 assembly. I have great pleasure in doing so, though it is an 
 irregularity, as for such a course I have two pi-ecedents. I will, 
 with your permission, state the purport of this letter, which is that a 
 sum of Es. 6,000 in 5 per cent, notes is tendered to the Univer- 
 sity for acceptance, — the interest, Rs. 800 a year, to be devoted 
 to a scholarship of Rs. 25 a month to be called the *' Arnould 
 Scholarship,'^ in niemoiy of Sir Joseph Arnould, who so long 
 and ably presided as one of the Judges of the late Supreme and 
 present High Court, the said scholarship to be held by the 
 
I 
 
 r 
 
 1871.— ilfr. Jmtice Gibhs. 59 
 
 graduate who successfully passes the LL,B. Examination with 
 the higliest number of marks for a paper on Hindu and 
 Muhammadan law. This is another instance of the y early- 
 increase of the endowments of this University. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, let us in conclusion see what answer the 
 WhaktheUni- ©xperience of the past ten years enables us to make 
 versity has to the questions suggested by your late Chancellor 
 achieved. |^ ^ds g^g^ address. Has the University answered 
 
 the great end for which it was founded, viz., '^ the encouragement 
 of jfier Majesty's subjects of all classes and denominations 
 within this Presidency in the pursuit of a regular and liberal 
 course of education '^ ? — have those who have won its laurels 
 proved themselves true children of their Alma Mater ? — has the 
 University established its reputation by providing men fit to be 
 teachers of its students ? — has it proved, as Sir Bartle Frere 
 hoped it would prove, that Oriental intellect is not worn out; 
 that while it possesses great capacity to receive and retain 
 knowledge, it also has the power to analyse and combine, that it 
 can now produce the same results of a high order of intellect as 
 those of which the ancient literature of the country gives such 
 abundant evidence ? — above all, has it produced men who, while 
 rising high in the ranks of scholastic ability and scientific 
 learning, have shown themselves valuable citizens of the world ? 
 I trust the results of our past experience enable us to answer 
 much of this in the afiSrmative. Already have three of the pro- 
 fessorial chairs been filled from its graduates, besides many of 
 those important posts, the headships of the High Schools; 
 papers on abstruse questions have been produced ; the ranks 
 of the Bar and the Medical Services of the State have been re- 
 cruited from its alumni. These are indeed subjects for sincere con- 
 gratulations. But doubts have been breathed as to 
 ther m^gress?^' whether the University will turn out as valuable 
 citizens of the world as did Professors Bell 
 and Henderson, Harkness and Green, in the days of the old 
 Elphinstone institution ; it has been hinted that our best men 
 will prove to be but pedants; that, however full of classical 
 and mathematical learning they may be, they are not so well 
 fitted for mixing with the world, for taking their part in the 
 government of the country, or for forming for their country a 
 healthy and just public opinion, as were those who preceded 
 them in their educational career. I mention these doubts as 
 existing, and therefore as being worthy of a careful investiga- 
 tion by teachers, by graduates, and by students. At home most 
 of our b^t m«J3. in all tho ppoiossioas^ in Parliarm^ut and m tho 
 
60 University of Bombay. 
 
 State, are drawn from our Universities; and wliile we have 
 had our pedants, men from whose vast yet silent labours those 
 training in the great schools at home have derived most im- 
 portant help, yet the leading men in England as a rule have 
 been trained for their future distinguished careers by the Uni- 
 versities. Let it be so with us ; let it not be said that the 
 University here is unable to produce public men as well as its 
 sisters in Great Britain and Ireland. It has succeeded in 
 raising the moral tone of our youth, as all who have been 
 engaged in carrying on the government of this Presidency will 
 heartily acknowledge. Let us add to this ; let us endeavour 
 more prominently to induce in our students habits of active 
 thought and independence of opinion, which, if combined with 
 personal modesty, will lead to success in the world — success not 
 only for the individual, but success for the country at large. 
 
 ELEVENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. E, Sir W. R. Fitzgerald, M.A., D.C.L., G.C.S.I.) 
 
 Mr. Vice- Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — I am 
 little fit, from somewhat severe indisposition, which oppresses 
 me even as I speak, to address you on the present occasion, and 
 I fear therefore that the difficulty which is always felt in this 
 room of making the voice heard will prevent my words from 
 being audible, even to those who are nearest to me, upon an 
 occasion when I should wish what I say to reach the more distant 
 parts of the chamber where the younger members of this assembly 
 are seated. But upon this the last occasion that I shall have an 
 opporfcunity of presiding over your Convocation, I have thought 
 that I should be wanting in respect to you, and in duty to the 
 University, if I devolved this duty upon my friend near me, the 
 Vice-Chancellor, and I gladly avail myself of my privilege to 
 address you in order that I may, before I say farewell, make my 
 acknowledgments to the authorities of the University, who have 
 made, during the whole time I have been here, my office as 
 Chancellor practically a sinecure, so that I have been called upon 
 only to preside over your annual meetings and express my sym- 
 pathy with your labours. Mr. Vice-Chancellor, I desire to tender 
 my warmest thanks for the assistance you have upon every 
 occasion rendered to me, and for the zeal, ability, and judgment 
 with which you have fulfilled the duties of your high office. To 
 the distinguished scholar who held the same post which you. 
 Sir, now fill, at the time when I arrived in this country, and who 
 has since been appointed to preside permanently over one of the 
 
1872.— /Sfir W, E, Fitzgerald, %i 
 
 most distinguished of the academical institutions of his native 
 country, I was much indebted for the constant and sedulous 
 attention he paid to the interests of the University. To your 
 predecessor, whom I also see present, I would tender my hearty 
 acknowledgments^ and I am sure I speak only the sentiments of 
 everybody around me when I say that we are all glad to see 
 Dr. Wilson once more among us, invigorated, and as young as ever, 
 and as desirous to fulfil the same loving labours which have 
 marked his course hitherto in the promotion of the welfare, moral 
 and social, of the population of India. But, Sir, before I make the 
 more general observations which are dictated by the recollection 
 that this is the last occasion on which I shall address you, there 
 are some particular remarks suggested by a perusal of the records 
 of examinations in the past years which I wish to address to the 
 younger members of this University. From the reports which I 
 have perused to-day, it appears that in some respects the position 
 of this University is satisfactory and improving. 
 
 As regards the Matriculation Examination it is satisfactory 
 to find that there are less failures this year than in the one that 
 has immediately preceded it. There are forty-one less candi- 
 dates than there were last year, but ninety-five more candidates 
 have passed, showing that young men who have come up to 
 begin their studies at the University have come up better pre- 
 pared; and it is a source of unmixed gratification to me, as I 
 am sure it must be to every one who has the interests of the 
 University at heart, that this result has been obtained, not by 
 any lowering of our standard or requiring less information or 
 less acquirements on the part of the candidates, but from the 
 fact that the institutions throughout the country in which the 
 preliminary education of our students is obtained, are success- 
 fully fulfilling the objects for which they were founded. I wish. 
 Sir, I could say that every other fact which has been disclosed 
 to me by a perusal of the records of past years was equally a 
 subject of gratification, but there is one poiut upon which I 
 desire to say a few words of warning and counsel to those who 
 come to this University to receive these academical honours. 
 
 I find too much reason to believe that most of the young 
 men who come up to this University are content 
 withlSt^'^uc- wi*^ *^eir first successes, and consider that in 
 cess— a spirit taking their first degree they have done all that 
 fe tha^kful/^*^ is necessary. I find that out of 116 candidates 
 who have passed here and obtained the degree 
 of Bachelor of Arts, only twenty-four, or about one-fifth, 
 have taken the degree of Master of Arts. Of these twenty- 
 
hi University of Bombay- 
 
 four Masters of Arts only six obtained honours in the first 
 class, and of twenty-five who have obtained the degree of Bache- 
 lor of Laws there have only been five who have obtained first 
 class honours. Similarly, of ten Licentiates of Medicine only five 
 have obtained the first class, while of those who have obtained 
 the degree of Licentiate of the College of Civil Engineers, not 
 one has obtained first class honours. Now, what has been the 
 result of this ? Why, that the Forbes Medal, founded in 1868 
 in connection with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, has never 
 in the course of four years been awarded to a single student, 
 and the gold medal, which it was a pleasure to me to offer 
 to the University, and which the University did me the honour 
 of accepting, in connection with the degree of Master of Arts, 
 that again for the second year has not been awarded. Now I 
 argue from this, and I think it may be fairly inferred, that those 
 who come to this University are content to look to the first 
 honour they obtain as the only object for which they come to the 
 University. They look upon the honour as a sort of certificate 
 which will enable them to obtain preferment and emolument, and 
 do not seek to obtain University honours for the sake of learn- 
 ing and intellectual culture. Now I think that this is a source 
 of very serious regret to everybody who has the interests of 
 this University at heart. A very illustrious citizen of the city 
 of London, in days long gone by. Sir Thomas Gresham, erected 
 a fountain near the residence of the chief magistrate, with a 
 stone shelf upon which the weary porters could lay their loads 
 while resting, and upon this stone was inscribed the legend 
 " Eest and be thankful.'' Now it appears to me that the junior 
 members of the University treat the learning they acquire pretty 
 much as the overloaded porter treats his load. They are content 
 to be relieved at the earliest moment from their labours and 
 be at ease, and think the sooner this is obtained the better; and 
 then, like the weary labourer, their motto is " Kest and be 
 Strive after thankful." Now I would impress upon my young 
 knowledge for friends not to look on the honours they may gain 
 its own sake. ^^ ^^^^t I may call a sordid light ; not to regard 
 the honours of the University merely as an introduction or a 
 certificate of character or competency, and desirable only from 
 what may be termed their commercial value ; to do this is to 
 introduce into the Temple of Learning the spirit of the market 
 and the exchange. I would have them consider that the honours 
 which they here obtain are but the first step on the ladder of 
 learning. Their first course here is really their probation, a 
 training that will fit them for greater efforts and for higher 
 culture, which, if steadily and earn^Uy continued, wili develop 
 
1872.— /SfiV W. R. Fitzgerald. 63 
 
 in their minds the taste for all that is refined, the love of what 
 is wise and good, and place them in communion with the 
 lofty spirits who, in every language of the world, have em- 
 balmed their thoughts in the precious literature which has 
 come down to us. I would have tliem not consider the benefits 
 which the University confers as limited to that scroll of parch- 
 ment which I have handed to them to-day, to be valued as a 
 certificate of a certain proficiency in various kinds of knowledge, 
 but as an earnest of future progress and renewed labour, re- 
 membering, above all, the latter words that I addressed to them 
 when conferring their degrees upon them — " that ever hereafter, 
 in their lives and conversatioo, they would prove themselves 
 worthy of the distinction which the University had conferred 
 upon them.^' Now, don't let me be misunderstood. I do not 
 wish them to think that I undervalue these distinctions for their 
 own sake. They have a certain practical value in the eyes of 
 the world as rendering them eligible for employment and profita- 
 ble occupations in life, and the struggle of life is so keen that 
 every advantage which can aid them in their future is rightly to 
 be prized. I would only have them not to prize their learning 
 only for what it can briug ; let them strive after knowledge for 
 its own sake. In this, as in every other pursuit and aim, their 
 cry should be '^ Higher, and higher yet ! " and if they persevere. 
 Benefits of great indeed will be their reward. And now let 
 ■Dniversity edu- me Say a few more general words to the assembly 
 cation. g^g |.Q ^YiQ prospects of academic institutions in 
 
 this country. Each year that I have been in India I have been 
 more and more convinced of the incalculable value of the Uni- 
 versity that we have established. Prominent among the many 
 advantages which have flowed from British rule in India, I look 
 upon Universities as institutions which are day by day conferring 
 the widest and the greatest possible benefits upon the natives of 
 this country. It is not merely that the University diffuses among 
 the population a thirst for knowledge and an intellectual culti- 
 vation that was before unattainable to them, but it is preparing 
 and fitting a class of men well fitted to render public service to 
 their country in every department of the State. I have often 
 thought that Europeans in this country are very much given to 
 try everything by the hard and fast rules of a European 
 standard ; that our system of government, our legislation, our 
 administration, are not sufficiently imbued with the spirit which 
 enlists the sympathies of the natives of this country, and which 
 those who love their country would like to see exhibited ; and I 
 therefore rejoice to see a class of men growing up who neces- 
 sarily possess athorough knowledge of the wants and the wishes of 
 
Vniversity of Bombay, 
 
 tlie people of their country, and who combine that knowledge with 
 the refined education and more sober habits of thought which a 
 European education gives. I believe that it is in this, — in train- 
 ing a class of men who will in future times, perhaps in no distant 
 future, largely administer the affairs of their country in the 
 various departments, — that a pervading and beneficial influence 
 is being established by the University, which even already is 
 beginning to be felt. But there is another benefit which I think 
 will be specially felt in this country from the establishment of 
 University education. It is very difficult to explain to you, 
 gentlemen, here, the influence of University education on Euro- 
 pean society — I speak now of its social, not intellectual influence. 
 The fact that a man has belonged to the same University appears 
 to establish a relation between individuals whixjh is at once recog- 
 nised. Thus, when a man takes a high position in literature, 
 science, art, or politics, there are hundreds who eagerly say "I 
 was with him at Oxford, or at the same College with him at 
 Cambridge." In this country, where you have so many religions 
 and so many social distinctions which separate you so widely one 
 from the other, every incident is of infinite value that may tend 
 to lessen or obliterate them. Everything that tends to bring you 
 together is to be encouraged and cherished; and I do not doubt, 
 as years roll on, and social and historic recollections begin to 
 cluster round our young University, a like feeling of academic 
 brotherhood will arise among you; you will cherish the feeling that 
 you belong to the same Alma Mater, and that feeling will establish 
 among the alumni of this University the same sympathy, cordi- 
 ality, and good-will which is ever found among the sons of the 
 ancient Universities of England. I must now bring my observa- 
 tions to a close, but there remains to me one duty — a painful duty, 
 but yet a grateful one, upon this my last appearance amongst you 
 as your Chancellor, — to bid you farewell. I cannot look forward, 
 as long as my pulses beat, to lead a life of indolence or ease, — 
 such a life would be incompatible with my habits and my tastes. 
 I trust I may, if I am spared, yet devote some years to the active 
 duties of a public life. It may be, although I may not be clothed 
 with official responsibility, in my pow6r to render some service 
 to the country in the affairs of which I have administered for 
 the last five years, and show the interest, the lively interest, I 
 shall ever take in the welfare, both moral and social, of its people. 
 I have already said that I believe one of the great benefits of 
 this University is that it is daily training up men who will here- 
 after be able to devote themselves in the various walks of life to 
 the advancement of their country. There may be some who listen 
 to me to-day who may be able hereafter to realise this aspiration, 
 
1873.— /Sir P. E. Wodehouse. 65 
 
 and I would have them remember me as one who, though severed 
 from them by sea and by clime, will be ever ready to assist their 
 efforts to advance the interests of their country, and I would 
 assure them that they may ever rely upon my most cordial co- 
 operation. And now, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Gentlemen of the 
 Senate, and Members of the University, it remains for me only to 
 conclude with the wish — Floreat Academia ; and with these part- 
 ing words I wish you all farewell. 
 
 TWELFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. E. Sir P. E. Wodehouse, K.C.B.) 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and G-entlemen of the Senate, — It 
 affords me much pleasure, on this the first occasion of my having 
 the honour to take part in the proceedings of this University, to 
 think that in the report we have just heard read, there is much 
 that must be satisfactory as regards the past, and as regards 
 the future very encouraging to those by whom I am surrounded 
 to persevere in the efforts they ha 7e long been making to spread 
 the benefits of education among the people of this Presidency. 
 
 And first I will notice, though indeed it stands last 
 donation"^^°^^ ^^ ^^® report, the very generous donation which 
 
 in the course of last year the University received 
 from His Highness the Rao of Kutch. I do not forget that the 
 thanks of the University were duly tendered with their accept- 
 ance of the gift, but standing here as I do on the occasion, and 
 being as it were for the time the mouthpiece of the Government, 
 and in this case, of those whom I have the honour to address, 
 it would ill become me to pass over in silence this generous 
 donation. It is not alone for the money that the gift is so valu- 
 able. It is still more acceptable as the indication of the interest 
 taken by the Rao in the efforts which HerMajesty^s Government 
 is making to extend education, as the pledge that he is anxious 
 to assist his own subjects in obtaining education, and finally as 
 a proof that he will be ready to give protection and encourage- 
 ment to those who after the satisfactory completion of their 
 studies may return to his territories. Our best thanks are there- 
 fore due to His Highness, and we may trust that his example 
 may well find willing followers. Turning to the statement given 
 in this report of the result of the Matriculation Examination, it 
 is very gratifying to observe the greatly increased proportion 
 which the successful candidates bear to the whole- number 
 examined, when contrasted with the results of former years. It 
 9 
 
66 University of Bombay. 
 
 may be assumed as good evidence of the increased assiduity 
 of the teachers, and of their desire to save their pupils from 
 the expense and mortification of an unsuccessful competition, 
 by imparting to them a sound and good elementary education. 
 It is satisfactory also to notice the gradual but decided increase 
 in the number of schools whence students are sent for Matricu- 
 lation, an increase tending to show that the means of obtaining 
 good education are not confined to the few great towns, but 
 are being gradually extended to the remote parts of the Presi- 
 dency. Indeed candidates have been admitted from beyond 
 those limits, from Akola in Berar and from Indore, and we 
 may hope that in future years our institutions may extend their 
 usefulness to an increasing number of the educated classes of 
 Central India and of Nagpur and Berar. The report also 
 mentions another fact, from which I hope we shall be justified in 
 drawing a favourable augury. It shows that a very fair number 
 of the successful candidates was educated by means of private 
 tuition. It may be hoped that this is in some degree to be 
 accepted as a sign that the wealthier classes, those who can afford 
 to provide their children with private tuition, are becoming more 
 alive to the value of education, and are disposed to meet the cost 
 
 of it. It has been represented to me that hitherto 
 weakhy^ *° *^® the main bulk ot those who seek education in our 
 
 schools and Colleges are young men of very limited 
 circumstances and that the wealthy and independent sections of 
 society have regarded the improvement of their minds with indif- 
 ference. This is much to be regretted and cannot fail to be most 
 discouraging to those whose best efforts are exerted for promoting 
 the spread of learning. They must feel that the success of their 
 endeavours is very limited, as long as the affluent and independent 
 classes choose to remain wholly indifferent to the attractions^of 
 literature. It must make them fear that literature and education 
 are not sought for their own selves. But for myself I would go 
 further, and warn such classes that their indifference is not only 
 illiberal but suicidal. One hears much of the immutability of 
 things in India, and no doubt the impediments to serious changes 
 are very great ; but I cannot bring myself to believe that they are 
 insuperable, — I cannot think that rail-roads, telegraphs and this 
 very education which we are striving to promote, will altogether 
 fail to effect changes. The wealthy and independent may out of 
 apathy neglect the opportunities offered to them, but other 
 resolute and energetic spirits will eagerly snatch at them, nay, will 
 • make them the means of their own advancement. It is but a few 
 weeks since the Governor-General stated his conviction that the 
 British Government fully desired to maintain the position and 
 
1873.— iStV P. S. Wodehouse. 67 
 
 independence of the native princes. I think there may with 
 equal truth be enunciated a similar desire on our part to see the 
 wealthy and influential members of native society preserving 
 their ascendancy and independence. But it mast be done by them- 
 selves, the Government cannot do it for them. If they persist 
 in permitting their inferiors to pass them on the career of 
 learning, they will have but themselves to blame^ and when 
 too late they will have cause to regret their apathy and indiffer- 
 ence. With the advantages with which their historical posi- 
 tion and social connexions surround them, it becomes them to 
 take the lead in self-advancement and education and fit them- 
 selves for dealing with difficulties which the advance of education 
 amongst the masses will bring with it. There is one feature in 
 the report which strikes me as being very singular, and that is 
 the apparent unpopularity of the study of law. I had always 
 thought that in this country a recourse to law was the most popu- 
 lar of remedies, but certainly the study of it seems to occupy the 
 attention of very few students, for only one Degree has been con- 
 ferred in that Faculty . It is to be regretted very much that such 
 should be the case. I have heard it stated that a year or two ago 
 the examination for law was made somewhat hard, but even if it 
 should be the case, I cannot accept it as a reason for the abandon- 
 ment of the study. The case of the medical profession is very 
 different ; the students are much more numerous and they have 
 obtained a singular degree of success. Out of the comparatively 
 limited number of those who came up for examination, a very large 
 proportion have obtained their degrees. With regard to Civil 
 Engineering I think the Government is at present placed in a 
 somewhat singular position. It seems to be thought the business 
 of Government to provide employment for those who acquire the 
 theory in our schools. There are certain circumstances connected 
 with the Civil Engineering College at Poona which, without any 
 disrespect to such institutions, give it something of the nature 
 of a school of industry ; and the industry there inculcated is one 
 which in the present state of demand can only find an outlet for 
 its application in the Government Department of Public Works — 
 works carried on more or less under the control of Govern- 
 ment. I believe there is a feeling among the heads of the College 
 and those interested in it, that there is not sufficient encourage- 
 ment given by those who represent the Government in the 
 Department of Public Works to those who distinguish themselves 
 at the Civil Engineering College. But, on the other hand, I for 
 one, cannot wonder that there should be some objections on the 
 part of our Public Works officers to entrust to theoretic students 
 who have no practical experience important works throughout 
 
d$ Vniversity of Bombay . 
 
 tlie country. They will not naturally risk their own reputation 
 upon the efforts of those who^ however cleverly taught at the 
 College, cannot possibly have any real practical acquaintance 
 with the works to be constructed. I hope it may be found practi- 
 cable to follow up this theoretical training by a practical instruc- 
 tion in the lower grades of the Department, after which there 
 might be an examination as to what they can really do. I hope 
 the Government will see its way to adopting something of this 
 kind ; for without it there will be a great deal of dissatisfaction 
 Employment ^^^ discouragement given. On this occasion, if 
 of Indians and you will permit me, I will in a few words explain 
 Englishmen. ^^ views, my personal views, as to the position 
 that I consider the Government to hold in respect to educa- 
 tion in this country, and more particularly as to the position 
 in which the Government stand towards those who take ad- 
 vantage of that education. It is a matter of great importance 
 and one which it is very desirable we should clearly under- 
 stand before matters proceed further. It appears to me that 
 some of those who take advantage of the education afforded them 
 by Government entertain the belief that they rather confer a 
 favour upon us by availing themselves of the instruction offered 
 to them, and that we are bound at once without farther question 
 to take care of them and provide them with maintenance when 
 they have finished their education. It must be clear that, if edu- 
 cation spreads, as we all hope it will, and if the number of schools 
 increases every year, it is impossible for us to offer employment 
 to all who look forward to it. But there is another point. At 
 present, and for some years past, it has pleased Providence to 
 entrust the affairs of India to the British nation. The area of 
 our territory in this country, and the extent of our responsibility 
 have been gradually increasing, whether we desired it or not. 
 We are bound to keep in view that we are the Government of 
 the British nation, and that we are placed here to regulate, con- 
 trol, preserve harmony, and, as far as we possibly can, promote 
 the happiness of all the many races and classes who inhabit this 
 country. In time we, like all that has preceded us, must pass 
 away. But so long as we remain, and so long as the Government 
 continues in our hands, it must ever be a British Government, 
 conducted on British principles. Our acts must be such as are 
 considered sound, and wise, and honest in England. It follows 
 therefore that while we ought to avail ourselves freely of the 
 services of able and distinguished natives of India, we cannot 
 cease to introduce and promote to high office a certain proportion 
 of our countrymen from England adequate to sustain the national 
 spirit of our Government. 
 
1878.— /SftV P. E, Wodehouae. e^ 
 
 In the matter of salaries also it is very essential that at the 
 outset we should guard against misapprehension 
 Why English- and disappointment. To me it appears to be most 
 highei^Slari'c'^ improbable, that if the admission to the higher 
 posts of native gentlemen should become general, 
 the present scale of salaries could be maintained ; nor would 
 it be reasonable. We are here no doubt about it — we are here 
 now, and to my mind we ever shall be. as foreigners. The 
 climate and other circumstances make it impossible for us, 
 English, at any time to become what is commonly called natural- 
 ized in this country. We cannot have therefore in India most 
 of those enjoyments and advantages which exists in our own 
 country, and which the Natives of this country in Government 
 employ can rely upon. We cannot have our children educated 
 here, we cannot maintain the same style of living as we are 
 accustomed to at the cost which we can in your own country. 
 In the ordinary domestic life of an English public servant, 
 separation from children is commonly the first incidence of im- 
 portance. Sickness probably follows. Sickness which at home 
 serves to draw closer all family ties, becomes here in most cases 
 the signal for separation ; in not a few the separation is final. 
 The ordinary termination to the ofl&cial career in India is to 
 return to England with moderate means to commence life anew. 
 For all these drawbacks the only remedy has hitherto been 
 money — a poor one no doubt, but a better probably will not be 
 found, — and so it has happened that the salaries of the princi- 
 pal public servants have been fixed at the present rates. In 
 what way then do these considerations apply to the natives of 
 India serving in their own country ? I cannot see that they 
 have any application whatever. Their case should be compared 
 to that of our own countrymen similarly employed at home. We 
 shall do no injustice if we apply the same principles to both. It 
 may be that the position of the permanent servants of the Crown 
 at home is imperfectly known here. The mass of public servants 
 on entering the service of the Crown in England receive a 
 salary commencing with £100 per annum or less than Rs. 100 
 per mensem. They work on for forty years, rising to the 
 highest stations in their respective departments. They are 
 entrusted with business affecting the whole world — most con- 
 fidential and intricate — and at the end of the forty years they 
 arrive at a salary of £1,000. That is a fair description of the 
 position of public servants of the best ability and education in 
 England. Therefore, it is naturally quite unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that the British Government here would be justified in im- 
 posing upon the people of the country for the payment of their 
 
90 Vniversikj of Bombay, 
 
 own fellow-countrymen higher salai^ies than we charge our own 
 people at home for the maintenance of those who serve them. I 
 hope, Mr. Yice- Chancellor, that those who can hear me among 
 the Native gentlemen present will fully see that it is their 
 duty and their interest to take advantage of the education 
 offered at this University. And so far as Government is able to 
 make use of their services, it will not fail to do so. But no 
 exaggerated notion of the salaries to which they may be entitled 
 should be drawn from comparison of the payments made to 
 Englishmen who are serving the Crown in a foreign country. 
 I trust that those educated here may not be content with the 
 instruction afforded to themselves, but will endeavour to spread 
 it amongst all the people of this land. By so doing they will 
 hasten the advent of the return of self-rule, if that is to be desired. 
 I would add one word more. I have shown that no exaggerated 
 notions of the salary to which Native students are entitled in the 
 Government service ought to be entertained ; but there is a further 
 mistaken notion which I believe is not uncommon amongst those 
 to whom we have offered the advantages of education to which 
 I wish to advert. Many of you, gentlemen, are inclined to think 
 that the close of your College career closes at once the necessity 
 for further effort on your part for further instruction. This is 
 not so. The education given you here is but the basis on which 
 you should build your own self-improvement. We 
 lifflitenmentthe cannot carry on the status pupillaris for ever. It 
 precursor of na- rests with you to complete the work begun here, 
 menf ^°''®'*''' and if you look forward to the day when the Gov- 
 ernment of this country is to be in your hands, it 
 is not only necessary that the governing classes should be educated 
 and enlightened, but that the governed should be as a nation so 
 improved as to co-operate with you in accepting honestly and 
 intelligently the principles of administration upon which the 
 fabric of society and Government is built. When that day of 
 general enlightenment shall come, and not till then, we shall be 
 ready to wish you adieu and leave these shores with the con- 
 sciousness that our work is done. 
 
 THIRTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His Excellency Sir P. E. Wodehouse, K.C.B.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — I can assure you it affords me 
 
 University sincere pleasure to be able to preside this day on 
 
 bnildings— lib- the occasion of the dedication of this noble Hall to 
 
 CoJ^aljee^ Je- purposes to which I hope it may be dedicated for 
 
 hangier. many generations to come, forming as it does but 
 
1874,— Sir P. E. Wodehouse. 71. 
 
 a portion of the many magnificent buildings, in connection 
 with the education of the people of this country which are 
 now in the course of erection in this vicinity. It has been 
 the fortune of Bombay, whenever it felt in want of institutions 
 adapted to the advancing civilization of the age, to find among 
 its own citizens those who were both ready and proud to devote 
 to the supply of these wants large contributions from the wealth 
 which their energy and ability and experience have enabled 
 them to accumulate. In connection with the present building 
 I may make a few remarks. As soon as it was found that the 
 University of Bombay could be called into existence, and that a 
 suitable building should be provided for it, a gentleman, dis- 
 tinguished by his great generous liberality, Sir Cowasjee Jehan- 
 gier, at once came forward and tendered to the Government of 
 the day the sum of £10,000 on the condition that they should 
 supply what further sums might be needed for completing the 
 buildings, and also that no other private subscriptions should be 
 admitted in aid of the undertaking. Government unreservedly 
 accepted the terms, and the result is before you this day. The 
 first step addressed to the accomplishment of the design was 
 to obtain from Sir Gilbert Scott, the eminent architect, proper 
 designs and plans for the building in 1864 ; but, from various 
 difficulties which arose in respect of the total sum wanted, and 
 other arrangements, it appears that no real progress was made 
 with the undertaking until near the close of the year 1868, the 
 then Governor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, in the presence of the 
 late lamented Viceroy of India, Lord Mayo, laid the foundation- 
 stone of the University Hall of Bombay. From that time to 
 the present, as the work has gone on, the whole charge of its 
 construction and superintendence has been in the hands of 
 officers of our own Presidency. The working drawings were 
 contributed by Mr. Molecy, of the Architectural Engineer's De- 
 partment of PublicWorks ; the detailed superintendence through- 
 out has been in the hands of Mr. Makund Ramchandra, Assist- 
 ant Engineer in the Public Works Department, who as many 
 here can testify, devoted himself with the greatest assiduity to 
 the completion of the building. The general charge of the whole 
 has been of course in the hands of Colonel Fuller, the Architectu- 
 ral Engineer to the Government of Bombay. Of the good work 
 which he has been able to render in that capacity it is hardly 
 necessary for me now to speak. All these gentlemen whom I have 
 mentioned must feel proud and delighted at the conclusion of 
 their labours in connection with this building, and they have, I 
 consider, the strongest possible claim upon your gratitude and 
 your thanks. Before closing my remarks upon this part of the 
 
72 University of Bombay. 
 
 subject, I hope tliat tlie Senate and those connected with the 
 University will feel disposed to join me in proposing- that this 
 building henceforth be called the Cowasjee Jehangier Hall of 
 the University of Bombay. Other buildings will spring up 
 around it, no doubt, but the Hall will stand alone ; and having 
 regard to that gentleman^s well-directed beneficence I think my 
 request is a fair and moderate one. The other buildings on the 
 front of Bombay are now advancing to completion, and when 
 that time comes there will be few cities in the world able to 
 present an equally magnificent spectacle. There is, however, 
 one building not yet begun, although the Government is pledged 
 to the building of it. I think we ought to feel great regret 
 because of the absence of this building — perhaps even feel we 
 have acted rather unworthily by not carrying out our pledges in 
 regard to it. Gentlemen, I allude to the School of Arts. Very 
 many years ago — indeed, before the Queen's Government was 
 established here — a gentleman well known to this community. 
 Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, undertook to endow a School of Arts 
 in Bombay in a fit and proper manner, on the condition that 
 Government should provide a suitable building. The endow- 
 ment has been drawn from many years, yet the Government has 
 done nothing respecting its part of the bargain. I hope, 
 gentlemen, that this reproach will not long attach fairly to us ; 
 but that in the course of a short time the School of Arts will 
 take its place among the other educational buildings of the City 
 of Bombay. When that time arrives I think the City of 
 Bombay may fairly pause in its career of architectural adornment ; 
 its inhabitants may well consider that sufficient has been done 
 for many years to come — more, at all events, than many of the 
 present company will live to see. It has been my fortune to 
 see many of the largest cities in India, but I think that though 
 others may boast of greater antiquity, and have more interest- 
 ing objects to show in them, yet I consider that there is no city 
 in India which can take precedence of Bombay in respect of 
 public buildings of superior architecture. I am aware, gentle- 
 men, that it is customary on these occasions for the Chancellor 
 of the University to review, as it were, the educational operations 
 of the past year. But it seems to me but the other day when 
 I had a similar opportunity of addressing the Convocation of 
 this University, and of expressing my views upon some of the 
 more prominent points connected with education in India. I 
 feel, therefore, that I should be unnecessarily intruding upon 
 your patience if I were again to enter into details of opinions 
 upon these points. You have just heard the report which Mr. 
 Taylor has read, and as you can all draw your own inferences 
 
1874.— iSiV P. E, Wodehouae, 78 
 
 from what has taken place, I may be spared from making any 
 commenlLiiupon it. 
 
 I trust, however, that I may be permitted to depart a little— 
 or perhaps to a great extent — from the ordinary 
 Loeal DistTirl)- traditions of these Convocations, and to address 
 myself to what I believe is at present the promi- 
 nent and absorbing topic of interest in this community. I 
 allude to the disturbed state of the city of Bombay. I am 
 anxious that it should be known that Government is in no 
 way indifferent to the character of the city, is in no way 
 indifferent to the sufferings and losses of life and property 
 which some of the community have sustained. But I confess 
 that I needed some experience of th^ actual course of these 
 events in order to arrive at a clear understanding as to the 
 position of Government, and as to what were the powers imme- 
 diately within its reach in dealing with these disturbances. 
 And I say that it finds there is no simple and efficient and 
 practical punishment which can be instantly applied to those 
 creating riots in this city. I say further that there is no power in 
 the Legislature of this Government to provide,, off-hand, full legal 
 powers to do what is necessary on the spot for keeping down such 
 disturbances. I believe prompt punishments to be the essence 
 of dealing with disturbances of this nature. I find also that 
 there is apparently a general disinclination to take an active part 
 in the operations of the established police of the city ; that 
 there is a disposition to leave them to cope as they best can 
 with all the disturbances — disturbances breaking out first in one 
 quarter and then in another ! Yet, wherever they may be, the 
 police are expected to do all the work ! Such being the case, 
 and when they have been harassed from morning till night, so 
 that they have no rest whatever, yet they find themselves sub- 
 jected to bitter and ungenerous criticisms for what they cannot 
 possibly help. And, moreover, they feel their labours prolonged 
 and increased by exaggerated statements of what has occurred, 
 and which only tend to keep up the sensation in the town. I 
 believe that the events of the past few days have proved that 
 such is the case. Then turn to the aid which Government can 
 give the police under such circumstances — I mean the legal aid. 
 What does it appear to be ? It appears to be that Government 
 must have recourse to what in England, and, so far as I have 
 seen, to what in other countries governed on English principles, 
 is always approached with the greater caution — with the fullest 
 possible consideration for what may be the result, that is, the 
 interposition of the military aid to support the police ! No step 
 10 
 
74 University of Bombay. 
 
 more serious can be taken, and no such step ought to be taken 
 without a thorough conviction of the consequences that may 
 ensue. At the same time, gentlemen, feeling that such is the case — 
 feeling that this is the assistance to which alone the police must 
 look, and being fully aware that the festival termed the Mohur- 
 rum is close at hand, the Government is sensible that it cannot 
 possibly expect the police to sustain for many days together 
 their prolonged exertions, and to alone preserve the public 
 peace. We feel we must support them, and therefore, after full 
 consideration, it has determined that upon this occasion — I say 
 " on this occasion " distinctly, — the processions usual in the 
 Mohurrum festival are not to take place. I hope and trust that 
 we shall have, as we have a right to expect, the assistance of all 
 honest and good men, of all classes, to put an end to these dis- 
 turbances. But we do not trust to the efforts of independent 
 people outside. We yesterday decided that troops must be sent 
 for in such numbers that further attempts at violence will be put 
 an end to. The consequence is as the result of yesterday's 
 orders, that one regiment is now in Bombay, half a European 
 regiment will be here this evening, and cavalry will be here to- 
 morrow. The movement of the military has been effected with 
 the greatest promptitude by the authorities. I feel there may be 
 some here who will say that this is not the proper place for such 
 observations as I have addressed to you, but if such be your 
 opinion I must beg your forgiveness. My object has been to 
 satisfy the people of this country, here in the presence of the 
 leading members of every class of society, that the Government 
 was fully alive to its duty of protecting life and property, while 
 fully commiserating with those who have suffered, and was pre- 
 pared to do its duty to the utmost during these disturbances. 
 
 I shall not trespass on your patience further upon this occa- 
 sion, but, reverting to the business of the day, invite you to join 
 in the hope and prayer that, under Providence, this building, 
 with the aid of the enlightened Professors who are likely to be 
 engaged on it, may for many generations to come be regarded as 
 an honour to the city, and that it will long tend to assist in the 
 moral and social improvement of the people of India. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honoeable James Gibbs, C.S., F.K.G.S.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — Owing to His Excellency the 
 Chancellor's absence in Kattywar, it falls to me to address you 
 
1875. — Honor ahle James Gibbs, 75 
 
 at the present Convocation. The report just read offers several 
 topics on which I may be expected to comment. You will be 
 happy to find that the Chancellor's Medal, which was instituted 
 by the late Chancellor, Sir S. Fitzgerald, has for the first time 
 been awarded to a gentleman who has successfully passed the 
 M.A. Examination in the first class. It has been 
 kax's de arture "^^^^ *^^^* ^^^^ Munguldass Nathoobhoy Travelling 
 to England. ^^^ Fellowship had been conferred on Nanaji Narayan 
 Yaslekar. This gentleman left for England with 
 the intention of entering the University of Edinburgh, and 
 proceeding to the degree of Doctor of Science in Engineering ; 
 I am happy to state that news has just been received that 
 Mr. Vaslekar has successfully passed his first examination, and, 
 moreover, was the only successful candidate out of eight who 
 presented themselves. I think this is a fair subject for congratu- 
 lation. The report also notes the loss the University has sustained 
 by the death of the late Eegistrar, Mr. Taylor, and of one of the 
 original Fellows, Dr. Bhau Daji, and informs you of the resolu- 
 tions passed thereon by the Senate. I am in hopes that before the 
 next Convocation memorials of both these gentlemen will form 
 part of the endowments of the University. But besides these 
 facts, there is one prominent feature in the report which calls 
 for special observation, viz., the very small number of candidates 
 who have passed the Matriculation Examination — only 262 out 
 of 1,084. I have noticed that the press have commented on this, 
 and in some of the communications they have published, attacks 
 have been made, unfairly, in my opinion, on the Examiners. 
 The Sjmdicate, with whom rest the arrangements for the exami- 
 nation, have made it a point to abstain from frequent changes 
 in the Examiners in order that the standard of examination may 
 differ as little as possible from year to year ; and they feel sure 
 that more painstaking and conscientious Examiners than those 
 who examined this year could not be chosen. But 
 lar^e^fafl ^'^^ " ■"■ ^^^^ ^^ asked, how do you account for this result ? 
 Matriculation. I have given the matter much thought, not only 
 now but for some time past, and I have arrived 
 at an opinion, which a comparison of the results of the 
 examinations for the past ten years seems to confirm, that 
 the increasing number of failures is in a great measure to 
 be accounted for by the fact that Government make the Matri- 
 culation Examination a test for admission into the Government 
 service. Hence numerous youths, on arriving at 16 years of age, 
 who have no intention of entering on a Collegiate education, go 
 up, many very imperfectly prepared, on the chance of passing ; 
 and if they fail they return again and again, until they scrape 
 
76 University of Bomhaij. 
 
 through or retire from the contest. I find from the returns of 
 the past ten years that, for the first six, eighty per cent, of the 
 passed candidates entered Colleges, while during the following 
 three years, subsequent to its being made a test of Government 
 service, the percentage of those entering Colleges to the total 
 passed has fallen a little below sixty. I think some remedy 
 should be applied, and the simplest that occurs to me would 
 be to have a separate examination what in England would be 
 called a middle class examination — as a test for the public 
 service, and I would have this of a less severe nature, and of a 
 more practical character, than the Matriculation Examination. 
 I say I would make this public examination less severe ; and I 
 have come to this opinion because I feel sure that the mass of 
 the rising generation are being educated at too high a pressure. 
 They are, in fact, having too many subjects crammed into them, 
 injuring if not wearing out their powers of mental digestion. It 
 cannot be good for a growing lad, after a day^s hard schooling, 
 to be obliged to work at home until nine or ten o'clock at night, 
 and sometimes later, to be ready for the next day, as I am 
 assured is ordinarily the case. At all events such an amount of 
 labour cannot be needed for the greater portion of our youth. 
 I have been in the habit of noticing the candidates 
 Poor phy. for the Matriculation Examination during the past 
 students. ^ f®"^ years, and I was much struck on the last 
 occasion to see crowding out of the pandal in the 
 Town Hall compound such numbers of thin, pallid and sickly- 
 looking youths. I have also been told by some of the older 
 class of educated natives that they can now easily tire out their 
 sons and other young relations in ordinary walking exercise. I 
 do not go so far as one of the greatest benefactors to educational 
 establishments in this Presidency, who said to me some time 
 ago : — " In this generation you are destroying the bodies to 
 strengthen the minds ; in the next generation both mind and 
 body will fail if you press them so hard.''' But I do think that 
 it is a matter deserving the greatest consideration at the hands 
 of those at the head of the Educational Department, whether we 
 are not, by the excess of our educational training, injuring the 
 bodily physique of the rising generation. They say at home 
 that ^ all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' I believe the 
 same holds good out here as regards Bappoo and Krishna and 
 Ahmed and Nowrojee. I have been told that the native mind, 
 particularly the Hindoo, is so peculiarly constituted that, once set 
 in motion in any one direction, it will work on and on as in a 
 groove and not feel the need of a change, and that in consequence, 
 unless bodily exercise is actually made a part of the educational 
 
1875. — honorable James Oiils, 77 
 
 conrse^ it will not be spontaneously engaged in. If this be true, 
 
 and I am inclined to think it is, it behoves those 
 
 Importance -^j^q direct the course of education to provide 
 
 exefcSe!^^ ^° some sort of gymnastic exercises to be undertaken 
 
 as part of the system. His Excellency the 
 Governor has just been visiting the Rajkumar College in Katty- 
 war, and his account of the way in which the bodies as well as 
 the minds of the young Chiefs are there trained is most cheering. 
 Manly exercises form a part of the curriculum, and if such be 
 necessary for Chiefs and Princes whose future lot will be one of 
 comparative ease and affluence, how much more necessary is it 
 for those who will have to buffet about the world for their living ? 
 I take this opportunity of venting these ideas because I feel 
 sure, after more than a quarter of a century^s experience, that 
 on some change of this nature in the educational course depends 
 the future health, and therefore the prosperity, of the natives 
 
 of this country. There is another topic, one which 
 
 Lifelong de- jjas been before alluded to by those who have 
 
 ing. " occupied this chair, that we do not find those 
 
 who succeed in their educational career, and 
 become our graduates, following up their education after 
 they leave College. As I told the students at the Grant Col- 
 lege a few days ago, they do not consider the important fact 
 that their, real education only then commences, that unless they 
 are content simply to exist and do not desire to grow, they 
 must ever continue 'apt to learn ' ! I am told that in some of 
 the examinations in the higher grades the Examiners find men 
 coming up time after time, and failing on each successive occa- 
 sion more signally than before. Those who enter on the liberal 
 professions and have to earn their bread by their skill, are obliged 
 in some degree to keep pace with the times ; but those who enter 
 the service of the State are too apt to rest content with their lot 
 and find, in their daily office routine sufficient for them. Let me 
 warn all against leading such lazy lives. Take example from 
 the late Dr. Bhau Daji ; look what he has done for his country ; 
 how he studied its early history and its ancient languages, and 
 gave the results of his enquiries to the scientific world ; how 
 he made deep research into the hidden mysteries of Sanskrit 
 lore and culled therefrom additional benefits for his fellow 
 countrymen ! He studied and searched the past for the benefit 
 of the present and future. Let all take example from this distin- 
 guished man's career, not the Medical graduate only, but the 
 lawyer and the civil engineer. Looking at the records of old, 
 both writings and buildings, we may indeed say, " there were 
 giants in those days''. Let it be the pride and satisfaction of 
 
78 tfniversity of Bomhay. 
 
 this University to find its graduates not, as was ably pointed out 
 by one of the leading Anglo- Vernacular papers a few months 
 ago, permitting their exclusively English education to lead them 
 to deny the existence of science and art among their ancestors ; 
 not falling behind the alumni of the older educational institutions 
 of the Presidency, but following diligently those pioneers of the 
 study of the past. Let it be said that they perfected what others 
 began, and that the University of Bombay has sent out not mero 
 pedants, much less conceited half-educated striplings, but men 
 who in the State, on the bench, or at the bar, as architects or as 
 physicians, prove themselves, as Dr. Bhau Daji did, worthy of 
 their education, beloved and respected in their lives, and in their 
 deaths honoured and deplored. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable James Gibbs, C.S., F.R.G.S.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — Owing to the absence of His 
 Excellency the Chancellor from Bombay, I have again the honour 
 of presiding at the Annual Convocation of this University. 
 The year 1875 will undoubtedly be famous in the annals of 
 Indian History from its having witnessed for the first time the 
 arrival on our shores of the Heir-Apparent of the British 
 Crown, while our island had the honour of being the first soil on 
 which he trod, and our city the first place in which he sojourned. 
 The welcome he met with, not only from the Native Princes and 
 Chiefs who came to do him homage, but from the vast crowds 
 of loyal subjects which thronged the streets, is still, as it were, 
 present to us, while the many fetes and ceremonies in which he 
 took part, seem as yet hardly to have become things of the past. 
 One of these will certainly long remain fresh in the memories of 
 those connected with this University — the visit of His Royal 
 Highness to this Hall to receive the address voted by the 
 Senate ; and the kind words of hope and encouragement for 
 our future, which fell from his lips in reply to our welcome, will 
 not be readily forgotten, while the more tangible memorial of 
 his visit in the shape of valuable books and the portrait of our 
 Queen, which he presented to the University, will long remain 
 objects of our choicest care. He has honoured our elder sister 
 at Calcutta by accepting the degree -of Doctor of Laws, and 
 thus permitting his name to stand first on that roll which it is 
 to be hoped may include many distinguished statesmen, scholars, 
 and promoters of education, recipients of a like honour, the 
 
187G. — Eonorahle James Gibhs. 70 
 
 power to confer which will, I trust, before long be extended to 
 the Universities of Madras and Bombay. 
 
 Turning from this subject of congratulation and satisfaction 
 to one of a diametrically opposite nature, it becomes my duty to 
 allude to the great loss which this University has sustained by 
 the death of the Rev. Dr. Wilson, who from its foundation had 
 been a great, if not the leading, spirit of the Institution. Dis- 
 tinguished not only as a linguist and an antiquarian and 
 honoured by the diploma of the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 
 but possessinor a cosmopolitan reputation as a man of letters, 
 this venerable missionary brought all his powers, tempered by a 
 most truly catholic spirit, to the service of this University ; 
 and in every branch of its government, including the office 
 which I have now the honour to hold, gave it not only his 
 best and warmest support, but also the incalculable benefit of 
 his great experience as a teacher and a guide of the native 
 youth of this Presidency. He has gone, in the fullness of the age 
 allotted to man, to his reward and his rest. The regret we 
 entertain for his loss is sincere, though perhaps selfish ; but all 
 will, I think, concur in the applicability to him of the often- 
 quoted sentiment of the Prince of Denmark : — 
 
 " He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 We shall not look upon his like again." 
 
 The Senate at its last meeting decided that Dr. Wilson's 
 memory should be perpetuated in the University ; and the Syndi- 
 cate, to. whom the matter was referred, has determined that a 
 bust be placed in these buildings at the expense of the Fellows. 
 By his death a change of some moment takes 
 tureship^ at^ place in the system of the University; hitherto it 
 tached to the has been a purely examining body, it will now 
 mversity. commence its career as a teaching one. It will be 
 
 remembered that a large sum of money was raised in honour of 
 Dr. Wilson in 1869, the interest of which was payable to him 
 for his life, and after his death the principal was to form an 
 endowment for a Philological Lectureship in this University ; and 
 the Syndicate is now taking the necessary steps for the first 
 series of lectures under this endowment which yields about 
 Rs. 1,000 per annum, and I would express a hope that this may 
 not long remain the only lectureship attached to this University. 
 
 The memorial in honour of our late Registrar is now 
 complete, and the sum of Rs. 2,500 has been tendered to found a 
 James Taylor Prize for proficiency in those branches of know- 
 ledge in which he took a special interest. It rests with the 
 
80 "Univer&ity of Bomhay. 
 
 Senate to accept the terms. There has, I believe, been some 
 difficulty in arranging the memorial in honour of the late 
 Dr. Bhau Daji, of which I spoke last year_, but it is hoped that 
 at the next Convocation mention may be made of the means 
 adopted to perpetuate the memory of one who from its foundation 
 was a warm supporter and able administrator of this institution. 
 
 I will now turn to the statistical portion of the report, and 
 the first fact which strikes us is the great increase over the 
 previous year in the percentage of passed candidates at the 
 Matriculation Examination, and the great falling off in the 
 number of successful candidates in the examination for the B.A. 
 Degree. Of the former in 1874, out of 1,084 only 262, or 
 24 per cent, passed, while in 1875, out of 1,240, 434, or 35 per 
 cent, were successful; and of the latter in 1874 out of 64, 30, or 
 46 per cent, were successful, while in 1875, out of 84 only 18, or 
 21 per cent, passed. 
 
 The result of the University examinations has often been a 
 topic for discussion in the public prints, and last year there was 
 a great deal of correspondence regarding the very unfavourable 
 result of the Matriculation Examination. Not only was the 
 system of the examination attacked, but even the Examiners 
 themselves did not escape. This year, owing apparently to the 
 percentage being much higher than last, no comments have ap- 
 peared ; but I mention this subject, because I wish to draw atten- 
 tion to the following result of an examination of the returns of the 
 past five years and a comparison between the Matriculation and 
 B.A. Examinations, mz., that whenever the percentage of suc- 
 cessful candidates at the former is high, we find that at the cor- 
 responding B.A. Examination, three years after, the percentage 
 of successful candidates is low, and that the converse also holds 
 good. I will take the following extract to prove what I mean :-— 
 In 1868, 41 per cent., and in 1872, 43 per cent, passed the Matri- 
 culation, and in 1871 only 28 per cent., and in 1875 only 21 
 per cent, passed the B.A. ; while in 1869 only 17 per cent., and 
 in 1870 only 16 per cent, were successful at Matriculation ; and 
 at the B.A. Examination of 1872, 45 per cent., and in 1873, 42 
 per cent, passed. It would seem from this that when a large 
 proportion are successful in the Matriculation Examination it is 
 more owing to the leniency of the Examiners than the fitness of 
 the students, and I venture to think that such leniency is a mis- 
 take if we are to maintain the high standards for honours which 
 has ever been the aim of this University. We have this year 
 to congratulate the Principals and Professors of the Medical and 
 Civil Engineering CoUeges on the success which has attended 
 
1876. — Honorable James Qibhs, 81 
 
 their labours. From the former we have the first M.D. of 
 the University, and also the satisfactory results of thirty success- 
 ful candidates out of 43 in the first L.M. and 16 out of 19 in 
 tlie final L.M., and of these six in the first class; while from 
 the latter institution we have 21 out of 24 passing in the first 
 C.E. and 9 out of 12 in the L.C.E., of whom 3 were in the 
 First Class. As regards the other examinations, it is to be noted 
 that 4 out of 6 of the M.A's were successful, but none acquired 
 a First Class. In law, however, 60 per cent, passed, a percent- 
 age not previously attained for the degree of LL.B., although 
 none attained to the First Class, It is still a doubtful question 
 whether a large return of successful students is really a proof 
 that the mass of the pupils are better prepared than in those 
 years when only few pass, or whether they will do as much 
 credit to the University as those who come out in smaller num- 
 bers from the final ordeal. I am not one of those who think our 
 examination system perfect, or that alterations in this, as also in 
 the subjects required for the various degrees, may not be desira- 
 ble. If Oxford and Cambridge, after the great advances they 
 have made during the last half century, still find they must 
 further increase their borders and reform their systems, to meet 
 the requirements of the times, we must not think our infant 
 University can remain as it is. So fully alive is the Syndicate to 
 this fact, that it has appointed a Committee of its most experi- 
 enced members to consider and report on these subjects, and I 
 doubt not 'but the results of their deliberations will be highly 
 beneficial, not only to the University, but to the cause of edu- 
 cation generally in the Presidency. 
 
 And now, having reviewed the past year's proceedings, I 
 
 will, in conclusion, say a few words to the graduates 
 
 Attain per- and under- graduates of the University. GentlemeiK 
 
 lection in some t i • • tj.ii. 
 
 one subject. 1 have pn previous occasions warned you that your 
 real education only commences when your Colle- 
 giate course ends. It is after that has closed that it depends 
 on yourselves whether you will make any true use of the educa- 
 tional benefits you have received or not. There must be much 
 which you have to acquire for the purpose of your examina- 
 tions, which remains, as it were, undigested, and which to 
 become of any real use must be absorbed in your intellectual 
 system. Doubtless with many this latter process cannot take 
 place owing to the mind being overcrowded, and so assimilation 
 is impossible. My advice to you is, do not attempt too many 
 things ; settle on one definite object for your future study, and 
 strive to perfect yourselves in it as far as possible. I fear, from 
 11 
 
•^ University of Bombay • 
 
 what I see, that the old saying, '* a little learning is a dangerous 
 thing " is not sufficiently borne in mind. Too many young men 
 seem to think that when once they can put B.A, or even F.A. 
 after their names, they are equal to discuss almost any subject, 
 and to criticize and censure any authority, be it the Government 
 of the country or the local head of the village. A smattering of 
 many subjects can only be useful when there is one grea.t fixed 
 object of life, round which such scintillations of knowledge may 
 sparkle, and to which they may perhaps add lustre ; but a mere 
 smattering of many subjects without such support can only mislead 
 and deceive the possessor, and render him weak if not despicable 
 in the eyes of all true men. Study you must if you wish to become 
 men. Let me commend, to your careful perusal the speech 
 of the new Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, so full 
 of sound advice to all students, and in which there is one caution 
 which seems to me so peculiarly appropriate to the mass of the 
 educated youth in this country, that 1 feel I cannot do better 
 than conclude these observations with it. Lord Derby's words 
 are : — " There is nothing more common among those who have 
 read a little and thought a little than the union of strong con- 
 victions with very narrow intelligence ; and next to the absence 
 of conviction altogether, there is no mental condition that is 
 socially less desirable or politically more dangerous/' 
 
 SIXTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honoeablb James Gibbs, C.S., F.R.G.S.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — I have been quite unexpectedly 
 called on to preside over the present Convocation. His Excellency 
 the Chancellor had expressed his intention of so doing, but the 
 press of work which the sad scarcity in the Deccan and Southern 
 Mahratta country has thrown upon him, added to the hasty visit 
 of the Governor of Madras, with whom he has had to confer, 
 has rendered it at the last moment impossible for His Excellency 
 to take the chair on the present occasion. I will read a letter to 
 my address which I received on Saturday evening from the 
 Chancellor, announcing his inability to attend, and at the same 
 time conimunicatinf? to the Senate his goud wishes for the pros- 
 pei'ity of the Univer^iity : — 
 
 **VMiKhLf \olh Janunry \877, 
 
 '^Mj dear Mr. Vice-Chancel lor, — I am sure you will fed that 
 I would not lightly, fur many lea-sons, make the roquet I am 
 about to do. But i must assure you that from the time of my 
 leaving Bombay for Delhi up to the present moment, I really 
 
1877. — Honorable James Gibbs. S3 
 
 Lave been, and am still too much occupied to give sufficient atten- 
 tion to the approaching Convocation of the University at which 
 you had kindly suggested that I should preside. I should be 
 very sorry to think, after quitting Bombay, that I had discharged 
 this duty in an imperfect and unsatisfactory manner, such as 
 would have afforded the members of the University just ground 
 of complaint, and subjected me to well-merited censure. 1 do 
 not hesitate, therefore, to ask you to do me the favour of pre- 
 siding, as Vice-Chan cellor, at this Convocation, and to offer 
 my excuses to the members of the University. They at least 
 must be gainers by the exchange. You have always taken so 
 lively an interest in all its operations, and are so thoroughly con- 
 versant with all their details that a review of them coming from 
 you must be in all respects more interesting and instructive than 
 any statement of the views of one who will soon cease to possess 
 the means of affording useful support to an institution of which 
 he trusts the importance and influence for good may steadily 
 increase to the full satisfaction of those who, like yourself, 
 are at all times ready to use their best efforts for its welfare. 
 
 '^ Yours ever trulj, ^^ 
 
 "P. E.WODEHOUSB/* *' 
 
 I personally may perhaps be permitted to testify to the 
 great amount of labour which His Excellency has 
 jQ7g^®^*°^®°^ taken upon himself since September last, when it 
 appeared clear to this Government that we had 
 to face a most severe calamity. Sir Philip Wodehouse set 
 himself from the first to direct all the movements, and to arrange 
 all the details. How well he has done this may be understood 
 from the very warm commendation he received from the lips of 
 the Viceroy at Delhi, while the fullest approbation, I am happy 
 to state, of his judgment and ability in this important ci-isis has 
 been received from the Home Government, judgment and ability 
 which have hitherto prevented the disastrous results which 
 might otherwise have ensued; for be it remembered that to 
 scarcity of food from failure of the usual monsoon, was added 
 scarcity of water, and scarcity of fodder, each tending greatly to 
 increase the distress pervading nine of the largest districts of 
 the Presidency. All these difficulties have met with the utmost 
 attention, and we trust that the results will prove that the 
 Governor's forethought and energy will, under Providence, 
 reduce the distress of the people and their concomitant loss of 
 health and property to the smallest amount. To have to arrange 
 for such an important crisis, added to the fact that all this 
 additional labour is thrown on him at the close of his Governor* 
 
M Ttniversiiy of Bombay, 
 
 ship, will, I feel sure, be accepted as a just ground of excuse by 
 the Senate for the absence of the Chancellor to-day. 
 
 The report which has just been read by the Kegistrar 
 refers very shortly to several very important matters which 
 have engaged the attention of the Syndicate during the past 
 year. When presiding in this place last January I mentioned 
 that the Syndicate was not only aware that changes must be 
 made, but. had appointed a Committee for the purpose of con- 
 sidering all the questions which had been started in connection 
 with the management of the examinations. This Committee was 
 presided over by Mr. Justice West, than whom it would have 
 been difficult to find a gentleman who, from his experience in 
 educational matters and from the great interest he has always 
 taken in the affairs of the University, was more capable of leading 
 the discussions to a practical result. The Committee considered 
 all the suggestions which had been made to the Syndicate, in- 
 cluding those put forward by Mr. Jacob, and finally laid down 
 26 separate questions for discussion, of which 18 resulted in modi- 
 fications being made in the present system, while as regards the 
 remaining 8 it was decided to make no change. The deliberations 
 of this Committee lasted from January to April, during which 
 they held 10 meetings ; and their report, after having had those 
 points on which the advice of the Faculties was required, sub- 
 mitted to them, was finally discussed by the Syndicate who, 
 after obtaining the consent of the Senate on the matters which 
 by the statutes required your decision, adopted nearly all the 
 proposals made. Before alluding to these in greater detail, I 
 mnst draw your attention to the great labour and thoughtful care 
 exhibited by the Committee, and for which our best thanks are 
 eminently due ; it forms another instance of the '^ unboughb 
 exertions of those who direct the action of the University"; to 
 which Sir Bartle Frere alluded in his Convocation address in 
 1^867, and of which he said, " Government attach a double value 
 to whatever it does, because the progress it achieves affords an 
 excellent practical refutation of the doctrine that no good or 
 useful service to the State can be expected unless directly paid 
 for in money or money's worth/' The principal changes consist 
 in having the Pass qualification for Matriculation, viz., the Eng- 
 lish paper, sent to the educational centres, so that the students 
 who do not wish to come to Bombay unless they pass this test, 
 may be saved the expense and trouble of a long journey. It is 
 an experiment of which time alone can prove the worth ; but I 
 venture to think that if successful it must end in a further 
 extension of the principle which will eventually include the 
 
XSll ,-—Bonorahle James Gihhs, 85 
 
 entire examination in English being carried out at centres. The 
 abolition of tbo viva voce in the second language is also another 
 modification, the effect of which will have to be carefully 
 watched. The change is decidedly an economical one as regards 
 the cost of the examinations, and it is the opinion of the majority 
 of those consulted that it will do no harm, as the results of the 
 two papers will be a sufficient test. No one can, I think, 
 question the wisdom of the modification in the M.A, Examination, 
 which is strictly in accordance with the well-known maxim 
 " Poeta nascitur non fit." The double qualification in medicine 
 and surgery which the University has always required for its 
 degree is now more clearly defined in the change approved of 
 from L.M. to L.M. and S. The alterations to be made in the 
 future lists of successful candidates at the various examinations 
 will tend to distinguish more clearly the personal merits of each 
 student. The above are the principal modifications which have 
 been determined on a consideration of the report of Mr. Justice 
 West's Committee. They are experimental, tentative as all our 
 rules must be for some years to come ; but they will, I trust, 
 be beneficial to the students and tend to uphold the status that 
 this University wishes should be attained by all the recipients 
 of its honours. I have not had time to dissect the returns of 
 this year's examinations and compare them with those of pre- 
 vious years ; but with regard to the results of the Matriculation 
 and the surmised cause for the falling off which has appeared 
 in some of the newspapers, I would state that three out of the 
 four Examiners in English are the same as those who examined 
 last year, when an exceptionally large number passed ; and that, 
 so far as the Syndicate is concerned, it strives as much as pos- 
 sible to keep the same persons as Examiners from year to year. 
 Changes are always occurring from one cause or another which 
 necessitates the appointment of fresh Examiners ; but on refer- 
 ring to the past years, I find that from 1872-73 to 1874-75, that 
 is, for three years, the same gentlemen examined in English at 
 the Matriculation, with one single exception, viz., Mr. Best suc- 
 ceeding Mr. Wordsworth, who had gone on leave. Changes in 
 appointments necessitated a new arrangement in 1875-76 which 
 has held good in the present year, with the exception of 
 Mr. Peterson taking Mr. Oxenham's place, owing to that gentle- 
 man having joined the Deccan College. I think that those, th ere- 
 fore, who wish to find reasons for such an unfortunate result as 
 has occurred this year, must look beyond the mere change of 
 Examiners. The subject of endowments again receives pro- 
 minent notice in the report. This University has from its com- 
 mencement overstepped its sisters under this heading. At 
 
so University of Bombay, 
 
 Calcutta I believe the number is 5, of whicb the largest was 
 the gift of a Bombay merchant — the donor of our noble 
 library and clock-tower; Madras 8; while we now possess 
 28, three of which have been added during the year under review. 
 Two of these — the Merwanjee Framjee Panday and the Kahandas 
 Muncharam Scholarships — are attached to the Civil Engineering 
 College, which opens a road for the study of a science which 
 will be of the greatest importance in developing the industry 
 of the country. As an instance of this, I would mention that 
 the late Munguldass Nathoobhoy Travelling Fellow took the 
 advantage of his residence in England to perfect his studies in 
 Civil Engineering, especially in that branch which applies to the 
 mechanism of spinning mills, and has since his return been 
 appointed to the independent charge of a large mill at Surat. 
 We have now been in possession of this splendid hall for some 
 years. I trust before another Convocation to find that the 
 library is in our hands and our collection of books, including 
 the principal portion of Dr. Wilson's library and that of the 
 Law Classes, deposited on its shelves, while the flow of time will 
 be marked by the harmonious music of the joy-bells in the 
 Rajabai Tower. I may here mention that the subscription for the 
 Bust of the late Dr. Wilson has been nearly filled up, and we hope 
 shortly to send the commission for it home. Our late Chancellor, 
 Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, concluded his last address with the words 
 " Floreat Academia." Sir Philip Wodehouse to-day, though 
 absent, echoes the same wish. Ere we meet again, a new Governor 
 will have come to this Presidency, and a new Chancellor will 
 preside over the University, — one who has been my friend for 
 many years, with whom I studied at College, and whose brilliant 
 career every member of his service has watched with admira- 
 tion ; and I feel sure from his training under the great Arnold, 
 and from the high classical attainments which enabled him to 
 carry away from the Haileybury of old the numerous medals 
 and prizes which he did, that he will, while he rules over this 
 Presidency, ever extend a fostering hand to this our University. 
 May we not then look forward to the future without doubt that 
 the wish of our late and departing Chancellors may not only prove 
 true, but that each successive year will give us greater cause for 
 exclaiming " Floreat Academia" 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. E. Sir Richard Temple, Bart, G.CS.I., C.I.E.) 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Members of the Senate of the 
 University of Bombay, — You will, I am sure, prefer that the 
 
1878.-— Sir Richard Temple. 87 
 
 observations, which occur to me as suitable on this occasion, 
 should be addressed to those who are objects of our solicitude, 
 namely, the graduates and uuder-graduates of the University, 
 and through them to the Native public throughout this Presi- 
 dency, who are interested in the progress of education. Though 
 speaking now as Chancellor, I cannot divest myself of my 
 capacity of Governor, and my colleagues in the Government 
 Lave been consulted as to the principles to which your considera- 
 tion is now to be invited. 
 
 You, then, graduates and under-gradnates, and all our 
 System of Native fellow-subjects of Western India whom my 
 state ©duca- words may reach, I would ask you to consider our 
 ^^^^' system of State education as a whole. You may 
 
 have sometimes heard in some quarters an advocacy of efforts by 
 Government on behalf of primary or elementary education for the 
 masses of the people, in apparent opposition to high education 
 for a limited number ; and, again, of high or superior education 
 for the few, irrespective of lower education, in the hope that 
 they, once enlightened, will scatter the light among the nation, 
 just as the rays of the rising sun must first touch the tops of 
 the mountains, and rest there for a while before they can pene- 
 trate to the dark valleys below. 
 
 The Government of Bombay, however, does not fix its 
 regards exclusively on either one side or the other. We desire 
 to foster all kinds of education alike ; whether high, or elemen- 
 tary, or intermediate, encouraging each kind according to its 
 needs. Though we long for the day when the people wall 
 undertake the task of national instruction by private resources 
 and private organization, subject only to a general control by the 
 State, still, we see that at present in Western India this task has 
 to be performed mainly by the State, and we consider ourselves 
 answerable for holding the balance between the claims of the 
 several branches of education. We cannot say that any one of 
 them is more important than the others ; all are conducive to 
 the good of the people. Nor can any one be treated separately 
 from the others. They are co-operative one with the other, and 
 are almost inter-dependent. If the nation under our charge be 
 regarded in its corporate existence, we shall find that primary 
 education supplies material for secondary education ; that 
 advancement of secondary or intermediate education reflects 
 back energy upon primary education ; that secondary education 
 leads up to high education, which, again, elevates the tone of 
 everything below it, and supplies the fittest instruments for all 
 other sorts of instruction. 
 
-SB • University of Bombay. 
 
 National education in its totality may be likened to the 
 beautiful structure in wliicli we are now assembled. Primary 
 education is as tke plintli witli the foundation broad and deep ; 
 secondary education is as the superstructure with its walls and 
 pillars ; high education is as the roof with the domes and towers. 
 No part of the structure can be injured or neglected without 
 affecting the safety, or the usefulness, or the beauty of the whole. 
 And as the architects have bestowed care on all parts alike, so 
 is the Government bound to attend equally and simultaneously 
 to the three departments of education — high, elementary, or inter- 
 mediate, preferring none to the others, but meeting even-handed 
 measure to all. 
 
 Our first duty is to determine the curriculum, the standard 
 or standards, for each of these branches, in conformity with 
 the wants of the several sections of Native society affected by 
 each. In order that this maybe well done, discriminative know- 
 ledge of the people, and sympathetic appreciation of their condi- 
 tion and prospects, are absolutely necessary. 
 
 Fortunately we can, by the method known as payment by 
 results, induce both masters and scholars to follow whatever 
 standards may be prescribed. If the master be a salaried ser- 
 vant of the State, he receives more or less remuneration accord- 
 ing as more or fewer scholars pass examinations according to the 
 standard. If private schools apply for grants-in-aid from the 
 State, the aid is allowed, more or less, according as the scholars 
 pass the examination. 
 
 Another method of ensuring, on the part of the scholars, 
 adherence to the standards, is the granting of scholarships. 
 For each class of schools, scholarships can be offered for open 
 competition among the scholars at examinations to be held annu- 
 ally according to the standard. The scholarship is, of course, 
 a stipend j the holder virtually obtains a free education ; he 
 is the honourable possessor, not from patronage or favouritism, 
 but from victory over his fellows in the contest of mind with 
 mind. Consequently, all the active-minded boys work for 
 proficiency according to that standard, in the hope of winning 
 the scholarship, and the master has every inducement to teach 
 them accordingly. Thus the ,grant of scholarships is not a mere 
 act of charity or of grace, but is an engine for compelling by 
 the force of emulation the observance of standards. 
 
 So the method of scholarships by competition stimulates the 
 spontaneous efforts of the good scholars ; the method of payment 
 by results ensures attention on the part of the masters to the 
 scholars of moderate or indifferent ability, so that the best 
 
1878."-8ir Richard Temple. 89 
 
 average possible may be preserved. And thus the State pro- 
 motes the welfare of the weak scholars as well as that of the 
 strong. 
 
 The moral power thus wielded by the State rivets on us a 
 responsibility for seeing that the several standards are the most 
 appropriate that can be devised. 
 
 You, doubtless, bear in mind that primary education is 
 conducted in the vernacular languages only ; secondary or middle 
 education pai'tly in the vernacular and partly in English ; supe- 
 rior education mainly in English, partly also in the classical lan- 
 guages of the East. 
 
 Now, primary education in its humblest form cannot be too 
 low or too simple. Indeed, its first characteristic 
 Prmiary Edu- gJiQuld be adaptability to the poorest persons and 
 to the rudest minds. Its object is to ultimately 
 embrace all the boys and girls of the lower classes throughout 
 the country — the farm labourers, the small artisans, the 
 village servants. It cannot, alas, attain so great an object 
 within this generation of living men. Meanwhile, it strives 
 to gather into its fold as many hundreds of thousands as it 
 can. it already reckons 210,000 pupils ; but even that number 
 forms a small part only of the children of a school-going age 
 in this Presidency, and leaves a sadly vast residue of children 
 growing up in ignorance. Its system should, therefore, in the 
 first instance, be as cheap, its standard as easy as possible, con- 
 sisting of a little reading and writing and some elementary 
 arithmetic. When it takes root and grows, then a somewhat 
 better standard may be cautiously introduced, just enough to 
 enable the children to move happily in the lowly sphere to 
 which their destiny confines them, and no more. These poor 
 children have but a short time during their tender age, say 
 from their fifth to their thirteenth year, within which must be 
 learnt what they are ever to learn from books, before the in- 
 evitable day when they must go forth to the field, to the grazing 
 ground, to the road, to the workshop, to help their parents in 
 the daily toil. With but too many of them, also, the time that 
 can be devoted to learning, is even less than this. Still, if this 
 much of time be obtained, within it there can be tanght some- 
 thing more than elementary reading, writing, and arithmetic ; 
 something of morality, so that these children, often belonging to 
 the lowest castes in the social scale, may be instructed to speak 
 truth, to love virtue, to despise falseness ; something of the vege- 
 table kingdom which rewards plenteously those who labour con- 
 scientiously ; something of those wonders which Nature reveals to 
 12 
 
90 Vniversity of Bombay. 
 
 the perception of all those who are trained to perceive ; some- 
 thing of the universe, of the orbs which rule the day and night, 
 and of the stars which have from the most primeval periods 
 attracted the gaze of man in his most savage state. If any of 
 these peasant boys be gifted with genius, he will, I hope, be able 
 Avhile in a primary school to win a scholarship tenable in a middle 
 school, and there again win a scholarship tenable in a superior 
 institution, ascending the educational ladder step by step. Thus 
 ability and industry wheresoever found, even in the lowest social 
 state, will have their chances. 
 
 But if this teaching is to be given within so short a space 
 of time to young children of lowly capacity, there must be good 
 schoolmasters, men much better than any that can ordinarily 
 be found in the villages of India ; men specially trained in 
 pedagogy, that is, the art of imparting Vnowledge to the young, 
 rhe best salary which can be allowed is small : therefore we 
 m.ust obtain the utmost qualification which can be obtained for 
 scanty remuneration. Again, as the children have their being 
 among rough, ignorant people, it is important that in school 
 they should come in contact with masters possessing some traits 
 of culture and refinement. For all these reasons it is necessary 
 for the State to undertake the training and supervision of the 
 village schoolmaster, and to see that they all possess certificates 
 of competent qualification. The village schoolmaster represented 
 an ancient institution, but he was dull and unlettered. Now-a- 
 days his office is fiUed by men of a new stamp ; and the produc- 
 tion of such, men is among the first-fruits of our educational 
 efforts. 
 
 It is remarkable that there are in this Presidency more than 
 7,000 girls in the lower class schools, a circumstance exciting 
 hopefulness, and showing that even the peasantry are awaking 
 to a sense of the benefits of female education. 
 
 Next, our consideration must be turned to the middle or 
 secondary education relating to those middle classes which in 
 many countries form one of the mainstays of the social fabric, 
 vhich, indeed, in this country are not so strong in number as we 
 V ould wish, but which are growing and will grow more and more, 
 .■elatively to other classes, as the country advances in prosperity. 
 There are about 16,000 boys in this Presidency receiving this 
 secondary education, out of whom about 5,000 are at private 
 institutions. This total number is comparatively small. In the 
 middle classes are included the peasant proprietor of the better 
 sort, the small landholder, who should learn mensuration and 
 village accounts, tha money-lender, the trader who should be 
 
1878.— iSiV Richard Tempte. 91 
 
 practised in arithmetical calculation; the clerk who should qualify 
 himself for subordinate employment in a private or a public 
 office; the artisan, ihe skilled workman, the manufacturer, who 
 should acquire the technical knowledge necessary for success 
 in his craft. For the secondary or middle class school the 
 standard must be so arranged as to suit, firstly, the general 
 wants which are common to all the above-mentioned sections of 
 society, and secondly, the special wants of each section. 
 
 The instruction will, indeed, be partly given in English, 
 but mainly in the vernacular. The merits or the 
 Creation of a defects in this instruction will show the manner 
 Iw^''^^^*''''' ill which we sustain the acknowledged principle 
 that, while English instruction is offered to the 
 Natives, they should be thoroughly grounded in their own 
 language. We duly perceive that, while many Natives learn 
 English — the more the better — still many Natives, if they are to 
 be educated at all, can obtain their education only through the 
 medium of their own vernacular. Hence, a new vernacular 
 literature has to be created ; and such a creation, if it be fully 
 completed under our auspices, will be among the most enduring 
 monuments of British rule in Western India. Already a good 
 beginning has been made by several highly-qualified Native 
 gentlemen. On various branches of useful knowledge, books 
 will be written in the vernacular languages of this Presidency, 
 and in a plain, practical style, some of which will be abstracts, 
 others translations, in extenso, of English works. Some of 
 these books, too, will be original works by Native authors who, 
 having mastered for themselves the subject in hand, will expound 
 it in their own Oriental mode of thought and expression for the 
 benefit of their countrymen. We should afford the utmost 
 incitement to Natives to attempt this original composition, as 
 affording the best scope for that sort of independent self- 
 sufficing ability which we most desire to evoke among them. Such 
 labours do as much good, to the writers as to those for whose 
 instruction the books are written, and will raise up a class of 
 Native thinkers whose mental achievements will be among the 
 most substantial results of our educational system. 
 
 The several normal schools or training institutions for 
 vernacular schoolmasters form an integral part of this secondary 
 division of our system. They really are our vernacular Colleges. 
 Through them the resources of the ancient languages of India — ' 
 languages unsurpassed in copiousness, in precision, in flexibilit}^ 
 — are adapted to the diffusion of modern knowledge among the 
 Natives. Through them the dead languages of older times are 
 
University of J^omhay, 
 
 used to preserve purity and expressive vigour in the living 
 dialects. Through them the Natives are taught that no man 
 can speak or write his mother-tongue competently well, unless 
 he knows something of the classic tongue of his ancestors. 
 
 To the students of these vernacular Colleges an example has 
 been set by European scholars, such as Bang Buhlef andKielhorn, 
 members of this University. Some Native scholars of this Presi- 
 dency, such as Bhau Daji and BhandarfeaT^ have made additions 
 to our knowledge of the ancient language of India, which are 
 appreciated at such seats of learning as Oxford aad Berlin. 
 
 One of the first objects to be set before Native authors in 
 the vernacular, is the preparation of text booke in the several 
 physical sciences, especially chemistry, botany, physics, and 
 physiology, which are the sciences most practically useful in the 
 circumstances of Western India. Some such writers have already 
 appeared, and many more are appearing. Those of them who may 
 be content with making translations, can take the various science 
 primers now being brought out in England, under the authority of 
 some of the greatest names in science. The fact that such eminent 
 men write such elementary books, is an acknowledgment of the 
 value set upon educating the people in these subjects. 
 
 Time does not permit me to summarize the instances which 
 might be adduced to show how popular ignorance of practical 
 science is retarding the material progress of the country, and is 
 even in some respects causing reteogression. 
 
 The impoverishment of the cultivated soil in most parts of 
 
 India is a result of that indifference to agricultural 
 ChwSst^* chemistry which pervades the middle classes and 
 
 the peasantry. The botanist shows us that the 
 plants of the crops take up certain elements from the soil, which 
 elements are necessary for the growth of the plants, and that if the 
 soil becomes gradually deprived of these elements, its fertility is 
 injured. The chemist shows us that these elements must be 
 artificially replaced in the soil by means of manure or equivalent 
 substances. The land-holders and cultivators have these sub- 
 stances to a large extent ready on or near the land, but neglect to 
 use them. And yet some Asiatic nations, such as the Chinese 
 and the Japanese, understand and act upon these principles. 
 The wasteful destruction of the trees and brushwood in 
 
 India is another example of that sort of carelessness 
 of forert8.°*^°^ which is caused by ignorance. The physicist shows 
 
 us that the moisture drawn from the ocean by solar 
 evaporation is gathered into clouds which pass over the land ; 
 
1878.-Sir Richard Temple. 9fi 
 
 that if the surface of the ground be cool, then the clouds become 
 condensed and their moisture descends as rain ; that such coolness 
 cannot exist, unless the ground be covered with vegetation ; that 
 if the surface be bare, arid and heated, the clouds move onward, 
 and the ground remains rainless. Yet the people destroy the 
 forests, and leave the ground denuded, without thought of the 
 drought and famine which must ensue sooner or later. 
 
 In all these sciences the instruction should be practical, that 
 is, it should be imparted in immediate contact with the objects 
 concerned ; not only in the class room, but in the very presence 
 of the things to which the lectures refer. Botany should 
 be taught in the garden or in the field ; chemistry in the labora- 
 tory ; physiology in the midst of animal life. 
 
 Connected with these topics there is the subject of physical 
 geography. It nearly concerns the history of human pro- 
 gress. The Native youth should be taught how the mountains 
 attract the clouds which drop moisture, produce vegetation, and 
 supply the sources of streams ; how the streams cause that fertility 
 of the lands which enables the human race to rapidly multiply, 
 to constitute society and to found cities ; how the rivers, formed 
 from the union of streams, become the highways of commerce. 
 
 Under the head of secondary instruction come all the 
 technical schools which we have established or may yet establish. 
 Those Natives who reflect on the improvements which are 
 advancing in Western India — such as the introduction of 
 mechanical appliances, the new manufacturing industries, the 
 development of artificial needs, the application of arts and 
 sciences to the practical affairs of the national life — will see how 
 many fresh lines of employment are being opened out. The 
 aim of technical instruction is to help Native youths to qualify 
 themselves for earning a livelihood as medical practitioners, as 
 chemists, as foresters, as scientific gardeners, as land-surveyors, 
 as civil engineers, as trained mechanics, as engravers. 
 
 But, although practical knowledge must occupy a larger 
 part than heretofore in our middle class education, we must 
 continue to bestow care as much as ever, or more than ever, on 
 ethical instruction and moral culture. Happily, Native opinion 
 is alive to the value of such instruction and culture, and will 
 cordially support the efforts of the educational authorities. 
 
 In the middle class schools there are about 5,000 girls 
 under instruction. These girls' schools are managed entirely by 
 private effort. The fact may be hailed as the beginning of 
 female education. The gradual augmentation of the number of 
 
d4) tfniversiiy of Bombay, 
 
 girls at school should be cordially desired by every influential 
 Native who cares for the good of his countrymen. 
 
 The fact that English ladies are becoming under-graduates 
 of this University affords a notable example to the people of 
 Western India. 
 
 I now approach the topic which is the last in the order we 
 have been following, but which is one most nearly concerning 
 you, graduates and under-graduates, namely, high education or 
 superior instruction. 
 
 In the Colleges there are about 900 students and in the 
 high schools about 8,000. Of the 8,000, more than half belong 
 to those private institutions which flourish in our midst, and are 
 doing a most beneficent work. The total number is compara- 
 tively small, and even from it a considerable abatement must be 
 made for those students who do not stay long enough to receive 
 the higher parts of the instruction. 
 
 The day may come, indeed ought to come, and we should 
 all strive to hasten its coming, when the cost of high education 
 will fall upon the State only in a slight degree, and will be 
 defrayed partly by the munificence of the wealthy, and partly by 
 those who seek for such instruction and who are to earn their 
 living by it ; and when every Native gentleman of rank and 
 wealth in Western India will think it essential, that his son 
 should be a member of the University of Bombay. You know, 
 gentlemen, that the upper ranks of Native society are as 
 yet but little represented in the rolls of our University 
 calendars; that although the rich men of Bombay do often 
 present their sons for our University examinations, yet such is 
 not the general practice (as it ought to be) with the Native 
 nobility and gentlemen of Western India ; that for those who 
 matriculate in this University the share borne by the State 
 in the cost of their education is [great, and that for those who 
 take degrees this share of the State is greater still. It can 
 hardly be denied that when the responsibility of educating the 
 people has been accepted by the State, some considerable 
 portion of the educational resources must be devoted to high 
 education. To institute public education without providing for 
 superior instruction, would be to make a spear without a 
 spear-head, or a sword without a sharp edge. Without supe- 
 rior instruction we could not diffuse those thoughts, ideas, and • 
 aspirations, the diffusion of which forms the noblest part of the 
 mission of England in the East. Without it, also, we could not 
 find the agency for competently affording secondary instruction, 
 or even primary instruction. Theronly point open to discussion 
 
1878.— /Sir Richard Temple. 96 
 
 relates to the proportion out of the whole educational fund which 
 is devoted to the superior instruction. In the Bombay Presi- 
 dency this proportion amounts to about one-fifth of the whole. 
 At present our care is to fix for the high schools and the Colleges 
 such a scale of fees as the students can reasonably afford in the 
 existing circumstances of Native society. Their fees are high, 
 relatively, to the means of ordinary students and to the fees of 
 the other schools ; so that our superior instruction is very much 
 more costly to the students than instruction of any lower kind. 
 We take into consideration the expense incurred by the students 
 on account of their being obliged to live at capital cities like 
 Bombay or Poena. And this is one of the reasons why we have 
 lately assented to the inauguration of a College at Ahraedabad, 
 for the Guzerat province (as soon as may be financially prac- 
 ticable), for the founding of which institution a sum of money 
 has been raised by Native gentlemen. Another reason is this, 
 that we sympathize with the trouble which the parents must have 
 in placing their sons under proper supervision while studying in 
 capital cities distant from home. 
 
 By establishing one or two additional Colleges in this Presi- 
 dency we hope to augment the number of those receiving high 
 education, which number is at present seen to be so small. But we 
 cannot do more than this without unduly weakening the limited 
 resources available for the existing Colleges. Manifestly a College 
 is of little use unless it enables students to take University degrees. 
 Unless the teaching staff be strong enough for this, it must 
 fail to perform its proper functions. Native professors are com- 
 paratively inexpensive, and can competently teach many subjects. 
 But there is one great subject for which you must have English- 
 men and graduates of the British Universities, who are neces- 
 sarily expensive, and that is English literature. We have given 
 you English professors worthy of your respect and confidence in 
 the highest degree. But the number of such valuable men must 
 unavoidably be limited. And this circumstance alone would 
 preclude the founding of many Colleges in this Presidency. At 
 all events, we must take care that the English education does 
 not deteriorate : such deterioration is apprehended by many even 
 among the Natives. Certainly there is not enough attention paid 
 to English elocution and caligraphy. Much as we may employ 
 Native professors in various subjects, we must endeavour in our 
 superior institutions to maintain English professors for English 
 literature. 
 
 With all the efforts which we may have made, or may yet 
 make, the quantity of high education in Western India is, and 
 
96 . University of Bombay. 
 
 will long continue to be, extremely small for a population of 22 
 millions. There are not more than 800 students in the Govern- 
 ment Colleges in the Bombay Presidency and not more than 100 
 in the private Colleges; or 900 in all. From among the students 
 at the high schools about 1,200 present themselves yearly for 
 the University entrance examination, of whom about 300 pass 
 on the average. But of those who thus enter the University 
 only a few study for degrees. Now, I must remind you that this 
 circumstance is opposed to the principle of those European 
 Universities on the model of which this University has been 
 established. In Europe, young men enter Universities, not merely 
 for the sake of entering, but for the purpose of taking degrees. 
 In this Presidency, as elsewhere in India, young Natives gener- 
 ally enter the University for the sake of entering merely, and 
 without any thought of taking degrees. We must strive to cor- 
 rect this tendency which has arisen, contrary, indeed, to our 
 wish and intention, but still under our own system. We must 
 more and more make the possession of a University degree a 
 necessary qualification for admission to the higher posts in the 
 public service. Again, if students persist in regarding the 
 entrance to the University as the goal of their ambition and the 
 end of their studies, we must render the entrance examination 
 gradually harder and harder. 
 
 Then there comes the question as to what is, and what ought 
 to be, the subject-matter of our high education. 
 
 In this University the utmost attention has been, and I hope 
 Mental and ®^®^ "^^^^ ^®^ given to mental and moral philosophy ; 
 Moral Philoso- relating to those duties of man towards God which 
 ^^y- are acknowledged by all mankind ; to those abstract 
 
 principles of right and wrong which always assert themselves in 
 the conscience ; to the power and functions of the moral sense ; 
 to the constitution of our mental faculties ; to the domain of practi- 
 cal ethics ; to the relations between man and man in the body 
 politic; to the foundations of rights and of true liberty in the social 
 state. These principles have not only been inculcated in the 
 abstract with the strongest sanction and the highest authority, 
 but have further been illustrated in the concrete, and have been 
 applied to history, to law, to literature, to society, and to Govern- 
 ment. Without this teaching you could never become really better 
 or wiser from instruction in physical science. But I will show 
 you presently that physical science, so far from being opposed to 
 mental and moral philosophy (as may have been sometimes 
 believed), does, if rightly taught and truly understood, conduce to 
 the loftiest conceptions of philosophical thought. At this moment 
 
1878.— 5'tV Richard Temple. 97 
 
 I have to remind you thafc those sacred lamps of faith, virtue, 
 morality, and philosopliy, preserved to us by the best traditions 
 of the world — those holy fires unextinguished through so many 
 ages, and as we believe inextinguishable — have been reverently 
 and faithfully handed down to you by this University. What- 
 ever changes may be gradually introduced into other parts of our 
 teaching, this part will, we trust, remain unchanged and un- 
 changeable. 
 
 This ethical and philosophical teaching has greatly aifected 
 already, and will still more affect in future, the conduct, through- 
 out life, of those who pass through the University. Allowing 
 for failures and disappointments, we still see that there is a 
 greatly improved standard of conduct, a higher ideal of rectitude, 
 among those Natives who have received our ethical instruction, 
 and have been in daily contact with the European professors. 
 In the higher branches of the public service, both executive and 
 judicia,! — more especially in the judicial — the Natives evince an 
 integrity and a trustworthiness for which we are heartily thank- 
 ful. The improvement which has occurred in these respects is 
 remarkable, and can be best appreciated by us who remember 
 the tone and standard which prevailed in times past, before the 
 introduction of a system of State education into India. And 
 the Natives themselves, as I understand, attribute it mainly to 
 English education, to the moral instruction which is included in 
 that education, and to companionship and association with Euro- 
 pean teachers. 
 
 For the theoretical part of philosophy the Native youth in 
 our Universities have always evinced an excellent aptitude. 
 This, indeed, is to be expected, inasmuch as philosophy has been 
 cultivated by the races of India from the time of a remote anti- 
 quity, in all respects with wonderful diligence and in many 
 respects with much success. The high mental qualities thus 
 engendered, have been transmitted through many generations 
 of men to you, the representatives of the present time. 
 
 But, gentlemen, the exclusive devotion to mental and moral 
 Exclusive de- philosophy as contradistinguished from physical 
 votion to Philo- science, and without sufficient subjection to the 
 Bophy. discipline of severer studies, such as logic, 
 
 mathematics and science — is apt to develop the very faults 
 to which your mental constitution is prone. The imagina- 
 tive faculties rise and spread so as to overshadow the reason ; 
 the idealistic power flourishes so excessively as to draw the 
 vigour away from the realistic faculties. Consequently, our 
 University students are but too often addicted to rhetorical 
 13 
 
98 University of Boiffibay, 
 
 __^ * 
 
 phraseology, not exactly applicable to tlie subject in hand, and 
 without a snftidenfc basis of thought. This mental habit of 
 theirs is unfavourable to original or independent thinking, and 
 induces them to borrow ideas ftom others instead of forming 
 their own ideas, or to reproduce simpllciter what they have 
 learnt, whether it bear strictly upon the topic in question or not, 
 to reiterate the formulae of thought as acquired in books instead 
 of reasoning out matters for themselves. Much allowance 
 should, in justice, be made for such faults existing in youths 
 who have to obtain their education through a foreiga language 
 and literature. Similar faults, too, are common, in a greater or 
 a less degree, to us all. The professors at our higher institutions 
 would, I think, atHrm the consequence to be that immaturity of 
 thought so frequently noticed by the critics of our educated youth. 
 
 The defect will, doubtless, be remedied gradually as the 
 people become imbued with our education. It 
 ^Indian inao- J^mands, and is sure to receive, the utmost atten- 
 tion on the part of our educational authorities, 
 as it is very generally found in many classes of the people. 
 Ask any judge who has to take Native evidence — any traveller 
 who has to gather information in this country — any savant who 
 has to investigate facts locally — and he will lament the inaccu- 
 racy which prevails among the people. Again, the indifference 
 of the Natives to correct generalization has always been remark- 
 ed with regret. The difficulty of obtaining from them general 
 opinions deduced from verified data, or based on well-deGned 
 considerations, has been felt probably by every administrator 
 and every economist who is concerned in solving the social pro- 
 blems of the nation. Yet, surely, these faults can be cured by 
 education, for the people are endowed by Nature with shrewd- 
 ness and sagacity. 
 
 You will forgive me, gentlemen, for dwelling on these points 
 so frankly, as I do so with the most friendly sentiments. 
 
 Your retentive power of memory, your aptitude for intense 
 mental application, your aspiration to excel in whatever may be 
 prescribed, have always won the regard of your European 
 teachers. These qualities supply something, but not all, of the 
 foundation of success. 
 
 Our students must bend themselves more than heretofore 
 to those sciences which are severe and exact, as compared with 
 those to which I have been just adverting. The proficiency 
 which Natives attain in mathematics ; the success they win in 
 the law ; the public confidence they command when on the 
 
1878.— iSiV Richard Temple. 99 
 
 jndicial bench ; the progress they make in tl»e practice of sur- 
 gcM7 and mediciuo, — afford an earnest of their future achieve- 
 lueuls in any science to which they may devote themselves. 
 
 You are probahly aware tliat dductive reasoninor, whether 
 derived from mathematics or from logic, in both 
 of wliicli the people of India liave always evinced 
 much aptitude, will never by itself supply the needs of the 
 Native intellect. This may truly be said of us all, but more 
 particularly is it to be said of you. The thing most wanted for 
 you all, is instruction in inductive reasoning. As you will 
 recollect, deductive reasoning is the drawing of conclusions 
 from given premises. But induction is the reverse, process. It 
 consists of reasoning from particulars to general propositions. 
 By it various phenomena have to be observed ; their complex 
 combinations have to be separated by analytical processes, the 
 relations of their different qualities have to be determined. In 
 deduction the law is given, and the effects are required to be 
 found ; that is a comparatively easy task in which you will 
 readily excel. But in induction, on the contrary, the effects are 
 given and the law is required to be found ; that is a hard task, 
 in which you often fail, but in which you must, and will, learn 
 to excel. A recent writer (Stanley Jevons) has given an illus- 
 tration of the difference between deduction and induction, which 
 is peculiarly applicable to you. When you enter a labyrinth, 
 you move about hither and thither easily. This is like deduc- 
 tion. But when you wish to return and make your exit from 
 the labyrinth, then doubt and difficulty begin ; then you must 
 trust to the accuracy of your observation of the way by which 
 you entered, or make an exhaustive trial of all possible ways. 
 This is like induction. Hence it is that inductive reasoning is 
 the all- important subject to be pressed upon the Native mind. 
 Our students should be drilled by its procedure and disciplined 
 by its system. They should be exercised in it backwards and 
 forwards, so that they cannot answer its question by exertion of 
 memory, but must solve its problems by their self-acting reason 
 alone. They will immediately find that they cannot succeed in 
 this, unless their observations are correct. And the necessity, 
 thus imposed upon them, of observing correctly, will remedy 
 some of the mental faults to which 1 have been alluding. MilFs 
 work on Logic prescribed for you by the Universiry as a text-book, 
 has been regarded as a landmark in the progress of general 
 studies, and especially of scientific inquiry. Take up his chap- 
 ters on induction and causation. In this work on Political Eco- 
 nomy, read the opening chapter explaining the origin of wealth, 
 
100 Univenity of Bombay* 
 
 the fundamental structure of society, and the principles oa 
 which the science is based. 
 
 Follow np these principles in the economic works of the late 
 Professor Cairnes. Note the introductory part of Buckle\s work 
 on Civilization, and observe the method of examining the circum- 
 stances which make history and mould the fate of nations. Study 
 especially the works of Sir Henry Maine, namely. Ancient Law, 
 Village Communities, and the Early History of Institutions; these 
 shew you the origin of rights, the foundation of law, the progress 
 of jurisprudence. All such works teach you how to reach the 
 pith, the kernel, the root of every matter. They are to several 
 branches of study what the protoplasm is to living substances. 
 
 The practical study of the physical sciences, being itself the 
 most cardinal instance of inductive reasoning, will eminently 
 conduce to the same object, and will supply to the Native mind, 
 as it were, that fibre and sinew, that solid strength, which it so 
 much needs. Take Whewell's history of the absorbing labours 
 of Newton ; or the account of the German astronomer JSchwabe, 
 who day by day for thirty-one years watched for the recurring 
 spots in the sun ; or the story of Sir Humphrey Davy's enquiries 
 into the composition of water ; or Tyndall's narrative of Faraday's 
 experiments in electricity ; or Darwin's observations of the habits 
 of insectivorous and climbing plants ; and you will derive bene- 
 fit, not only from knowing the grand conclusions obtained from 
 their labours, but from noting the processes by which they 
 laboured. 
 
 As a preparation for such scientific study there is needed 
 that general culture, that gymnastic mental training (as it is 
 technically termed from physical analogy) which you have all 
 received. 
 
 The relative proportions which should be allotted in our 
 University curriculum to general learning and to physical 
 science have of late demanded, and will still demand, special 
 consideration. 
 
 Of the students in this University some will follow profes- 
 sions, such as the public service, for which general education 
 alone is needed ; others will follow professions, such as the 
 scientific branches, for which special education must be super- 
 added. Up to a certain point general education must be given 
 to both classes of students. But afterwards such education will 
 be prosecuted to the end of the College course by those who 
 live by the learned professions, while it will be relinquished by 
 those who are to live by the scientific professions, each one of 
 
1878.— /8tV Richard Temple. 101 
 
 whom must thenceforth devote himself to his particular science. 
 He must, therefore, not be unduly burdened witli general educa- 
 tion, lest he should be prevented from learning, during his 
 Collegiate course, the science which is to be his means of liveli- 
 hood. There are but five years within which a young man 
 must learn all that is to be learnt at College for the purpose of 
 his profession. If he is to be a chemist or a botanist, or a 
 professor of art or science, or a medical man, or a forester, or a 
 civil engineer, he ought to have as large a part, as possible, of 
 the five years for acquiring his techuical and special knowledge. 
 For all such cases endeavour has been, and will be, made to 
 lighten the weight of general education so as to give time and 
 opportunity for the scientific pursuits. 
 
 We rejoice to Bee so many promising students qualifying 
 themselves by general education for the public service, which 
 offers an ever-widening field to your reasonable ambition, and 
 in which you are likely to rise to higher spheres ; for the judicial 
 bench where Natives acquit themselves so honourably, also for 
 the Native bar which is everywhere rising in repute and use- 
 fulness. But we hope that these professions may not become 
 overstocked. Though the danger of such over-crowding does 
 not seem to be so imminent here as elsewhere, yet even here it 
 exists. On this account, as well as for other reasons, we are 
 anxious that many of you should choose the other professions 
 which the sciences so abundantly offer. Looking to the vigor- 
 ous growth of European manufactures at this capital city and 
 at other places in the Presidency ; to the extension of railways ; 
 to the hydraulic engineering needed for works of irrigation ; 
 to the establishment of professional forestry ; to the increasing 
 demand for surgery and medicine ; — to the incorporation of scien- 
 tific teaching in our national education; looking to all these 
 things, we hope that students will be attracted more and more 
 in such directions. And the Senate and Syndicate of the 
 University will be moved from time to time to consider amend- 
 ments of the University standards of examination with this view. 
 
 I beg you to read the general evidence given in 1862 before 
 the Royal Commission on the Public Schools in England, by 
 such witnesses as Hooker, Faraday, Owen, Lyell, Acland, Car- 
 penter. They declared that scientific pursuits by themselves 
 afford an excellent general education, as training the mind to 
 habits of method, order, observation, and classification, and that 
 in the words of Faraday himself '' the study of natural science 
 is a glorious school for ike mind.'' 
 
t(A Unxversiitf of Bombay, 
 
 All tTie arts and sciences which have helped to make Eng- 
 land what she is by land and by sea, which have contributed so 
 much to our national greatness and prosperity, these we are 
 offering to you without stint or reserve ; nay, more, we are 
 urging them upon you for your acceptance, in the luipe that they 
 may do good to you as they liave done to us. We liope, too, 
 that many of you will become imbued with artistic and aesthetic 
 ideas, and that some of you will follow art as a profession. India 
 must deplore the loss, during wars and revolutions, of so many of 
 those arts which flourished in the days when Asoka graved on 
 the rocks the edicts of duty; when the Buddhists hewed sacred 
 chambers out of the strata on the mountain sides ; when the 
 Brahmanists covered their fanes with carvings which seem to 
 make ancient races of men live again before our eyes; when the 
 Mahomedans reared the tall minarets for prayer, and the domes 
 in memory of the dead. You can hardly do better than fix your 
 gaze on the antique remains of your own national art, which 
 remains will hardly be surpassed by anything that European art 
 can teach you. But under the guidance of Sir Bartle Frere, 
 whom you so well remember as Chancellor of this University, an 
 artistic revival arose some years ago in Western India, a move- 
 ment which is worthily sustained by our School of Art and 
 Design at Bombay, and by the group of edifices where wo are at 
 this moment standing. 
 
 Most of you must win knowledge for the purpose of fighting 
 . the battle of life, yet some of you may be able to 
 
 kn^i!w?ge. ^^ pursue knowledge for her own sake. You have 
 read Macaulay's stanzas, in which the goddess of 
 literature adjures him to love hei* for herself alone. You may 
 recall the passage in which Buckle declares that he who under- 
 takes to write history, must relinquish all other ambition, — not 
 for him are the riches and the honours of the world. Remember 
 that the man who can compose a book that shall live, or enlarge 
 the bounds of human knowledge, or make a discovery in science, 
 or produce a valuable invention, is as great as the successful 
 statesman or warrior. 
 
 Though I refrain from dwelling upon poetry, its importance 
 is not forgotten by us. However successful our training may 
 be in other subjects, it is beyond our power to train you to be 
 poets. But we never cease to set before you the best examples 
 of English poetry : and, fortunately, the British na^»a>» is as 
 great in poetry as it is in sterner subjects. National po®^ is in 
 some degree the outcome of the history and the condition of a 
 nation. Whether such poetry wiU arise in the India of to-day, 
 
1878.— iSir Richard Temple. 1T)3 
 
 we kefflc; not. You will, doubtless, cherisli affection for the 
 poet?y ^ ftncient India. If you consult the recent works of 
 Griffiths, of Talboys Wheeler, of Monier Williams, you will 
 observe how greatly that poetry is admired by modern readers. 
 You will have seen how many of the finest verses of Tennyson 
 Lave sprung from contemplation of the British Empire. You 
 may claim a share in the pride inspired by the widespread 
 rule of the British Sovereign for whom so many Native soldiers 
 have fought and bled, and under whose colours the Native 
 armies are serving. 
 
 Lastly, whether hereafter you mix in the turmoil of active 
 life, or be immersed in business, or tread the hard paths of 
 practical science, you must not forget the moral philosophy you 
 have learnt in this University. 
 
 The pursuit of physical science, if undertaken with single- 
 ness of purpose and humility of spirit, leads us to 
 Pljysical sci- the Contemplation of the first creative power, of 
 al religiou. ' Him whom the ancient Arabians figured to them- 
 selves as the Causer of Causes, of that impassable 
 gulf which philosophers describe as separating the knowable 
 from the unknowable. It would be unjust to physical science to 
 regard it as hostile to natural religion. On the contrary, a strong 
 presumption in favour of religion is supplied by science. Equally 
 unjust would it be to science to regard it as failing to quicken 
 faith or to strengthen the moral sense. Few things can be more 
 ennobling to the soul of man than honest effort to penetrate the 
 mysteries of the material universe, and to understand the laws 
 ifhich the Creator has ordained for its existence. You probably 
 have read that some modern authors divide knowledge into two 
 main categories : one '* humanistic," which may be broadly de- 
 scribed as literoe humaniores, metaphysical philosophy, aesthetics, 
 law, history; the other ** realistic," which may be broadly de- 
 scribed as mathematics and physical science. It is to the human- 
 istic division that all the noblest flights of eloquence, the most 
 refined sentiments, the most exalted thoughts, have belonged 
 until recent times. But within this century passages of consum- 
 mate eloquence, of the purest beauty, are to be found in the 
 writings of realistic authors. Take some of the finest or grand- 
 est passages by modern humanistic authors with whom you are 
 flcquaiuted, say thuse of Burke, Canning, Coleridge, Macaulay, 
 Kuskin, Buckle. Then on comparison you will find very fine and 
 grand passages by realistic authors, say Lyell, Brewster, Her- 
 schel, Tyndall, Balfour-Stewart, Josiah Cooke. 
 
 All these studies will raise your thoughts towards principles 
 
104 Univergity of Bombay- 
 
 whicli can be felt by faith, though they cannot be proved by 
 our finite senses ; towards glories not to be beheld by the eye of 
 man, and harmonies not to be heard by mortal ear. Fix your 
 hopes on that better life in the future which is beyond this poor 
 troublous sinful existence of ours here below ; remembering 
 that " the things which are seen are temporal, but the things 
 which are not seen are eternal." 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable J. Gibbs, C.S.I., F.R.G.S.) 
 
 [An address was read by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts 
 to the Vice- Chancellor, the Honorable Mr. Gibbs^ expressing the 
 deep sense of the obligations he had laid the University of 
 Bombay under by the valuable services he had rendered it dur- 
 ing his nine years' tenure of office as Yice-Chancellor.] 
 
 Mr. Dean, and Gentlemen of the Senate, — It would be 
 affectation on my part if I were to begin without admitting the 
 great gratification with which I have listened to this Address, 
 and thanking you most cordially for the indulgent spirit in 
 which you have been pleased to review my action during the 
 lengthened period I have had the honor of holding- the office of 
 Vice-Chancellor of this University, — a period which will evdr 
 form one of the most cherished recollections of my long sojourn 
 in this Presidency, — and for the kindly terms in which you have 
 given expression to the judgment you have formed. I have 
 listened to the Address with the greater pleasure, because, 
 although I do not delude myself with the idea that I deserve all 
 you have said about me, — for I cannot but acknowledge, as I 
 review the years of my Vice-Chancellorship, that I have in many 
 things fallen short of what I might and perhaps ought to have 
 done, — yet I recognise in the broad principles, for my fidelity to 
 which you are pleased to praise me, principles to which it has 
 been at least my constant aim to adhere. Your appreciation of 
 my services would in any case have been exceedingly gratifying, 
 but the terms in which you have been pleased to express that 
 appreciation is evidence that, in spite of my many shortcomings 
 and imperfections, I have been able to some extent to be of 
 service to the University. It was not without diffidence that 
 
1§79.— !Z7ie Homrable J. Qihha. 105 
 
 I accepted at the hands of Sir Seymour Fitzgerald an office 
 which had been filled by such eminent men as Sir Alexander 
 Grant and Dr. John Wilson, to nnme only my two immediate 
 predecessors. The former of these brought not only the 
 resources of scholarship which had won for him high honour in 
 his own venerable Alma Mater, but a grasp of educational doc- 
 trine and practice which was of the greatest value in laying 
 the broad and deep foundation of our system, and which had 
 found an appropriate recognition in his elevation to the highest 
 }:0st in the Educational Department of this Presidency. While 
 of the latter, who looked on his appointment of Vice-Chan eel lor 
 as his most cherished distinction, it may be said that he brought 
 to the performance of his duties a most intimate knowledge 
 of India and its people, a life-long experience in the cause 
 of education, and a keen and catholic interest in all branches 
 of knowledge, combined with a sympathy broad as the Uni- 
 versity itself with all the many races whom we desire to attract 
 to our portals. To follow such men without a feeling of 
 diffidence at the thought that I should be judged by the high 
 standard to which they had accustomed the public mind, would 
 have argued presumption on my part ; but I was encouraged to 
 think that the principles they had laid down would prove a sure 
 foundation on which to raise the superstructure, while a pretty 
 long experience in the public service would, I ventured to hope, 
 give me some special qualification for the duty. 
 
 It has been my privilege to preside over the meetings of the 
 Syndicate and Senate for a longer period than has fallen to the 
 lot of any previous Vice-Chancellor, and it is with peculiar satis- 
 faction that I learn from you. Sir, that the spirit in which 
 I have endeavoured to discharge this and other functions apper- 
 taining to my office has commended itself to my colleagues on 
 the Syndicate and to the body of the University. With you I 
 am glad to believe that the progress of the University has been 
 satisfactory during the period 1 have presided over its counsels. 
 On that point I hope to touch in detail presently. In the mean- 
 time I cannot do better than borrow the language of this 
 Address, if you will first permit me briefly to make some 
 adequate recognition of other services to the Univeroity which 
 have had no small share in contributing to this success. For I 
 could not omit this opportunity of putting on record my high 
 sense of what the University of Bombay owes to the unbouj^hb 
 exertion of the Syndicate. On this point I fully concur with 
 what Sir Bartle Frere said in his farewell address at the Convo- 
 cation for 1867, when,, after pointing out that " ib is a noteworthy 
 
106 University of Bombay. 
 
 circumstance that this University stands almost alone among the 
 great institutions of this country, as managed by the unbought 
 exertions of those who direct its action" ; expresses his strong 
 conviction and that of his colleagues in the Government, " that 
 here, as in every part of the vrorld, men will serve their fellow- 
 men truly and laboriously for honour, for love, and for con- 
 science sake," and thanks them ''for teaching this among other 
 truths that great service may be done the State, though it be not 
 paid for in money." Nor can I refrain from noticing the care 
 and discrimination with which the Senate has justified the 
 wisdom of the arrangement which made the choice of the execu- 
 tive body devolve on it. With these additions then, Sir, I say 
 confidently, in the language of this Address, that the practical 
 working of our University has been made more systematic and 
 efficient, the purposes of its executive, gaining in precision and 
 persistence, have exercised a wider and deeper influence on the 
 Colleges and Schools of Western India, the teaching of these 
 Institutions has been moulded to greater symmetry and thorough- 
 ness, the beneficial influence of the University has been felt 
 through every grade of the educational scale ; and with you I 
 rejoice to see the fruit of our labours in the replenishment 
 of society with intelligent and cultivated representatives, both 
 of the ancient learning and of the last won conquests of modern 
 thought. 
 
 For my share in the work that has been done your gratitude 
 would have been ample reward. I have a warm appreciation of 
 the kindness which has prompted this expression of your grati- 
 tude in a form which I cannot but consider as in itself a liigh 
 distinction, and I have peculiar pleasure in the thought that your 
 regard and that of other friends outside the University, may be 
 permanently commemorated in the way which of all others is the 
 most gratifying to me personally, by the addition to the Univer- 
 sity of a collection of books and a Library endowment fund, 
 which I am confident will prove no small accession to its means 
 of usefulness. 
 
 On the first occasion of my addressing the Senate as Yice- 
 
 Chancellor, so far back as 1871, I reviewed the 
 
 '^8^871-79 ^ results of the previous ten years of the University, 
 
 and showed the progress it had made in the number 
 
 of its graduates, the wealth of its Endowments, and its influence 
 
 on the progress of High Education in the Presidency. I think I 
 
 cannot now, at the close of my Vice-Chancellorship, do better than 
 
 pass in review the results of the nine years which have elapsed 
 

 1879.— TAe Honorahle J, Qihhs. 107 
 
 since my appointment to that high office, and thus as it were givr 
 you an account of the stewardship which hns been confided to the 
 Syndicate over which I have presided for that period. It appears 
 thatwliile for tlie first ten years up to 1871, 176 degrees were 
 cotiftTred ; in the eig'nt foUowiiig, including the present Convoca- 
 tion, the roll of graduates has increased to 571, while the total 
 number of students who presented themselves for the Matricula- 
 tion have increased from 4,567 to 1 2,931^ and those who succeeded 
 in passing that test from 1,227 to 3,565. While the B.A. degree 
 has been progressing in a satisfactory manner, the scientific 
 degrees of L.M. & S., M.D., and L.C.E. have increased in a 
 greater proportion. I think this is a fact on which the Univer- 
 sity may well congratulate itself, as it shows that a large 
 number of the young men of the present generation are 
 educating themselves for the purpose of gaining a professional 
 livelihood. It further shows, from the results ol: the Matricula- 
 tion, that the University has maintained that high standard for its 
 entrance which has distinguished it from the beginning from its 
 sister Universities. It will be seen that while in the first ten 
 years the ratio of successful students was about one-fourth, the 
 same proportion has been maintained during the succeeding 
 eight years. Oar great object has been to prevent in the first 
 place Matriculation and afterwards the attainment of degrees, 
 being made too easy. We have preferred a few comparatively 
 highly trained men to a multitude of an inferior quality. I 
 trust that when another decade draws to a close, when one of 
 my successors may have to submit a similar review, that the 
 results may be, especially as to the standards, equally satis- 
 factory. 
 
 In 1870 the University was in the possession of Courses of 
 Study and Regulations for Graduations in the 
 Stndy?^^ ^^ various Faculties, over the elaboration of which 
 much thought had been spent, and which had 
 stood the test of experience on the whole very satisfactorily. 
 But it need cause no surprise that as time went on some 
 modifications suggested themselves, and no small part of the 
 attention of the Groverning Body has during the last five years 
 been directed towards the task of removing inconsistencies, 
 adapting our courses of study more and more to the surrounding 
 circtimstances, and giving fuller recognition to the great 
 advances that have been made in recent times in certain 
 branches of knowledge. Chief among the changes to which I 
 refer have been the modifications introduced, on the recom- 
 naendatiou of a Committee presided over by Mr. Justice West, 
 
108 University of Bomhay, 
 
 into the course of the degree of Bachelor of Arts. There are 
 special rensons why the curriculum for that degree should be — 
 I do not sa,y niore important — but a matter of great anxiety and 
 debate than the courses in the professional faculties of Medicine, 
 Law, and Civil Engineering, in which the question as to what 
 ought to be demanded of the student finds an easy solution in 
 the reference that can be made to the standard of professional 
 knowledge of the day. The Faculty of Arts has a different and 
 more difficult task to discharge in laying down such course or 
 courses of study as shall best conduce to the special end it has 
 in view, that of securing by more direct means the general 
 cultivation of the mind. In the main principle which guided 
 the deliberations of this Committee, — that of the desirableness 
 of permitting in the later stages of a student's career and after 
 having taken guarantees for a certain basis of general culture — 
 considerable latitude in the courses of study open to him — I 
 cordially concurred. We have not closed the door to those who 
 may still wish to take their B.A. degree a range corresponding 
 to the width of the old curriculum, though to do so effectively 
 is a difficult task for the student in days like ours when 
 knowledge has lengthened her stakes and stretched her borders 
 on all sides. It is not, however, the business of the University 
 to make that which is difficult impossible. But the majority 
 of students, it is to be expected, will avail themselves of the 
 permission accorded to them to specialise to a greater or less 
 extent their studies after they have passed the First Examina- 
 tion in Arts. We have not as yet gone so far in this directioa 
 as other Universities. To three subjects we still attach an 
 exceptional degree of importance, inasmuch as without a 
 knowledge of English, one of the languages which we techni- 
 cally call classical, and Mathematics, it is impossible for any 
 student to obtain the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. English it 
 will always be necessary to retain on this list. But I think it 
 deserves the anxious consideration of the Senate and Syndicate 
 whether it may not eventually be advisable to extend the 
 principle of specialisation further by permitting a candidate to 
 go up in any one of the five branches of knowledge which at 
 present constitute our optional subjects for the B.A. To a 
 further though yet future development of this principle of 
 specialisation I may perhaps be permitted to allude for a 
 moment. Moved by His Excellency the Chancellor, whose 
 interest in all that concerns our w^elfare deserves our grateful 
 acknowledgment, the Syndicate are at present discussing a 
 scheme for giving the Physical and Experimental Sciences in 
 our Courses of Study a more distinct plaice. These sciences 
 
I 
 
 1879.^The Honorable J. Gihhs. 109 
 
 ifleal with subjects of an interest inferior to none. Their value 
 as educatioDal instruments has always been recognised in this 
 University. But there have been practical difficulties in the 
 way of giVing them that full recognition which we all admit to 
 be desirable. That this University has never been indisposed to 
 concede to soiei)ce, in the restricted sense of that term, a place 
 among the other instruments of education, is proved from the 
 position the physicial and experimental sciences have all along 
 held in its Matriculation Examination and its scheme for the 
 M.A. Degree. But the increasing perception of the vast 
 benefits which science can, if we give her room, offer to India, 
 and the desirability of giving full and unfettered scope to those 
 among our students who are attracted towards her by the bent 
 of their own mind or the hope of doing service to their country, 
 combine to form a loud call to the University to institute new 
 and exclusive courses of study in science and to grant new 
 scientific degrees. The matter is still sub judice, but I have no 
 doubt that the Senate will join the Syndicate in the hearty 
 response they are prepared to make to the call of the Chancellor. 
 Passing to the other Faculties, the schemes for degrees in them 
 have received from time to time consideration and some 
 modifications, but not to such an extent as to call for further 
 allusion on the present occasion. 
 
 Greater changes have been made in the Matriculation Exami- 
 nation, For many years we stood alone in requiring the attend- 
 ance of all candidates for that examination in Bombay. The 
 year before last the experiment of conducting a portion of the 
 examination at certain centres was tried, followed in the year 
 just concluded by the entire examination being conducted in the 
 above manner. It is too early to form an opinion as to whether 
 the alteration has been successful. But on this point I may 
 venture to throw out a suggestion as to whether an entire modi- 
 fication of our entrance examination should not be made. My 
 own opinion inclines to making the English portion of the exami- 
 nation more searching and more practical and reducing the 
 number and the importance of the other subjects. There is no 
 doubt that one of the greatest difficulties the student finds on 
 joining the Colleges is to understand the lectures and the text- 
 books. Whether the University should confine itself to the 
 English test, leaving the other subjects to be dealt with by the 
 Colleges, is a matter for consideration. But at all events I think 
 that proficiency in a great portion of the other subjects in the 
 present Matriculation Examination might be postponed to the 
 F.A. 
 
no 
 
 University of Bombay. 
 
 I will now turn to tlie Endowments, and present a compa- 
 rative statement of them of the three Indian 
 Universities ; — 
 
 Endowments. 
 
 University. 
 
 Endow- 
 ment, 
 
 Value. 
 
 Benefaction. 
 
 Value. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Bemares. 
 
 
 
 Rg. 
 
 
 Rs. 
 
 Es. 
 
 
 Calcutta ... 
 
 « 
 
 4,83,040 
 
 ... 
 
 ••« 
 
 4,83,040 
 
 Two lacs of this 
 were given by 
 
 Madras ... 
 
 7 
 
 31,500 
 
 Lands and 
 Buildings 
 (value not 
 known). 
 
 »•* 
 
 31,500 
 
 the same mu- 
 nificent citi- 
 zen of Bom- 
 bay to whom 
 we are indebt- 
 ed for our 
 
 Bombay ... 
 
 82 
 
 2,47,000 
 
 5 
 
 5,02,400 
 
 7,49,400 
 
 Library and 
 Tower. 
 
 The University now possesses and administers no less than 
 32 separate endowments, which is more than double the 
 number that existed in 1870. Their aggregate value has risen 
 from Rs. 1^15,000 to Rs. 2,47,000, and the annual income stands 
 at Rs. 11,049 as against Rs. 5,110. It is at once highly 
 creditable to the public spirit oi Bombay, and a good omen for 
 the future, that the decade less prosperous, in a mercantile 
 point of view, which began with 1870 has been as fruitful in 
 these gifts of an enlightened zeal as the decade on which that 
 year closed. Much, however, remains to be done^ and I trust 
 that this flow of liberality may go on steadily for years to 
 come. The Wilson Philological Lectureship, on the lamented 
 death of Dr. Wilson, assumed its final form, and became the 
 first of what we hope may prove a goodly series of endowments, 
 which are calculated, by the encouragement they give the 
 scholars and the advantages they secure to the public, to be of 
 the greatest service to the development of original literary 
 research in this Presidency. Is it too much to expect that the 
 friendly rivalry between the Arts and Sciences which is making 
 itself heard within our walls may soon take the form of one or 
 more scientific lectureships. The list of benefactions shows no 
 increase. And we may perhaps admit that in the Bombay of our 
 day the University can hardly look for such benefactions from 
 private individuals as the four lacs to which we owe the adjoining 
 magnificent building. 
 
 Though I trust that in better days to come we may se©, 
 through private beneficence, other academical buildings clustering 
 round these graceful piles, and forming the large open space to 
 
1879.— -T/ie Honorable J. Gihhs. Vil 
 
 the East into a quadrangle wliich shall be sacred to learning and 
 research. But while no increase has been made during the 
 period we are reviewing to a list of benefactions, which at its 
 commencement already presented an aggregate of more than five 
 lacs of rupees, we must not omit to notice that the University 
 has entered on the full enjoyment of the munificence of its 
 benefactors. The first Convocation was held in this Hall in 
 1874 and the Library was handed over to us last month. 
 
 I cannot, however, conclude this allusion to our being now 
 in possession of our own buildings without one word of personal 
 regret that I shall not be here to see the first movement of the 
 hands on the dial marking the march of time towards eternity, 
 or to hear the first peal from the melodious ^^ joy bells " which 
 are to cheer and enliven this city with their voices. May both 
 be emblematic — the one of the march of this University towards 
 that perfection which should be the end of all our aspirations, 
 the other of the harmony which will attend on its deliberations 
 and the joy with which the people of the Presidency will hail the 
 results. 
 
 I may now allude to the Constitution of tbe University. 
 
 T . Although, no change has hitherto been made in 
 
 Improrement . i • • ° . , ? r t x-l • i 
 
 in the constitu- tnis important point, i may, i tnmk, express an 
 
 tion of the Uni- opinion that the time is not far off when some 
 ^* change will be called for in this direction. An 
 
 infant Institution of this nature had, at its commencement of 
 course, to look to the general public whence to choose its direc- 
 tors, and it was not until comparatively a late period that it had 
 men who had grown up within its own borders that could claim 
 to take a part in its management. But that time has now come, 
 and the claimants are increasing in numbers yearly; and I ven- 
 ture to think that the views which the S3mdicate are now about 
 to lay before Government, recommending that steps should be 
 taken to secure in future the presence in the Senate of a greater 
 proportion of graduates of this University, and further to limit 
 the selection of others to those who have distinguished themselves 
 in their literary or professional careers, are most wise. I also 
 venture to think that the Senate may, especially when so strength- 
 ened, admit Reporters to its meetings, and so court the voice 
 of public opinion on its proceedings. I do not think an enlarge- 
 ment of the Syndicate, save perhaps to admit the representative 
 of a new Faculty, is advisable; but I hope as time progresses the 
 Senate may make its power more and more felt, not only in its 
 selections for the Syndicate, but in spporting and it may be 
 occasionally in modifying the measures of that body. 
 
112 ' University of Bombay. 
 
 Amongst the miscellaneous matters which, have occurred 
 during the past eiglit years, I may mention that the University 
 has liad the honour to present addresses to Their Royal High- 
 nesses the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince of Wales, and to 
 receive their gracious replies, the latter ceremony having taken 
 place in this Hall. 
 
 Having thus brouglit to a conclusion this review, I will take 
 this the last opportunity I may have of presiding 
 Advice to gra- over a Convocation to address a few parting words 
 to the Graduates and Students. In so doing, I 
 shall doubtless repeat what I have said on previous occasions, 
 but I feel that for this the imporliance of the subject will be 
 sufficient excuse. Let me then impress on you. Gentlemen Gradu- 
 ates, not only the necessity of bearing in mind the charge given 
 you on receiving your degrees, — namely, that you ever in your 
 lives and conversation show yourselves worthy of the same — but 
 that you bear in mind that when you can place after your names 
 the letters of your degree your education is not finished — in 
 truth, it has but just begun. It is now your duty to pursue 
 with steadfastness of purpose the line you have chosen to follow 
 — and, be it what it may, go on in that line towards perfection 
 therein. Look at some of the bright examples which we have had 
 in our educational institutions. Witness particularly the two 
 brothers, Bahu and Narayan Daji. See how they never tired of 
 acquiring knowledge — how they sought to make the knowledge 
 they were daily gaining a means for benefiting their fellow-men. 
 I pray you each to remember such examples, and whatever pro- 
 fession you may choose, — be it Law, Medicine, Engineering, 
 Science or Art, — let it be taken up firmly, pursued thoroughly, 
 and with a fixed purpose to excel therein and so benefit others. 
 Let this University have a list of graduates of whom it may be 
 proud, as showing that one result of its exertions is the preparation 
 of a fitting class of men to render services not only in the ad- 
 ministration of the Empire in every department of the State, but 
 the more important work of spreading civilisation amongst their 
 fellow countrymen. 
 
 To you, students, let me offer a few words of advice. Avoid, 
 above all things, being satisfied wirh a smattering 
 . -^^^^ *® of many subjects — make up your mind to take up 
 one profession or one branch of a profession and 
 stick to it, and become thorough scholars in the subjects of your 
 choije; and wiiile striving for the mastery over a foi'eif'-n lan- 
 guage, wiihout which success in your profession is impossible, do 
 not forget that you have a vernaK3ular of your own, thraugh which 
 
1879.— n^ Honorahle J. Gihhs. 113 
 
 you must mainly look at to spread abroad to others the benefits 
 you have gained in your own course of education. Remember 
 also the responsibilities which a good education places upon you, 
 ]iamely, that you should be examples of loyalty, truthfulness, 
 industry and sobriety, that when you are known as graduates of the 
 University, men may find in you — as in the majority of the 
 present graduates I trust they can now find — that the old Latin 
 lines in praise of learning are still true : 
 
 " iugenuas didicisse fideliter axtes 
 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros." 
 
 Finally, I would, ere I close, say to those who are still in the 
 schools — of whom some may be here present — seek 
 cation and Gov- not High Education simply for the sake of Govern- 
 ernment ser- ment Service. I see the Native Press still harping 
 ^^* on this point and blaming Government for not 
 
 providing for all graduates. In the first place, such a view of 
 the value of High Education is insulting to it — it would lower, 
 nay, prostitute the highest instrument of civilisation. Learning, 
 Science, Art, all or any, must be courted for their own sakes. 
 But I may also add that if Government were willing to take a 
 view which is too common, they could not possibly find employ- 
 ment for a tithe of the Graduates this University has passed. 
 Speaking as a Member of Government, I may say we have, fol- 
 lowing indeed in the steps of our predecessors, opened more 
 widely the gates of our service to Graduates, and we are willing 
 to do even more ; but this is not so much to encourage our yonth 
 to seek High Education, as to enable Government to benefit by it 
 in obtaining as public servants the men best fitted to fill th«se 
 posts with loyalty, honesty, and ability. 
 
 And now, Gentlemen of the Senate, brother-Fellows of this 
 University^ the time has come for me to say farewell. We have 
 worked together for many years; we have seen, in some respects, 
 our labours bearing the fruit we hoped for ; but the great success 
 of this Institution is, I feel, yet in the future. May many of you 
 remain here to see it approach more and more to what we would 
 have it become, and witness the beneficent result of its civilising 
 effects spread more and more generally over this portion of the 
 Empire. May your efforts be blessed by Providence to this good 
 end, and while saying againthe words ^farewell,^ ^'floreatAcademia,'* 
 let me assure you that my thoughts and the affections of my heart 
 will ever recur to the happy time wehave worked together, and that 
 no one will hail with greater satisfaction each prosperous step 
 this University may take in the spread of learning and science 
 than he who will hereafter be your ex-Vice-Chancellor. 
 15 
 
114 University of Bombay. 
 
 NINETEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. E. Sir Richard Temple). 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and Gentlemen^ Members of tlie Senate, 
 Graduates and Under-Graduates of the Univei-sity, — Since I last 
 addressed you from the Chancellor's Chair on the 2nd February 
 1878, some changes have occurred in the Vice-Chancellorship. 
 You have had to regret the departure of Mr. James Gibbs, and 
 the consequent loss of that assistance, which comprehensive intel- 
 ligence, judicious considerateness, and lengthened experience, 
 were so well able to afford. But in his successor, Mr. Baymond 
 West, we have secured for you an executive chief, eminent by 
 reason of his varied culture and liberal sympathies. During his 
 absence, again, I have, Avith the concurrence of my colleagues, 
 and, as we hope, with the approbation of the University, nomi- 
 nated Dr. Hunter to be Vice- Chancel lor, the head of our medical 
 profession which is so distinguished for the attainments of its 
 members in many studies cognate to their own department, — 
 whereby we pay some tribute of acknowledgment to that culti- 
 vation of physical science and to that technical education which 
 are fast gaining ground amongst us. 
 
 The object of my last address, delivered in February 1878, 
 Principles de- ^^^ ^^ bespeak the continued, even the augmented, 
 serving atten- attention of the University to certain principles 
 *^°°* which, as we believe, command the general assent 
 
 of its members; namely, the maintenance and development of our 
 higher education in arts, including philosophy, logic, history, law, 
 political economy, literature ; the better regulating and systema- 
 tizing of education in natural and physical science, with a further 
 view to the promotion of that technical instruction which forms, 
 year by year, a larger and larger part of the public education 
 amongst the most advanced nations ; and lastly, the reverent study 
 of that moral philosophy which, as being the science of human 
 duty, must be common to the pursuits of all students in all depart- 
 ments of knowledge. Experience has recently shown, and doubt- 
 less in future will continue to show, that these principles need to 
 be constantly inculcated, because, notwithstanding their manifest 
 importance, and despite all our care, it is but too often seen that 
 they are imperfectly observed. Without repeating on this occa- 
 sion anything which I said on these three main principles in my 
 last address, I will now offer some additional remarks on each of 
 them. 
 
1880.— Sir Richard Temple. 115 
 
 In the first place, then, our higher instruction in arts — includ- 
 Dccreaso in ^^S ^^^ various subjects mentioned above — has of 
 iiio number of lato Suffered some discouragement. The late Vice- 
 .irraduatcs. Chancellor (Mr. Gibbs), in his farewell address to 
 
 (.Convocation last year, presented a statistical summary of the 
 results of examinations for entrance to the University and for 
 degrees, during the last decade of years ; for all which results 
 ^vo may be truly thankful, and the contemplation of which may 
 encourage us to persevere in our academical efforts. Still, a con- 
 isideration of the educational statistics in detail show us that 
 although the number of those who annually present themselves 
 for matriculation is maintained — though without any tendency 
 towards material increase — the number of matriculated under- 
 graduates studying for future degrees in the Arts Colleges affi- 
 liated to the University, hsjs, during the last two or three years, 
 shown fluctuations and in the main a tendency to decrease. Such 
 a circumstance cannot fail to cause regret and anxiety, not only 
 to us wbo are connected with the University, but also to all who 
 desire the moral and mental advancement of the Natives of this 
 country. As the teaching establishment is maintained in full 
 strength and undiminisbed efficiency ; as the professorial chairs 
 continue to be filled by gentlemen whose talents and zeal are 
 undisputed : the decrease of the students must be due to extrane- 
 ous causes which are not fully discernible. But some of the causes 
 can be partly discerned. 
 
 In Western India the agricultural distress whicb has lasted 
 for three years and the commercial depression which 
 dencilsy^^ ^^' ^^^ existed for two years, the consequent diminu- 
 tion of income, and augmentation of the cost of 
 necessaries pf life, — have rendered parents and guardians unwill- 
 ing to incur the cost of collegiate education for the students. The 
 same circumstances shut the avenues to some employments, 
 darken the prospects of some walks of life, and thus damp the 
 aspirations of those who hope to carve out a career for themselves 
 by the force of intellectual training. These adverse tendencies 
 have proved so unyielding that we dare not predict their im- 
 mediate cessation. Still, we cherish the hope that ere long they 
 must, under Providence, yield to the benign influences of return- 
 ing plenty and reviving commerce. Again, notwithstanding 
 the considerate intentions of the Government that those who 
 acquire the higher education should have due advantages re- 
 specting admission to the upper grades of the public service, it 
 has been found that University graduates in arts frequently fail, 
 through no fault of their own, to obtain the situations or 
 
It^ University of Bombay. 
 
 positions to whicli their attainments might be expected to entitle 
 them, and which they see filled by those who had not been 
 reared in the colleges, but who had won their way by actual 
 work. This non-fulfilment in some degree of the intentions of 
 Government has somewhat lowered the value of high education 
 in the estimation of those who are to incur the cost, and undergo 
 the toil, of the instruction. The defect has existed not in the 
 judicial but in the executive departments. We have, therefore, 
 after revision of previous orders, framed such rules as shall 
 secure to graduates the recognition of their preferential claims to 
 employment in the upper grades of the executive service. Doubt- 
 less, young Natives of promise and ambition seek University 
 degrees for many other objects besides admission to, or promotion 
 in, the service of Government — indeed, this University has never 
 ceased to impress on its alumni that its degrees should be sought 
 for their own sake. Still, in such a country as India, the public 
 service offers a large field for the educated youth, — the largest, 
 probably, of all the fields as yet open to them. It is due to the 
 cause of education that its followers should have a surer accetss 
 to that field, in proportion to the superiority of their attain- 
 ments. And it is incumbent on the Government, in the selection 
 of men for its service, to set the most influential example of 
 reliance placed on the examinations and tests of the University. 
 
 In my last address (1878), I acknowledged the many merits 
 Merits and ^^ ^^^ youth educated under the direction of the 
 fanlts of gradu- University — such as their retentiveness of memory, 
 * ^' their power of mental application, their ambition 
 
 to excel, and above all their improved standard of rectitude 
 and integrity. But I also reminded you of their faults, as 
 perceived by their critics or acknowledged by their friends, — 
 such as immaturity of thought, rhetorical exaggeration, substi- 
 tution of borrowed ideas for original reflection, subjection of 
 the reasoning power to the imagination, inaptitude for testing 
 theory by practice, and the like. These faults, which are 
 common more or less to the youth of all nations in the world, have 
 in India arisen and grown from many and various causes operat- 
 ing for a very long time. Therefore, they will not be speedily 
 cured, — though the cure is beginning, and, if gradual, must 
 in the end be sure. Meanwhile these faults become more saliently 
 presented and more prominently noticed, according as criticism 
 becomes more and more pointedly directed to our educational 
 system, and as observers have a larger mass of educational results 
 on which to make their observations. Consequently, we see 
 that many persons, whose practical knowledge gives authority to 
 
1880.— >StV Richard Ttniple. 117 
 
 their opinion, affirm that mucli of our higliei' education is super- 
 ficial where it ou^ht to be fundamental, and airy when it ought 
 to be substantial. I am, as you will be, far from a full admis- 
 sion of such criticism. Still, the prevalence of such a notion 
 does render the employers of intellectual labour less anxious than 
 might have been expected to have recourse to those who belong 
 to this University. It had something to do with the hesitation 
 displayed by civil authorities in respect to obtaining the services 
 of our graduates. Though such an education as that which we 
 ^^ecure for our alumni ought to be a passport to high employment 
 ill any profession, yet if an idea gains ground that they become 
 A\ hat is termed unpractical, and are prone to imagine that after 
 ]i;iving learnt so much at college they have little or nothing more 
 to learn in life, then they will fail to reap the fruit of their 
 labours at college. 
 
 The moral to be pointed is this, that a really good general 
 education should enable a man to apply himself to the acquisi- 
 tion of any sort of knowledge, however novel or alien it may be ; 
 to perceive the points and bearings of every case or class of 
 cases which may be presented to him ; to assimilate into the 
 mental system the ideas peculiar to any profession he may enter. 
 In a word, general knowledge should be so ordered as to be a 
 key wherewith to unlock the door of any special subject which 
 its possessor may need to approach. If your graduates will act 
 up to these maxims, they will find themselves more competent 
 than heretofore to turn their abilities to profitable account. 
 
 It is sometimes remarked that educated young Natives 
 become too apt to discuss fluently all sorts of 
 an/franS'^ ^^ t«>pics with which they have no mature acquaint- 
 ance. Consequently, an opinion arises that they 
 are restless and discontented, expecting too much of immediate 
 result from the fact of having passed the University examina- 
 tions, and inclined to condemn thoughtlessly the Government 
 and the atiministration under which they live. Doubtless, the 
 Oovernment and the University never take these manifesta- 
 tions of discontent to mean more than is really meant. We all 
 appreciate the freedom of thought, the latitude of expression, 
 that will ever characterize the youth of a nation which is being 
 exercised in new ways of thinking. We know that the existing 
 state of things in this country often invites legitimate criticism, 
 and we desire that the sentiments of educated Natives should be 
 unreservedly made known to us. Such outspoken frankness 
 will never be mistaken by us for disaffection. 
 
il^ University of Bombay, 
 
 But discussions of this nature, if conducted to an extreme 
 point and in an unreasonable spirit_, may convey 
 ti-Moes^ ®^' an impression, which was not intended, but which 
 is detrimental to the cause of education as well as 
 to other national interests, namely this, that some of our educated 
 youths are not properly grateful for the privileges to which their 
 education has admitted them, are not duly loyal to the ideas, 
 nor just to the motives, of the administration that has made them 
 what they are. 
 
 Now, it is not for us to read the hearts of men ; and if any 
 of our alumni be really disloyal or ungrateful, let 
 and L^oyaity. ^^^ ^"^^ ^^®^^^ condemn him. But it is our firm 
 hope and trust that the vast majority of our 
 educated youth are true and loyal to us in mind, in spirit, 
 in sentiment, in disposition. We feel assured that those 
 Natives who have learnt to think through the medium of 
 our language, have been imbued with our literature and 
 philosophy, have imbibed our ideas, — are faithful to us, and 
 bear towards our nation that heartfelt allegiance which men may 
 feel without at all relinquishing their own nationality. We 
 believe that the education imparted by us to the Natives, so far 
 from leading them towards disaffection, has, happily, the very 
 opposite effect. We do not disguise from ourselves that in a 
 community like that of Western India, composed of so many 
 diverse elements, there may be, indeed must be, some whose 
 thoughts are misguided, and that although the masses in all 
 ranks, high and humble, are thoroughly well-affected, there are 
 some who feel wrongly and think amiss. But those few, who are 
 thus ill-disposed, do not become so by reason of their English 
 education ; their ill-disposition springs from causes with which 
 such education has neither concern nor connexion ; and the educa- 
 tion must mitigate, if it cannot remove, their discontent. With 
 the great majority, however, education has the result of confirm- 
 ing in them that loyalty which the general tenour of British 
 administration is calculated to inspire. And the higher the edu- 
 cation, the more certain is this result. At all events, we have 
 solemnly undertaken to educate the Natives in all the Western 
 learning and philosophy which have helped to raise England to 
 her height among the nations of the earth. We anticipate 
 nothing but the most favourable consequences politically from 
 such education. But be the consequences what they may, we 
 shall, I trust, persevere in that educational policy which, being 
 liberal and enlightened, is prescribed to us by the dictates of our 
 duty as trustees for the people of India. 
 
1880.— /5zV Richard Temple, 119 
 
 The second topic relates to instruction in natural and physical 
 science. Our object is to obtain for this a larger 
 PhJsicaTscience^ place than heretofore in our educational system. 
 The study of thephysical sciences isnow recognised 
 in all countries as an integral part of the national education^ and 
 the recognition is everywhere assuming forms more and more 
 tangible and definite. Besides its general value which is felt in all 
 countries, this study has in India a special value. It qualifies our 
 Native youth for professions in which they have hitherto had little 
 or no place. It diverts from the older professions, namely the law 
 and the public service, some of those surplus students who would 
 otherwise overcrowd those professions. It displays before the 
 Natives not only new ranges of thought, but also fresh methods 
 of thinking. It initiates the Natives from their early youth in 
 those sciences, the successful pursuit of which distinguishes the 
 Western civilization of modern times. It applies the whole 
 force of education to the promotion of that material progress, in 
 which India has so much way to make up, before she can come 
 abreast of the more advanced nations. It tends to correct some 
 of the mental faults which are admitted to exist in the Native 
 mind, while educing and developing many of its best qualities 
 and faculties. It affords a far better gymnasium for the 
 general training of the mind than has been heretofore supposed 
 by many. We observe with thankfulness that the Natives are 
 awaking to a consciousness of the importance of this study. As 
 this University is the lawfully constituted controller of the 
 higher education, is the acknowledged leader of independent 
 opinion regarding intellectual progress, and is the embodi- 
 ment of enlightened ideas, we felt that the recognition of the 
 study must spring from the University and must culminate in 
 the granting of Degrees in Science. We remember that 
 education is generally sought for by the student as a means of 
 rising in a profession, and that if his profession is to be science, 
 he must make use of the five years of his collegiate course for 
 this purpose, — that spring season of his mind when the faculties 
 are most elastic and the memory most receptive — a season to 
 be enjoyed while it lasts, for to him it will never return ! The 
 influence even of the University would not, indeed, cause such 
 degrees to be largely sought, unless the graduates of science 
 found scope in after-life for the due employment of their scien- 
 tific knowledge. But such scope is widening, constantly : 
 scientific pursuits are expanding together with the material 
 progress of the country. That progress will itself be sustained 
 and invigorated by the existence of a growing class of Natives 
 educated in science. Such Natives, too, are wanted to supply 
 
120 UniceraUy of Bombay- 
 
 tlie teaching power in tlie science for our various educational 
 institutions. Therefore, as foreshadowed in my last address to 
 Convocation, I formally laid the matter before the Syndicate in 
 September 1878, with my proposal that such Degrees in Science 
 should be conferred. 
 
 After full consideration of details both in the Syndicate and 
 in the Senate, this University has adopted a scheme for grant- 
 ing Degrees in Science, which scheme was promulgated in April 
 last (1879), and takes effect during the current year, 1880. In 
 preparing the scheme, the Syndicate availed itself of the experi- 
 ence gained by the rules and practice of the London University. 
 According to this scheme, the student — after matriculating at 
 the Bombay University, undergoing an examination which proves 
 him to have been grounded in general education, and passing 
 through the First Arts course to further qualify himself in such 
 education — will be able to devote himself to science if he aspire 
 to obtain a degree therein. With this view he will enter upon 
 a preliminary course of general scientific study, so that he may 
 have a foundation consisting of that knowledge which trains the 
 mind for thereafter acquiring any particular science which may 
 be selected — the course consisting of mathematics and natural 
 philosophy, inorganic chemistry, experimental physics, and bio- 
 logy. After that he will devote himself to the particular sciences 
 in which his Degrees is to be taken — and these must be at least 
 two in number, that is, a Graduate in Science must be qualified 
 in at least two branches of science, qualification in one science 
 only not being deemed sufficient, — in which respect it is essential 
 that our practice should conform with that of the Universities 
 in Europe. Nor will this condition prove unduly burdensome 
 to a Native student, because adequate proficiency in a scienee 
 cannot be acquired without a knowledge of at least one of the 
 sciences allied to it, and because he can so select his two sciences, 
 that knowledge in the one shall help his studies in the other. 
 For instance, if he looks to botany as his future speciality, he 
 may take up chemistry as his second science ; if to zoology, he 
 may take up physiology ; if to physics, he may take up chemistry ; 
 if to physical geography, he may take up experimental physics ; 
 and so on. In addition to the two sciences as above explained, 
 he must pass an examination either in pure mathematics or mixed 
 mathematics, which latter are much allied to several of the 
 sciences ; or if he does not take up mathematics, he must take 
 up a third science which will form a group with any of the two 
 sciences above mentioned. 
 
 We know that the Government will perform its part by 
 
1880.— -Sir Richard Temple. 121 
 
 providing the necessary teaching power in the colleges. We 
 hope also that as wealth shall again accumulate in Western 
 India, many munificent Natives will emulate the examples set 
 by the last generation of Natives at Bombay, whose benefac- 
 tions to education we now witness around us, and will in this 
 generation endow professorships of science in our colleges. If 
 any patriotic Native, blessed with abundant means, and having 
 himself risen in life by his own capacity, shall be moved by a 
 desire to enable his countrymen to raise themselves by that 
 scientific knowledge the usefulness of which is especially patent 
 to practical men, let him give something of his well-earned 
 substance to permanently provide teachers of science. The 
 education in arts has heretofore been sust-ained principally by 
 Government and partly by private contributions. We hope that 
 the wealthy Natives will similarly assist the Government in 
 defraying the cost of education in science. 
 
 When in 1878 I proposed to the University that Degrees 
 in Science should be conferred, it was contemplated that a 
 separate Faculty of Natural and Physical Science should be 
 established. The Syndicate, however, preferred that education 
 in science should form, part of the charge of the Faculty of 
 Arts, and that an additional Syndic for science should be 
 appointed. To this the Senate assented, and we all are indebted 
 to the Arts members of the Syndicate, gentlemen eminent in, 
 humanistic learning, for their co-operation in preparing and 
 passing the scheme for Degrees in Science. This decision is in 
 its nature provisional, and as such is accepted, I trust, by many 
 gentlemen of the several scientific professions, who are most use- 
 ful members of the Senate. But if the scheme succeeds and 
 grows in importance, the Science members of the Senate will 
 doubtless desire a separate Faculty of their own. I earnestly 
 hope that the sficcess may be so considerable as hereafter to 
 justify the creation of such a Faculty. 
 
 Meanwhile, although instruction in science is very far from 
 occupying the great position which, we hope it will one day 
 occupy in our public instruction, still we are constantly advanc- 
 ing in that direction. Viewing its intrinsic importance, we 
 might well desire that the advance was faster than it is. But 
 much apathy, and even some prejudices, have to be overcome. 
 And the advance is slow even in some countries more civilized 
 than India. Therefore, the lovers of Science may await without 
 discouragement the irresistible march of events. 
 
 Nevertheless, something — however insignificant, as com- 
 pared with the greatness of the need — is being accomplished, 
 
 la 
 
122 • University of Bombay. 
 
 During the two years whicli have elapsed since I last addressed the 
 Improvements Convocation, the two previously existing institutions 
 introduced. relating to the applied sciences, namely. Medicine 
 
 and Civil Engineering — the Engineering College at Poena, with 
 its workshops forming a technical school, and the Grant Medical 
 College at Bombay — have been fostered and impi'oved, and have 
 been recognized by the University as qualified to send up candi- 
 dates for the new Science Degree. Several lesser institutions have 
 been brought into existence. Two new medical schools have been 
 established — one at Poena for the Deccan, one at Ahmedabad 
 for Gujarat. The importance of hygiene and sanitary science 
 has been pressed on the attention of both teachers and students. 
 We have encouraged medical education, not only because 
 medicine is a rising profession which, with the progress of 
 sanitation, may attain indefinite development, but also because 
 medical men, in order to qualify themselves for their own profes- 
 sion, have to learn much of some of those very sciences which we 
 desire to impart largely to the Natives. A school of scientific 
 forestry has been opened at Poena in connexion with a Botanic 
 Garden, which garden has been formed out of the old garden 
 established for the culture of medi(;inal herbs. A commence- 
 ment has been made of what we hope will one day become a 
 system of national education in scientific agriculture. Several 
 school classes have been opened in different parts of the 
 country, and a class has been successfully added to the Engi- 
 neering College at Poena for superior instruction in agricultural 
 practice. The College has been empowered by Government to 
 grant certificates of proficiency to those who pass an exami- 
 nation after going through the higher agricultural course. It 
 was at first proposed that this University should confer degrees 
 in agriculture; but after some consideration the Syndicate 
 decided not to include it in our scheme of degrees, deeming that 
 under the circumstances the College certificates will sufiice. 
 The Poena Engineering College is, indeed, becoming a College 
 of Science, inasmuch as engineering, geology, chemistry, botany, 
 forestry, agriculture, are more or less taught there. A chair 
 of biology has been established in the Elphinstone College. 
 Some steps have been taken to develop the zoological section of 
 the Victoria Museum in connexion with what is the nucleus of a 
 zoological garden adjoining the Museum. The Technical School 
 of Art at Bombay has been maintained and encouraged. 
 
 The third topic relates to instruction in moral philosophy or 
 
 Instruction in ©thics, or the Science of human duty. Though 
 
 Bfchics. necessarily precluded from adverting to religion, I 
 
ISSO.-Sir Richard Temple. 123 
 
 neifclier forget^ nor expect you to forget, that it is impossible to 
 teach human duty, comprising the relations between man and man, 
 without also teaching something at least of man's duty towards 
 God. No doubt, one of the effects of really good teaching in arts, 
 say in the branches of history or literature, must be to inculcate 
 always incidentally, and often directly, much of the general duty 
 of man. Grood teaching of physical science also must, as I believe, 
 enlarge the ideas, and elevate the sentiments, of man in respect of 
 God, and must impress upon him at least some part of his duty 
 towards his Creator. But such teaching cannot furnish him with 
 instruction in his duty towards his fellows, an instruction needed 
 by all students alike, whether they belong to the department of 
 arts or of science. Again, there are, as we believe, abstract prin- 
 ciples and moral truths wholly independent of, and immeasurably 
 above, the material universe in which we live. No doubt, these 
 are incidentally inculcated by the teaching in arts- But the incul- 
 cation of moral truth by teaching in physical science is not pos- 
 sible. Nevertheless ethical instruction is specially requisite for the 
 student of science, in order to prevent his imagining that there 
 is nothing beyond the conceptions with which he is familiar, how- 
 ever lofty and wide these may be. Moral philosophy, then, 
 comprises a knowledge which is necessary to all students in 
 all departments of education, which they must bring with them 
 to all their studies, and which they ought to retain in their 
 inmost hearts and minds throughout their lives. Therefore, it 
 ought not, in my judgment, to be left to incidental or indirect 
 teaching, but ought to be taught systematically in all our 
 institutions from the highest to the- humblest. Nevertheless, 
 in Western India it is taught indirectly rather than directly ; 
 it is not systematically and specifically prescribed ; as one subject 
 among many, it is made optional rather than obligatory. If 
 this be a great defect, as I believe it is, then the remedy can 
 be applied only by this University. If the existence of the 
 defect be satisfactorily shown to the Senate, then I am sure 
 that the members of that governing body will feel the re- 
 sponsibility which devolves on them. Indeed, the University 
 did in former times indicate moral philosophy as an optional 
 subject for students after their entrance into the Univer- 
 sity, and therein commanded the cordial assent and the loyal 
 adherence of the students. From various causes this honoured 
 practice has, during recent years, been intermitted. If the 
 Senate shall see fit not only to resuscitate, but also to enlarge 
 and enforce it, — that is, to render it obligatory rather than 
 optional, — their action will approve itself to the conscience of 
 the Natives. For the action of the University determines the 
 
124 University of Bombay* 
 
 teaching in the colleges and liigh schools,, and the example of 
 these superior institutions is sure to be followed by the middle 
 class institutions^ and ultimately even by the primary schools, — 
 until, at length, we have a complete system of national instruc- 
 tion in ethics adapted to the degrees of intelligence and capacity 
 as found in the different grades of students. To found, to 
 elaborate, to establish such a system should, I think, be a subject 
 of ambition and of anxiety to this University and to all engaged 
 in the work of public instruction. The Natives will certainly be 
 the willing subjects of such teaching. Moral philosophy is a 
 theme on which the sages, lawgivers, and philosophers of the 
 Hindus, have dilated from the earliest times, and which has 
 engaged the reverential thoughts, and attracted the affectionate 
 regards, of the best men amongst the Natives for many genera- 
 tions, — though the aberration of the practice of most people from 
 its maxims has been as frequent and patent in the Indian nation 
 as in any nation. I apprehend that many thoughtful Natives, 
 while thankfully acknowledging^ all that has been done in this 
 ^ direction by the public instruction under British rule, do yet 
 lament that a more systematic effort is not made to unfold and 
 evolve before the minds of the young those eternal principles of 
 right and wrong, which serve as beacons for the due conduct of 
 life, and which ought specially to be included in an educational 
 system that necessarily excludes religious teaching. With the 
 majority of the Natives, such a systematization of e&cal teaching 
 would augment the popularity of our national education. It 
 would elevate and crown the moral edifice already founded by 
 the effects of our liberal education, by the discipline of our 
 institutions, and by the personal example of our teachers. 
 
 I have already urged this most important matter on the 
 consideration of the Syndicate, who, finding some difficulty at 
 present in effecting the requisite alteration of the educational 
 course, intimate that they will take an early opportunity of 
 bestowing their renewed and careful consideration on the matter. 
 
 Lastly, I would remind you of the stimulus afforded to high 
 
 education by the recently promulgated rules for 
 
 TlieCoyenant- the admission of Natives to the Covenanted Civil 
 
 yiee, ' Service. Though the admission may operate very 
 
 slowly, yet the fact of even a few being admitted, 
 
 will animate the educated classes with hopefulness, and will 
 
 display to their gaze a goal which, though distant perhaps, 
 
 is yet shining. The merits of Natives in the judicial and legal 
 
 profession have long been acknowledged ; while their aptitude 
 
 for the higher branches of the executive and administrative 
 
1881»r^ 8vr James Fergusson. 126 
 
 professions has been doubted. All things being duly weighed, 
 I should consider the success of Natives as civil administrators 
 to be the truest test of that combined mental and moral training 
 which our education seeks to give. 
 
 In conclusion, permit me to express my satisfaction at 
 meeting the Fellows of the University in Senate 
 Sotakj."^^ ^° ^^^ assembled. More than two years ago I found a 
 Senate consisting of men notable for learning, or 
 for science, or for social influence, or for public services. As 
 vacancies frequently occur by reason of the shifting and chang- 
 ing of society in this Presidency, it has devolved on me to 
 nominate many Fellows, and in every nomination I have striven 
 to strengthen the Senate by adding to its body men of proved 
 capacity in arts or in science. To this Senate I now confidently 
 commend the observance of the principles which have been 
 presented to their consideration. We should be considerate 
 in not overburdening the students, remembering how few years 
 there are for education and how heavy is the weight upon those 
 who have to learn through the medium of a language not their 
 own. The art of teaching should be cultivated, so that the 
 labours of the students may be simplified, and that knowledge 
 may be presented, not in a dull and uninteresting form, hard 
 for the memory to retain, but in a vivid and striking light that 
 pierces, penetrates, and fills the mind. The field of education 
 should be restricted, so that its culture may be deep, rather than 
 that it should be extended with culture of lesser depth. Our 
 general instruction should strive to arm the student with those 
 mental resources that may render him victorious in any special 
 arena he may enter. Let us, as an University, proceed in the 
 van of that beneficent movement with which natural science is 
 stirring mankind, and v\^ich, if directed aright in India, will 
 raise the Natives to an economic and social status unparalleled 
 even in grandest records of their antique civilization. And to 
 all our other instruction in whatever branch let us be mindful 
 to add that paoral culture which shall impress on every youth his 
 duty towards God and towards his neighbour. 
 
 TWENTIETH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Sir James Fergusson, Bart., K.C.M.G., D.C.L.) 
 
 Mr. Vice- Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — I 
 cannot preside on this occasion — my first opportunity since 
 assuming the Government of this Presidency — in the place filled 
 
126 University of Bombay, 
 
 bj so many eminent predecessors, without expressing my 
 earnest desire that, in so far as my influence extends, this Uni- 
 versity may not suffer from any deficiencies of mine. It is now 
 just twelve years since I/a traveller passing through Bombay, 
 took part as a spectator in the interesting ceremony of laying 
 the foundation-stone of this splendid hall. That stone was laid 
 by the Earl of Mayo, who was a most revered friend of mine, 
 and whose untimely end is fresh in our recollections. I also 
 met here on that occasion the respected yice-Chancellor, 
 Dr. Wilson, who bears a household name in Bombay, and many 
 others whose careers are now closed and whose places inexorable 
 fate has rendered vacant for others. On such an occasion as 
 this we cannot help calling to mind those who have founded and 
 maintained this institution ; and we must hope that, by the aid 
 of kind Providence, we may be enabled rightly to perform the 
 important duties devolving upon us. I am glad, indeed, to know 
 that since that day twelve years ago — which marks a point just 
 half-way from the foundation of the University to the present 
 time — it has so largely developed and prospered. I am glad to 
 see so many young men obtainiDg the degrees which have jast 
 been conferred, because it shows that so many of our youth prize 
 that hall-mark — if I may sotermit — of thequality of their education 
 which this University bestows. I have heard how earnestly our 
 youths are availing themselves of the educational advantages 
 extended to them, and I earnestly hope that the young men whom 
 we see to-day obtaining the honoured prizes of a degree in this 
 University, may find in it the beginning of a long and useful 
 career. It has been one of the recent duties of the Government 
 to add to the roll of Fellows nineteen other names. Let me say 
 that my colleagues and myself have selected those names with 
 no regard to race or creed, but with sole reference to educational 
 eminence and their services in the cause of education, which I 
 think alone should entitle citizens to that distinction. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I cannot but pause for a few moments 
 to note one or two features in the repdrt just read, 
 ., ^®^^^^ °^ which strike me as remarkable. In the first place, 
 in noting the results of Matriculation Examina- 
 tion, I find that only about one-third of the candidates who 
 presented themselves were successful in passing. Well, I 
 believe that that rather marks the high standard required by 
 this University than the insufiicient preparation which these 
 candidates have received ; and I am glad to observe by 
 reading the curriculum laid down for each class that a really 
 high standard is required by this University. But I think, 
 
1881. — Sir James Fergusson. 127 
 
 and must remark, that the University does well so to main- 
 tain its standard, because it will incite the educational institu- 
 tions affiliated to the University to neglect no means to prepare 
 their candidates, so that in future a larger number may 
 pass. At the First Examination in Arts out of 150 candidates, 
 one-half passed; in the ''Previous" or Preliminary Examination, 
 two-fifths, and for the degree of Bachelor of Arts one-third 
 passed successfully. I have some further remarks to make on 
 this part of the programme. In the first place I regret to 
 observe that so few of the Mussalman community have appeared 
 in these examinations. I think it is much to be deplored that 
 members of a community which has undoubtedly in previous ages 
 produced many learned men should not be so prominent as their 
 fellow-subjects here in taking advantage of the modern education 
 provided so freely for them. I know that the leading members 
 of that community are sensitive and sensible of this defect, and 
 I am glad to say that an effort has been made to establish a 
 school, which, I trust, will send many pupils in future to our 
 Colleges and graduates to this University. This school has 
 already achieved a great success. In the month of September, 
 through the agency of leading Mussalman gentlemen, subscrip- 
 tions amounting to Ps. 40,000 were raised by their friends for the 
 establishment of this school ; Government most gladly supple- 
 mented the amount raised by a regular subsidy ; and already 
 the school contains 370 students. I have to remark that in the 
 report this year it is stated that for the first time there has been 
 no addition to the endowments of the University ; but I am 
 glad to say that within the last few days there has been a 
 scholarship founded by Mr. Jairazbhoy Peerbhoy, a Mussalman 
 gentleman of this city, for Mussalman candidates obtaining the 
 greatest number of marks in the Matriculation Examination, 
 enabling them to prosecute their studies for at least one year 
 in Bombay, or to proceed to England for that purpose. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, this is a beginning ; let us hope that it 
 will soon bear great fruits. 
 
 The next point which I desire to notice is the little progress 
 
 which has been made in the scientific branch of 
 
 f S^n e^^^^ ^^® studies qualifying for the Bachelor of Science 
 
 degree. I find that for the first examination for 
 
 that degree only two candidates presented themselves this 
 
 year, and those were from the Elphin stone College. I am 
 
 glad to say both passed. But if we consider what class of 
 
 teaching this scientific degree is intended to encourage, I 
 
 think we may well hope that greater advantage will be taken 
 
128 University of Bombay. 
 
 of it ; and greater encouragement given to it by the public. 
 I know bow great an interest in these examinations my 
 honoured predecessor took ; I know how much he impresses upon 
 you the great advantage the community would derive by the 
 promotion of a knowledge of scientific subjects^ and I would 
 venture on this occasion to say a few words to supplement what 
 he has said in earlier times, and impress it still more earnestly 
 on your attention. What does the study of science mean ? Well, 
 it means that in the operations of life in which we seek to turn 
 to account the gifts of Divine Providence, we should be guided 
 by the skill which rises out of knowledge, rather than by 
 haphazard work or groping in the dark. It is not that we should 
 work upon theory rather than common-sec se and practice, but 
 it means that we should ground our theory and practice upon 
 ascertained laws- It means that instead of going on blindly in 
 the path that our fathers trod, or adopting one invention or 
 another at haphazard, we should from our practical knowledge 
 comprehend them and judge of their right application. It 
 means that we should turn to good account not only the 
 talents that are given us, but the liberal gifts of Providence 
 by which we are surrounded. In days past, when this great 
 country was separated from the rest of the world by a waste of 
 waters, communications were slow, and when it was dependent 
 upon itself and its people for its supplies of manufactured 
 material, rude and simple inventions might suffice to utilize the 
 products of the land. I do not for a moment forget the great 
 knowledge of the science of beauty possessed by many of the 
 inhabitants of the country, and marvellous perfection to which 
 certain arts were carried ; but I mean in the prosecution of the 
 industries which form the main staples of this country the arts 
 were rude and simple, and are not calculated to compete in the 
 present day with iJhe science and inventions of the world. The 
 wonderful development of steam, which has rendered the sea not 
 a barrier but a bridge to connect one land with another, has 
 borne in upon us the manufactures of other countries to which 
 all the inventions of science have been applied, so that they are 
 produced with marvellous cheapness, and compete, nay, almost 
 exclude, the simple manufactures of our people. Well, what is 
 the moral, what is the policy to be followed under circumstances 
 to which that is but one illustration ? Not, surely, that wo 
 should tax the people of the country to maintain their industries 
 in their own rude, extensive, and therefore expensive, form, but 
 that we should bring and apply to the industries of the country 
 the science which has cheapeued production and produced pros-> 
 perity elsewhere. The Natives of this country are surely not 
 
1881. — Sir James Ferqusson. 129 
 
 I . __i 
 
 ' less capable of learning, their intellects are not less subtle, 
 their ability to acquire knowledge not less keen than those of 
 their brethren in the West. Sure I am that if they embraced 
 the advantages of modern inventions they would compete 
 successfully with the manufactures of any part of the world. 
 It is in the right application — the prudent application of inven- 
 tion which are sufficiently numerous^ that scientific education 
 will be most profitably directed. And this is but one illustra- 
 tion of the benefits to be derived from a study of science^ 
 because there is, as you know well, in the study of the laws of 
 gravitation, in the right estimation of the powers by which we 
 are surrounded, in the knowledge of the component parts of the 
 soil, in the improvement of agriculture, and in the knowledge of 
 chemistry, botany , and so forth, abundant exercise for inventive 
 genius and scientific success, which cannot fail to be profitable 
 if we only rightly turn our attention to these subjects. Again, 
 the science of astronomy will do much to wipe away the super- 
 stition which the best of the Natives of this country deplore as 
 much as we do, to teach the people that the heavenly bodies 
 move in a wonderful way indeed, but do not exercise malign 
 influences on man^s existence. In trying to do away with super- 
 stition we do not want to interfere with any man's religion, but 
 simply to teach those truths which we are all seeking. 
 
 You can profit by many branches of education, because in 
 our colleges we have been aided and equipped by funds liberally 
 given by beneficent persons, scholarships and fellowships are 
 endowed, and professors are paid, partially indeed by the State, 
 but in the largest proportion by private benefactions. I find in 
 the Elphinstone College, which, I suppose, occupies the most 
 prominent place amongst oui^ colleges, there are eight well-paid 
 professors of art and other branches, but for physical science 
 there is but one, and he is not paid so highly as the others. 
 Well, that shows that the sinews of war are wanted ; and backing 
 up, as I do most earnestly, the appeal not made for the first 
 time, believe that we shall not have to appeal in vain. I notice 
 also in the report that an increasing number of students are 
 coming up for examination from the Provincial Colleges. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, it is not to-day, when 1 am still at the 
 commencement of my term of office, that I should 
 of theS^country! attempt to express matured opinions upon the edu- 
 cation of this Presidency, the education conducted 
 under the auspices of this University ; but the time will come, 
 I hope, when I shall render myself better acquainted with every 
 part of the Presidency. You can readily understand that the 
 
 T7 
 
130 University of Bombay. 
 
 months which have passed since my arrival have been crowded 
 with business^ and occupied in gaining information of every 
 kiud, so that hardly upon any point can I attempt to speak with 
 authority, for I am still a learner ; but I assure you I am not 
 supine or insensible to the great responsibilities involved, 
 especially in the spread of education. We have done much, 
 but we have still more to do, and problems are arising every 
 day which require the earnest attention of the wisest to solve, 
 if the future is to be turned to good account, and if we do 
 our bounden duty by the people of India. But relying upon 
 the Providence which has so greatly blessed British influence 
 here, which has given such a wonderful impulse to the country, 
 and promoted the best interests of the people in this last half 
 century at least, we may look forward hopefully to the results 
 of this and kindred institutions in raising the character and 
 aims of the people, and in equipping many for the work of life, 
 of whose knowledge, of whose aspiration we need not be jealous, 
 but in whose love of country we should find our best ally. 
 
 TWENTY-FIRST CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Mr. Justice (now Sir) R. West.) . 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — It was the intention of His 
 Excellency the Governor to preside at this Convocation as Chan- 
 cellor of the University. You know too well the calamitous 
 events which have devolved on me a function which I can but, 
 very imperfectly perform. We miss to-day and every day a 
 gracious presence which diffused a benign and kindly influence 
 wherever it appeared. I feel that I but express the universal 
 sympathy when I give these few words of sorrowing commemora- 
 tion to a loss which has been felt as a personal misfortune in 
 each household of our community and must for long cast a shade 
 of sadness over every public ceremony. Amongst the labours of 
 the year the chief undoubtedly is the general re-casting of the 
 Bye-laws of the University. In this work the Senate at large 
 has taken its full share. It bears its share of the responsibility. 
 The Bye-laws will, I trust, ere long be sanctioned by the^ 
 Government, and then it will be your part, gentlemen, first 
 by a careful study of the Bye-laws, and then by a wise and 
 consistent administration of them, to make the Senate a pattern 
 of what a deliberative body should be — courteous, candid, 
 fair in argument, tolerant, business-like, free from cant, and 
 free from faction. The swift succession of events must bring 
 many important questions before you. I shall probably have 
 
1882.— ifr. Justice West. 131 
 
 DO voice in their decision, but I shall feel some pride wlien 1 
 find that they are discussed and disposed of to the honour 
 of the University under rules for the framing of which 1 have 
 myself in a measure to answer. The other principal events 
 of the academical year have been brought before us in the report 
 just read by the Registrar. The number of candidates for 
 the higher instruction continues as large as could be expected ; 
 the number of failures to pass tlie examinations is greater 
 than can be desirable. Many youths I believe stand for the 
 Matriculation Examination just, as they say, to " try their 
 luck,^' but this endeavour to get through examinations on the 
 lowest possible terms cannot but exercise a rather demoralizing 
 influence. In the interests of the University and of sound 
 scholarship we must hope that a somewhat stricter discrimina- 
 tion V7ill gradually be used by school-masters in giving their 
 pupils the qualifying certificates. The defects I have noticed are 
 most conspicuous in the case of the private schools. The number 
 of candidates from these schools steadily increases, which is in 
 itself a very gratifying fact; but the proportion of passes is 
 miserably low, showing how great room there is for improve- 
 ment in the matter and the method of their teaching. 
 
 It is perhaps due in no small measure to the system to which 
 I have adverted that so many students fail in the 
 daU^tSys.^^*^ further examinations requisite for obtaining their 
 degrees. In the Previous Examination this year 
 only about one-fourth of the candidates passed, and even from 
 an institution like the Deccan College, only fourteen candidates 
 out of seventy were successful. In the First Examination for 
 the B.A. degree the results were more satisfactory, but still less 
 than half the candidates passed. In the Second Examination 
 for this degree the successful pandidates were about two-sevenths 
 of the whole, — a small proportion I cannot but thinl^, consider- 
 ing the known ability and zeal of the Professors in the several 
 colleges. The truth seems to be partly that preliminary train- 
 ing i^ defective, and partly that youths of inferior abilities, who 
 me not likely ever to be successful students, are not weeded out 
 with sufiiciently rigorous kindness. The aptitude for scholar- 
 ship is not universal, and disappointment must often result from 
 setting naturally dull boys to tasks which call for at least an 
 average measure of intellectual acuteness. 
 
 In the professional examinations, or at least in those for 
 Medicine and Engineering, the proportion of successful candi- 
 dates has been much larger. The teaching must be deemed 
 highly eifective, and the students having a well-defined and 
 
132 University of Bomhay. 
 
 limited course set before tliero^ acliieve it remarkably well. Native 
 society must gain largely by tlie accessions of accomplished pro- 
 fessional men wliom it now annually receives from tbis and tbe 
 sister institutions. The supply is in such cases likely to create 
 or increase the want, and there is an almost unlimited field open- 
 ing before those especially who adopt the medical profession, 
 as old prejudices fade away, and sufferers relieved from pain 
 spread confidence in the science which has restored them. 
 
 You have heard, gentlemen, I am sure, with pleasure of 
 the recognition by the University of the College at Baroda. It 
 is thus not only at Poona or Ahmedabad within our own terri- 
 tories^ but at places like Kolhapur and Baroda, that the Univer- 
 sity makes its presence felt, and determines the general scheme 
 of instruction. Great results must in the end follow from this 
 wide diffusion of the means of advanced education. The system 
 is as yet in its infancy, but it is while young that an institution, 
 like a human being, receives most readily a permanent impress 
 of disposition and tendency. We must rejoice, therefore, that 
 the college at Baroda has secured the services of men of real 
 distinction in attainments and character. In Gujarat, as much 
 as anywhere, we find the precocity, receptiveness, and mobility 
 of the Hindu mind. Able and high-minded teachers may mould 
 such materials to noble uses. On us it devolves to aid them and 
 all similarly situated by our sympathy and our discipline. The 
 responsibilities of the University in this respect are daily grow- 
 ing; but the faculties have hitherto known well where good 
 workers were to be found, and the Syndicate, filled as it has been, 
 will, I doubt not, deal successfully with every task that is thrown 
 upon it, so far at any rate as University arrangements can suffice 
 for the exigencies to which time must inevitably give birth. 
 
 The limitation by which candidates for Matriculation were 
 formerly required to be sixteen years of age has in 
 liiAtationT**** the past year been abolished. There are, no doubt, 
 some branches of study for which a certain matu- 
 rity apart from mere cleverness or scholarship is desirable. On 
 this account different views may be taken of the expediency, in 
 the abstract, of the change that has been made ; but its practical 
 justification lies in the fact that the old rule could not be main- 
 tained without a risk, or even certainty, of evasions which placed 
 the really conscientious candidates at a disadvantage. The 
 examination for Matriculation is of a kind that will generally 
 exclude boys who are unprepared to benefit by a College course ; 
 and the example of some of the most eminent Englishmen shows 
 that no harm, to say the least, arises in most cases from a reason- 
 
1882.— Jfr. Justice West, 183 
 
 able indulgence to precocity. A year too soon at college is 
 better than a year too long at school, and the choice rests virtu- 
 ally between these alternatives. Of the candidates under sixteen 
 who have this year presented themselves, it is to be observed 
 that a much larger than the average proportion have passed the 
 examination. 
 
 While the path of the diligent student has thus been made 
 Bombay's smoother and instruction has been placed at his 
 stream of gen- door, the positive encouragements held out to him 
 erosity. have onco more been increased. Not a year has 
 
 passed since this University began to work, but some generous 
 gift has added to its resources. The hall in which we are assem- 
 bled — admirable in all respects save its acoustic properties ; the 
 neighbouring library with its noble tower — soon now to be fur- 
 nished with its clock and peal of bells — and an increasing group 
 of scholarships and other prizes — all these are testimonies to the 
 interest felt in learning by the community of Western India, and 
 , of its confidence in the system of this University. This year 
 Mr. Varjivandas Madhavdas comes forward with a gift of 
 Ks. 5,000 to endow a scholarship to be held by a student pro- 
 ceeding from the first to the second examination for the degree 
 of Bachelor of Arts. The donor desires that the scholarship may 
 bear his name, and I know no more truly respectable mode by 
 which a wealthy man can bring the correlation of forces into play 
 in turning riches into fame, than by gaining a commemoration, 
 and a blessing every year in this noble hall for his aid to the 
 cause of enlightenment and progress. You will join me therefore, 
 gentlemen, in a hearty acknowledgment of the bounty of Mr. 
 Varjivandas Madhavdas. You will by-and-bye give effect to his 
 intentions, and you will share my hope that the stream of gen- 
 erosity by which we have so Jargely benefited will continue to 
 flow in undiminished volume in the years to come. Our library 
 has this year been enriched by the collection made in honour of 
 our late Vice-Chancellor. Its capacious shelves, however, still 
 afford room for many other volumes, and if generosity is any- 
 where seeking an outlet or a worthy purpose at this moment, I 
 venture to suggest that one may be found in adding to the 
 treasures from which generation after generation of ardent 
 scholars will, we may hope, draw instruction and encouragement. 
 
 The number of students who have succeeded in obtaining 
 
 degrees this year in Arts and Law is rather smaller 
 
 f ^-^^^u^^.^^®^ than usual. The credit is all the greater to those 
 
 fiity system. ' '^vho have passed the ordeal, while those who have 
 
 , been sent back to study for another year, will 
 
'T^ University of Bombay. 
 
 probably one day bless the necessity to which they have to 
 bend, in going through a further course of tuition. Without 
 drawing invidious comparisons I will say that I think there are 
 special advantages in the system of teaching which the Bombay 
 University enforces. The student must not only prepare himself 
 for examinations, but he must attend stated courses of lectures 
 in approved institutions. This implies residence in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and a severance in many instances from embarrassing 
 associates and associations, enabling him to devote his mind with 
 more complete abandonment to the work set before it and to 
 distinctly academical influences. He is subjected to a prolonged 
 intellectual discipline and learns to bend his mind to the task 
 which duty imposes, whether the inclination be present or not, 
 and with patient attention to those minute details which are most 
 irksome, but the mastery of which is essential to thorough and 
 substantial scholarship either in literature or in science. Such 
 a course of training seems to me to have great advantages over 
 any system of mere examinations. The student does not merely 
 cram ; the examination is but an incident in his course. He abides 
 with his learning, takes in its influence in every mood, and at 
 an impressionable age is imbued with the best thoughts of the 
 greatest men under the guidance of teachers who have steeped 
 their own minds in the same sacred springs. This goes to make 
 a manly character as well as a strong and versatile intellect ; and 
 I am proud to observe how generally institutions connected with 
 this University have turned out men of a type combining some 
 of the best characteristics of the West and of the East, 
 
 The paucity of candidates for science-teaching and for de- 
 grees in science was noticed by our Chancellor last year. The 
 system of teaching is less organized, the teaching staff is less 
 fully manned than in the older departments. There is some 
 uncertainty, too, both as to the prospects of a degree and as to 
 the prospects of finding employment for the graduate. What the 
 University as such could do it has, as you have heard, been doing. 
 B. Scs. who have in qualifying for that degree passed in such a 
 subject as Chemistry, Botany or Zoology are exempted from it 
 in the examination in Medicine when tbey seek the degree of 
 M.D. The degree of B.Sc. has been made a gateway to the 
 profession of the law as well as of medicine and engineering. 
 We hope that with these practical advantages attending it the 
 science course will soon be followed by numbers proportionate 
 at least to the means of teaching. The questions are still some- 
 times put — and to the students and their friends they are of 
 momentous importance — of what really is science-teaching, and 
 
1882.— ilfr. Justice West. 186 
 
 what part it can play in the liberal education which is the proper 
 
 object of a University. But when we say ^^ liberal/' 
 
 Definition of apart, at any rate, of the riffht answer is RUffffested 
 a liberal edu- , ^ xi. • 4. i' A vu ^ j f 
 
 cation. by the interrogation. A liberal education, as a 
 
 great scieuce-teacher has said, aims at *' the mak- 
 ing of men ; " it is not to be ^^ diverted into a process of manu- 
 facturing human tools wonderfully adroit in the exercise of some 
 technical industry, but good for nothing else.'' It must equally 
 in the sphere of science as of literature enlarge the mind, give 
 it an organizing power and a philosophic habit by which each 
 new acquirement is measured in relation to the whole, and made 
 to take its place in a system. It must give a love of knowledge 
 for its own sake, and the loftiness and independence of character 
 
 which extensive knowledge should produce. But 
 
 Advanta§:es more especially a truly scientific culture furnishes 
 
 culttire^.^^^^ ° t^6 mind not only with a mastery of the main 
 
 facts of outward nature and a readiness to conform 
 to her laws and so turn them to human uses, but with a method 
 of inquiry, a mode of facing the facts of the universe which 
 cannot be acquired in any other way so well. The science 
 student duly disciplined takes all nature for his province. To 
 his trained perceptions there is nothing common or unclean, no 
 creature is unworthy of investigation by a man which has been 
 deemed worthy of existence by God. He sees as others cannot 
 see the prevalence of law amongst the infinite variety of pheno- 
 mena, and evolution working to its ends in ordered " harmony 
 through millions of years. The mind thus trained is borne with- 
 out an effort along the main current of progressive thought. 
 It has a rich store of ideas in which to bathe each new problem 
 in manifold lights ; and as the various activities of the human 
 mind are intimately connected, sciences repay to literature in its 
 analysis the debt of inspiration by which its own infant energies 
 were first awakened to consciousness and exercise. 
 
 I cannot justify these observations by their novelty. The 
 Le mine not Same things have been said before and with all the 
 a mere source requisite effects. The worth and dignity of scien- 
 ofv^^f- tific pursuits in not in itself any longer a subject 
 
 of controversy. My purpose has been rather to call the attention 
 of my younger hearers to the spirit in which those of them who 
 are choosing a career based on science ought to prepare for it and 
 to pursue it. It should not be looked on as a mere source of pelf. 
 Their best energies should not be solely concentrated on what 
 pays best. Gain and getting on are not to be disdained ; the 
 effort to win them calls forth in many men resources of energy 
 
186 University of Bombay. 
 
 and skill and patience wliicli improve their moral being all through 
 life ; it brings men, too, into contact with actual, inexorable facts, 
 and so adds effectively to their knowledge of the world in which 
 they are placed and of their own relations to it. But what I wish 
 to insist on is this, that no man of science should allow his pursuits 
 and aims to descend to the level of mere unmitigated money- 
 getting; still less, if possible, should he be satisfied with a rule- 
 of-thumb performance of mere journey-work. In the practice of 
 his profession, if he has one, he should preserve a habit of refer- 
 ring details to general principles and of testing principles by 
 details. He should establish link after link of connexion between 
 those ideas which lie at the basis of his own craft, or his own line 
 of investigation, and the general mass and movement of human 
 thought. Thus from technical accomplishment he may advance 
 to a true philosophy of his subject, and add his contribution to 
 the final adjustment of human thoughts and human life to the 
 realities of things. 
 
 A contrast very dishonouring to science and to studies 
 such as this University favours is sometimes drawn 
 The practical between what is called the practical man and the 
 V8^ eore ica theoretical man. I trust none of our students will 
 ever allow themselves to be drawn away by shallow 
 criticism of this kind from an earnest pursuit of sound theory. It 
 is this which must lie at the basis of a really competent practice. 
 That eminent man of science, Sir W. G-rove, has vigorously de- 
 nounced the exaltation of the purely practical man as he is called. 
 If there be one species of cant more destestable than another, it 
 is that which eulogises what is called the practical man as con- 
 tradistinguished from the scientific. If by practical man is meant 
 one who, having a mind well stored with scientific and general 
 information, has his knowledge chastened andhis theoretic temer- 
 ity subdued by varied experience, nothing can be better ; but 
 if, as is commonly meant by the phrase, a practical man means 
 one whose knowledge is derived from habits or traditional system, 
 such a man has no resources to meet unusual circumstances ; such 
 a man has no plasticity ; he kills a man according to rule, and 
 consoles himself, like Moliere^s doctor, by the reflection that ' a 
 dead man is only a dead man, but that a deviation from received 
 practice is an injury to the whole profession.' If a profession is 
 to be advanced in usefulness, dignity and public appreciation, 
 it must be nurtured by fresh and stimulating thought. Im- 
 mobility is in these days a comparative retrogression, and the 
 gentlemen who, after a training in science, betake themselves 
 to one of the professional courses will, I trust, recognize and 
 
lS82.--Mr. Justice West. 137 
 
 keep hold on tlio means of making their careers not only 
 immediately useful, but a source of self-culture, of permanent 
 improvement to science, and of blessing to mankind. 
 
 An obstacle of a serious kind to the adoption of a scientific 
 course arises from the defective elementary teach- 
 Ob^servitlon. ""^ i^g of the schools. The faculty of observation is 
 hardly at all cultivated, and a student beginning 
 to work at science in a college has still to master the rudi- 
 mentary notions which ought to have been familiar to him 
 from early childhood. Steps have lately been taken, I under- 
 stand, to improve the means and appliances in the Government 
 schools for teaching rudimentary mechanics, but the teachers 
 themselves need teaching how to teach. They need still more 
 a living interest in the facts of outward nature. Where this 
 exists, the common incidents of every-day life can be made 
 the basis of an humble, but really useful, scientific teaching ; 
 the faculties can be trained to quick and accurate instead of 
 hazy and defective perceptions; and reasoning on the right 
 way of doing a great many familiar acts opens the way to an 
 habitual estimation of forces and relations, an habitual reduc- 
 tion of new cases under known principles, which as far as 
 it goes is a scientific turn of mind. Much, it is obvious, may 
 be done, as much remains to be done in this direction. The 
 gathered inertia of centuries has to be overcome. But, now 
 that a start has been made, I trust that Indian students will 
 take a forward and honourable place in the ranks of scientific 
 learners and even of original investigators. India presents in 
 many ways an inviting field for scientific research in which home- 
 born seekers after truth must have a great advantage over 
 foreigners. Some men there ar^ already amongst us who with- 
 out the advantages — too slender as these are — which the colleges 
 now afford, have gained distinction in the field of natural science, 
 and who in converse with nature enjoy a serenity of mind which is 
 the chief element of happiness. If we turn our thoughts to such a 
 man as our illustrious Darwin, or to many a one less eminent than 
 he, we cannot but recognize the superiority to conventions and 
 external circumstances which Lucretius has celebrated as the 
 highest fruit of knowledge. This fruit is equally accessible to 
 any student of those whom I see about me if he will but rise to 
 the true level of his calling and follow his great masters not only 
 in their assiduity of toil but in their moral elevation, and their 
 ardent readiness to welcome and diffuse the truth. 
 
 Now, gentlemen of the younger generation, as I have dwelt 
 18 
 
188 Umversity of Bombay. 
 
 so long on science as an instrument of culture, you would not 
 readily forgive me if I enlarged still further on tlie 
 er^ tea^g!" special advantages of a literary training. The 
 subject is an interesting one, and there are, as I 
 think, many misconceptions about it which it would be worth 
 while to investigate. I may perhaps find some occasion for laying 
 my views on this topic before the University, but let it suffice for 
 the present to point out with what admirable precision literature 
 is taught ; that its contents are the best products of the most gift- 
 ed minds ; that it is everywhere concerned with the acts and the 
 emotions that are distinctively human ; that it has largely formed 
 the character of the society we have to join ; and that of necessity 
 it is greatly supplemented by the experience of ordinary life. 
 Here, surely, are the elements of a training which, mixed with 
 active exercise in what is acquired, goes to form a real education, 
 one in which high faculties are trained to high perfection, and the 
 heart is enriched as well as the head. But literature is more than 
 this. Some of you remember Macaulay's touching lines after his 
 defeat at Edinburgh. The Queen of learning and meditation visits 
 her votary in a dream and tells him of all she will bestow which 
 no envy of fortune and no folly of the crowd can take away. 
 She was the comforter of Bacon in disgrace, of Clarendon in 
 sickness, of Raleigh in his lonely cell. She 
 
 "liglited Milton's darkness with the blaze 
 " Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne." 
 
 To you if you will be her disciples, she will be as to him, a 
 helpful friend, a faithful mistress, and a bounteous queen. Be 
 not, however, like that would-be Christian of the early time who 
 would not put away his wealth for his convictions. Our blessings 
 have their price, and learning sheds her choicest boons only on 
 him who offers the purest sacrifice. Sordid arts and the astute- 
 ness of low practice will in most cases serve your worldly pur- 
 poses better; but seeking fortune in this fashion you make 
 learning a mean drudge instead of an honoured companion, and 
 her divinity perishes in a servile air. Reject base ways, and in 
 good fortune or in bad she will pour treasures of joy or consola- 
 tion into your lap. You may then truly — 
 
 "With an unforced smile, 
 
 " See riches, baubles, flatterers pass away." 
 
 And having made your mastery of your calling secure b^ond 
 cavil, you may enjoy your slender gains in a companionship and 
 with a spirit which any Croesus might envy. Take your love for 
 literature with you through life. There will be dark hours when 
 you will need it, and, fortune favouring, there will be bright ones 
 to which it alone can give the chastened lustre of dignity of 
 
1882.— jifr. Justice West. 139 
 
 thought, of taste, and of refinement. Now, do not suppose, 
 young graduates, that I have propounded any Utopian scheme 
 or invited you to a task beyond human capacity. You are called 
 
 on for no resignation, no submission to the higher 
 quer"ate*^ °°°" P^wers, but what some good men and many 
 
 gentle women practice every day. Nor am I an 
 apostle of mere quietism. The certainty of resources and con- 
 solations in reserve ought indeed to give you boldness and 
 pertinacity in action. It is no part of the scheme of Provi- 
 dence that we should feebly bow to fate, whimpering at our ill 
 luck instead of striving to conquer it. Your science, your 
 literature, should be a source then of energy as well as for- 
 titude. They should enricli your action as well as your thought, 
 and everywhere teacb you the lesson of modest faith and 
 perseverance, You must all have learned in your several lines 
 of study the immense value of sustained and vivid attention. You 
 must have come to appreciate the task which he undertakes 
 who resolves to be even a faithful learner, mucb more a teacher 
 of any important branch of human knowledge. You have found 
 that clever as you were in the circle of your relatives, in the 
 class of your school, or the quarter of your town, there were 
 many other boys growing up at the same time at least as 
 clever as yourselves and forming a crowd of competitors com- 
 pared with the few places of fame and of emolument available 
 as the meed of intellectual distinction. This, too, you must 
 have learned^ that toil and tenacity of purpose exercised in any 
 field for which you are not unfitted by positive defects achieve 
 in the long run far more than the desultory efforts even of a 
 brilliant ability. Our Maker, as Burke says, has imposed 
 nothing on us as a duty which it is beyond our capacity to do 
 or to know. What is obligatory is feasible, and in the develop- 
 ment of every science we find its leading principles reduced by 
 degrees to simple propositions within the grasp of the ordinary 
 intellect, as though to favour the greatest number with an in- 
 creasing insight into the mysteries of matter and of mind. 
 There is always something great attainable, yet always some- 
 thing as great in reserve. So the education of the human race 
 is planned — the humblest in ability takes his share in it, and, 
 as things are arranged, a suiB&cient share if he but modestly 
 acknowledges his need and accepts a low place at the banquet 
 to which all are invited. For some of you the words ^^ Friend, 
 come up higher" will in due time sound : be patient and await 
 the summons. Have fortitude even to await it in vain. Your 
 labours are not therefore thrown away. Knowledge and the 
 sense of duty done bear in themselves their own reward ; and 
 
140 University of Bombay,. 
 
 you have in some sort reaped the fruits of others' toil dedicated 
 for centuries to the glory of the Creator and the relief of man^s 
 estate. The teachers under whom you have studied have been the 
 interpreters between the world and you of what would else have 
 been a mere confusion of tongues or a chaos of unrelated facts. 
 
 You must have seen by what small accretions of know- 
 ledge the way has been prepared for the greatest 
 Graduates °^ triumphs of human genius. On you it devolves 
 in turn to be the interpreters to your countrymen 
 of the European learning and moral energy by which their 
 national being may be renovated » On you it devolves to repay 
 your debt to learning by adding some gain of observation or of 
 thought to its expanding store. If you cannot discover you can 
 verify; if you cannot originate '^ the thoughts that breathe and 
 words that burn/^ you can illustrate them ; you can enforce 
 them ; and in this Eastern land, the ancient nursery of Civiliza- 
 tion, you can help to form the intellectual soil from which new 
 growths of wisdom, happiness and beauty are to spring up in 
 the time to come. 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Sir James Feegusson, Bart., K.C.M.G., CLE.) 
 
 Mr. Vice-Ohancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — It would 
 have been impossible, I presume, that the report, necessarily 
 voluminous, could have been heard by this great audience, but 
 I hope that its circulation will place in all your hands the infor- 
 mation conveyed. Yet there are some features in it to which I 
 cannot but call your attention, though, on this occasion, more 
 briefly than I could have desired. The history of this University 
 now extends over a quarter of a century, and it is not to be 
 expected that in each successive year there shall be changes and 
 marks of progress so considerable as to call for specid^l mention. 
 
 The year which has jiist closed has, on the whole, been un- 
 eventful ; but the progress of the University has been continuous, 
 although no such great change has taken place as to make, it 
 memorable in our annals. In the report which has been present- 
 ed, it is stated' that the examinations have been generally satis- 
 factory, particularly in the division of the chapter of Arts, in 
 which there has been a marked increase in numbers. I note 
 that whereas in 1879 there were 97 candidates for the B.A. 
 Degree, of whom only 51 passed; in 1880, 100 candidates, of 
 whom 34 passed ; in 1881, 125 candidates, of whom 36 passed — 
 
1883.— iSir James Fergusson. 141 
 
 a proportion certainly not satisfactory ; in the present year, for 
 tlie first time under the system of separating the examinations 
 into two divisions, the result has been that at the first exami- 
 nation 53 of the 120 candidates passed, and at the second 
 examination 23 of the 34 candidates passed. 
 
 I notice also that of the 15 candidates presented by the 
 Elphinstone College, 13 passed. With reference 
 Resultsof the ^^ ^^le lower examinations, we must again observe, 
 as was done in past years, that the results of the 
 Matriculation and Previous Examinations have been very un- 
 satisfactory. The percentage of success in three years succes- 
 sively has been only 34, 28 and 36 for Matriculation, and for 
 Previous Examinations 42, 25 and 38. This point, perhaps, 
 is one more for the consideration of the schools which send 
 candidates up, than for the University, but it cannot be a 
 matter of indifference to those that wish well to the system 
 that so large a proportion of candidates should be insufficiently 
 prepared. We have to examine whether there be anything in 
 the system that is at fault, and whether a too high standard be 
 exacted. But while so large a proportion of failures would 
 lead some to think the standard is too high, we know the Princi- 
 pals of the Elphinstone and Deccan Colleges have represented 
 that the candidates are not sufficiently advanced in English to 
 enable them to take tJie full benefit of the instruction given 
 l^em ; and when we observe that in some institutions the pro- 
 portion passed is very large, it is evident that either the system 
 of teaching in those institutions is better than in the generality, 
 or they exercise a more wholesome discretion in the selection of 
 candidates for presentation. Thus I find that whereas in the 
 Elphinstone High School only 54 passed of 108 presented, at 
 St. Mary's Institution, Bombay, 21 passed of 26 presented, at 
 the New English School, Poona, 18 passed out of 22 presented, 
 at the Rajaram High School, Kolhapur, 17 out of 22 passed. 
 The number is small from the Bishop's High School at Poona, 
 but 5 passed out of 6; from the Cathedral High School, also 5 
 out of 6j and from the Victoria High School, Poona, 3 were 
 presented and 3 passed. I would call the attention of the Senate 
 to a remarkable feature in the total percentage. Whereas out 
 of 1,600 candidates 572 passed, it must be remembered that 
 1,051 candidates came from 65 different schools and 549 came 
 from private tuition; the total percentage, taking the whole 
 number of passes as compared with presentations, being in 1 in 
 2 '79. Of candidates from schools alone 1 passed in every 2*09, 
 which is nearly the proportion maintained in the Elphinstone 
 
142 XJniversity of Bombay, 
 
 High School j but of the candidates that came up from private 
 tuition only 1 in 8 passed. That shows, in the first place, an 
 inferiority of instruction under private tuition, and a want of 
 discrimination in the selection of candidates. I think that, on 
 the whole, it may be fairly concluded that the standard is too 
 high and that what my learned friend, the Vice-Chancellor, last 
 year described as " more rigorous kindness " is required. It has 
 been argued by some that as the passing of the Matriculation 
 Examination is taken as a test for Government employment, 
 this examination might be separated from the University, and 
 that governing bodies of Colleges might themselves be permitted 
 to exact a test of the efiiciency of their institutions. But I must 
 say it seems to me that Matriculation would lose the reason of its 
 being if it were not the primary test for entrance to the Univer- 
 sity. To lower the standard for any collateral purposes would 
 generally reduce the status of the University, and would be a 
 departure from that beneficial principle of a high standard of 
 preliminary competency laid down and steadily maintained. 
 Again, I have seen it stated that the reason of the failure of so 
 many Native youths is that the system of education is too exclu- 
 sively European. Now, were that so, it would indeed be a great 
 misfortune j for the purpose of this University is not to discard 
 the study of Native languages, but is rather directed to revive 
 the interest of the students of India in their own antiquities, and 
 at the same time to induce them to assimilate the culture of the 
 West. English is necessarily an obligatory language for admission 
 to the University, but the classical languages of the East — San- 
 skrit, Persian, &c. — occupy an equal place with English, which is 
 of course the common medium of instruction in our colleges. It 
 might be well if a different examination could be made a.pplicable 
 for admission to the subordinate Government service, without 
 involving the whole Matriculation standard ; and indeed to my 
 mind there is much to be said in favour of such a change, inas- 
 much as the knowledge of English is not necessary for many of 
 the subordinate employments in the public service. The Uni- 
 versity degree has wisely been made a leading qualification for 
 appointment as subordinate judges and some others ; but it is by 
 no means a fact that degrees are only made use of for that pur- 
 pose — in fact, of those who have taken degrees in this University 
 since 1870 only about 43 per cent, are in the ranks of the Govern- 
 ment service, or 296 out of a total number of 704 persons. It is 
 true that there are also about 83 in the service of Native States, 
 but there remain 290 others who are in other walks of life. I 
 read with great interest the remarks made by our late valued 
 Chief Justice when he traced the progress and improvements 
 
1883. — Sir James l^ergusson, 143 
 
 of the Native Bar during the long period of his services in 
 this country in a great degree to the teaching given in the 
 Blphinstone High School and the University of Bombay. It 
 was, he said, the education given in these and other local 
 institutions that had conduced chiefly to those results. As 
 regards the failure in Previous Examinations, that is a matter 
 for the colleges, and they will doubtless give it adequate consi- 
 deration. I have to remark that the professonial examinations 
 have maintained their usual standard, and it is a matter for 
 congratulation that the percentage of success in law is this year 
 as high in numbers as that in medicine and civil engineering, 
 although it has hitherto been lower, presumably owing to less 
 perfect arrangements for teaching. I must refer, as I did two 
 years ago, to the comparative failure of the provisions for 
 teaching science. In 1879, on the motion of Sir Richard Tem- 
 ple, the University established a new degree for science and 
 prescribed a complete course for that branch of study, physical 
 and experimental. The results of the steps then taken have 
 been disappointing, and this, I think, leads to the deduction that 
 for the pursuit of this most valuable course the same assistance is 
 wanted which proved so valuable in other branches ; we must 
 look to private benefactions for the means of study for poor 
 students, and of a sufficient teaching staff. In other branches the 
 liberality shown has been great, but much in this direction 
 remains to be done. Only in one year in the history of the 
 University has there been no addition to its endowments to be 
 announced on this annual occasion. This year I 
 Liberality of have some additions to make known, which testify 
 
 Bombay!^"" ""^ ^^1?^^ ^^ *^® P^^^i^ spirit and liberality of the 
 citizens of Bombay. We have received from the 
 Naegaumvala family an endowment of Rs. 3,000 for an annual 
 prize for Civil Engineering. Mr. Yarjivandas Madhavadas, a 
 Justice of the Peace for the City and a Fellow of the Uni- 
 versity, has given Rs. 6,000 for a scholarship open to candidates 
 passing the B. A. degree highest in Sanskrit. Rs. 6,000 have been 
 subscribed at Bare da for a scholarship in memory of Mr. Philip 
 Melvill. And, gentlemen, I am most happy to announce that the 
 Muhammedan National Association has promised and has paid 
 the sum of Rs. 13,630 for the foundation of three scholarships, 
 to be called the Sir Frank Souter Scholarships, and to be held 
 severally for Matriculation, Previous, and B.A. Examinations. 
 Further, in the last few days it has been announced that an 
 Ashburner Scholarship is to be founded in memory of our friend 
 who has just left us. That is as satisfactory to us as it is honour- 
 ble to the donors. Before closing I cannot but make on^ or two 
 
144 University of Bombay* 
 
 suggestions which I think must conduce not only to the advan- 
 tage of this University, but to the advantage of the Universities 
 all over India. All three Universities, Calcutta, Madras and 
 Bombay, were instituted by simultaneous Legislative Acts in 
 1857. They have worked on their own system with little inter- 
 ference from above and with perfect mutual independence. 
 Some differences in their system are due to local peculiarities, 
 and such must ever be the case ; but I cannot but think that it 
 would be well for all were occasional conferences and discussions 
 to be held. One instance of assimilation I will mention which 
 can give no offence. It has been stated to me that in this last 
 year, for the first time, this University has removed the restric- 
 tions as to admission before the age of 16, whereas in Madras 
 that restriction has never obtained, and was removed in Cal- 
 cutta some years since. Certainly, if it is right to do this 
 in 1882 it might have been done with advantage in earlier 
 years, and possibly it would, had there been such consul- 
 tations as I have spoken of. I would remind you that great good 
 has been done in the public schools in England by the annual 
 conferences of head-masters, and thus, besides a friendly rivalry 
 which takes place between those ancient institutions, an useful 
 co-operation has also been the result. It would be better indeed 
 that any changes and improvements in such an institution as 
 this should take place frpm voluntary action and co-operation, 
 rather than from any pressure from without. The consideration 
 of University teaching is expressly excluded from the order of 
 reference to the Education Commission. It may be that on 
 some collateral points information has been given on the Univer- 
 sity course, but I think it impossible that recommendations 
 could be made with regard to us by a body in which we are not 
 
 represented. In the history of this University we 
 
 Native mem- look back with just pride to the moderation which 
 
 Seiate.*^ ^ ^^s ever been present in its councils and the 
 
 friendly harmony and agreement which have 
 always prevailed between the members of the governing body, 
 of whatever denomination or sect. It would not be dijBficult, 
 were such moderation not shown, for the Native members to 
 outvote the European. At this moment I believe the number 
 is as nearly as possible equal, but as the Europeans pass from 
 this country, while the Natives remain, I think it highly probable 
 that in future years the Natives will be in a majority. But there 
 never, I am told, has been a question on which the Senate has 
 been divided in which Europeans and Natives have not been 
 found on either side in nearly equal proportions, nor has there 
 been any division attributable to nationality or race. Such a 
 
1883.— iS^iV James Fergusson, 145 
 
 condition of things is not only in itself a reason for just pride, 
 but it augurs well for that system of local self-government which 
 we are about to see among us so largely developed. There is 
 one subject more upon which I would toucli but lightly, but it 
 is one, to my mind, so important that I cannot lose the opportu- 
 nity I now possess of referring to it. We have 
 t u^ti^'^ ^^' ^^®^ discussions, and I think we must many times 
 have heard conversations, on the degree in which, 
 not dogmatic professions, but the religious element, can be fairly 
 introduced in the teaching of the University and Government 
 schools. The absolute neutrality of the Government on such, sub- 
 jects is too well established to be a matter of question, and lamnot 
 aware that any have demurred to that wholesome principle, or 
 held that any demoralisation was likely to accrue from the secular 
 character of the teaching. But the question has arisen whether 
 the teaching may not only be secular but anti-religious ; whether 
 or not it be a breach of neutrality that instruction be given on lines 
 which militate against all religion, disregarding all appeals to those 
 higher principles having their oi;igin in the supernatural and actu- 
 ating all religious organizations. In Calcutta and here com- 
 plaints of teaching said to bQ of that character have been made by 
 the Natives of India. I cannot but refer to the public declaration 
 made in a periodical, the recognized organ of an important section 
 of the Native community^in that direction. This is what I have to 
 say upon the subject — that I hold it to be as great a breach of neu- 
 trality to teach in opposition to religion, as to import into profes- 
 sorial teaching any dogmatic religious principle whatever. That 
 I certainly think would be a matter in which Government would be 
 bound to interfere; but it would be going as far wrong in the other 
 direction were anti-religious teaching to be given, and I believe 
 that nothing would be more distasteful to the Natives of the 
 country. I have observed suggestions of the utmost liberality made 
 by the heads of the Roman Catholic Church in regard to a possible 
 common system of inculcating morality and virtue. That may not 
 be found possible ; bnt I hope that never, under the auspices of 
 the British Government, will there be sanctioned or tolerated 
 teaching which is opposed to those supernatural beliefs which 
 actuate all religious organizations, and which give to morality the 
 support of the reliance on a higher power, and the encouragement 
 of immortal hopes. We have reason, gentlemen, to congratulate 
 you, and the community which is proud of you, on the continued 
 success of this great institution ; and I earnestly hope that it will 
 continue to call forth liberality on the part of the citizens, and train 
 up thousands to be honoured subjects of the Queen and useful 
 members of the community to which they belong. 
 
146 University of Bombay. 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. E. Sir James Feegtjsson, Bart., K.C.M.G-., CLE.) 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — ^At this 
 great annual gathering, which marks another year that has 
 passed in the history of this University, it is most gratifying to 
 admit to the degrees and licence so many young men who to-day 
 receive the reward of their industry and their self-denial, and I 
 trust they will advance to-day another step in their career with 
 higher hopes and increased aspirations to public usefulness. I 
 trust that the interest — the enduring and increasing interest — 
 which is taken in these annual meetings, will tend fco increase 
 in their minds the importance of a University degree, seeing that 
 it is the hall-mark of their scholarship, and that it not only 
 qualifies them for admission to the highest employment open to 
 their ranks in this country, but will so stimulate them, I trust, 
 to rise still higher in the career which they have chosen for 
 themselves. I need not, I hope, caution them against supposing 
 that the success which has so far attended their efforts is all that 
 they ought to aspire to. Too many suppose that the knowledge 
 which they have gained entitles them to criticise and dogmatise ; 
 true knowledge should always be modest, because, as the 
 searcher proceeds, he sees how much there remains behind to 
 attain. It should stimulate the modest and thoughtful mind 
 rather to diffidence than to self-confidence. I hope that the 
 idea, which some years ago was deprecated, of the right of those 
 who attain to degrees in the University to public State employ- 
 ment is fast disappearing. It would be, indeed, unfortunate if 
 neither learning was loved for itself or its possession was held to 
 render a humble occupation unworthy of the holder. In the 
 countries where learning has been most widely diffused — take, for 
 instance, the Kingdom of Prussia, it is thought by no means 
 derogatory for those who obtain successes in the Universities to 
 pursue humble callings. Not only should knowledge respect 
 labour, but it should seek to produce increased discoveries for 
 the benefit of its profession and of mankind. Gentlemen, the 
 year has not been an eventful one in the sense of any extraordi- 
 nary occurrence in the history of this University. We have 
 pursued the even tenour of our way without any vei-y extraordi- 
 nary event having marked the year 1883 ; but yet we can con- 
 gratulate ourselves on the increased numbers of those who have 
 offered themselves for the Matriculation Examination, and the 
 increased proportion of those who have been successful is shown 
 by the larger number of those who have attended to take 
 
1884. — Sir Ja/nies Fergusson. 147 
 
 degrees, whereby I am sorry to say the seats provided for the 
 graduates have proved insufficient. But, gentlemen, in the his- 
 tory of a University we cannot always look for startling events. 
 We must be contented in this, as in other phases of our career, 
 to lay one more stone of the edifice which we hope to raise to 
 solid and enduring usefulness. It is thus that in the little span 
 of our lives, which seems to us important, but which is soon for- 
 gotten by our fellow-men, we must be satisfied that we have 
 maintained the standard of the past and contributed something 
 little to the cause in which we are all interested. On this great 
 annual occasion I should do wrong if I forgot the memory of one 
 who was well known to us, but a few days since 
 John^A^nlott^ passed away. I refer to the Honorable John- 
 Marriott, who on several occasions had filled an 
 important office in this University. That one so eminent in 
 his profession, so entirely respected in his private life, enjoying 
 the regard of so many, should in the full enjoyment of his 
 intellect have passed away from us with startling suddenness, 
 is an event which must cause us regret and sorrow. But, 
 gentlemen, it must be a satisfaction to us to know that his 
 memory will be cherished amongst us. He was one who raised 
 himself from the threshold of his profession to the front by his 
 own industry, and one against whose memory no man can cast 
 a stone. ^ 
 
 Then, too, gentlemen, during the past year we have had to 
 s h 1 hi congratulate ourselves on fresh contributions to the 
 ps. jj^Qg^jjg Qf reward to our diligent students. The 
 four fresh scholarships which have been announced to-day testify 
 to the public spirit of our citizens and to the interest which they 
 take in this useful institution. I am sure no more pleasing 
 tribute can be paid to the memory of past members of the 
 Service who have gone from us than that their names should be 
 perpetuated by the encouragement of academical distinctions in 
 those branches in which they themselves took an interest. 
 
 It is indeed to me a matter of congratulation that the most 
 Admission of important step has been taken of admitting women 
 women to public to public examination. There are many steps that 
 examinations. ^^^ have to be taken before they will have the full 
 benefit of the University. They cannot yet, for example, with- 
 out proceedings being taken by Government, be admitted to 
 the enjoyment of our colleges, and no doubt many matters will 
 have to be considered before such a step can be taken ; but I 
 do not think that the warmest advocate of female education 
 can object to one step being taken at a time ; and it is well that 
 
148 University of Bombay, 
 
 ladies should, I trust, present themselves in no small numbers at 
 first and show their capacity for these examinations. Gentlemen, 
 for myself I can see no ground why women should be excluded 
 from the educational advantages which are extended to men. 
 I will not insult the female good sense by wishing that they 
 should be placed in all respects on an equality with men. They 
 have their career — and a very high career of duty it is — which 
 must always be entirely distinct from ours, but their intellects 
 are as acute, their power of assimilating knowledge as great, 
 and means of usefulness open to them by the acquisition of 
 knowledge not inferior to those of men. In all countries the 
 education and development of the female character must rest 
 with female teachers. It may be that instruction in arts and 
 sciences can best be conferred by men, but the formation of 
 character must always rest with female teachers. How can 
 female teachers be qualified to a due extent if they have not 
 educational advantages open to them ? Therefore I cannot see 
 myself why the whole benefit of an University should not be 
 extended to women ; but in this country, until society greatly 
 changes, we cannot hope — we cannot expect if we do hope — that 
 women expect in their young years, can be present at mixed 
 places of education. The education which they must receive after 
 years of childhood, and many of them who have not had any edu- 
 cational advantages in childhood at all, must be derived, if at 
 all, from female instructors. Therefore, I say in this country it 
 is peculiarly advantageous that female education should be 
 encouraged to the utmost extent ; and that no advantages which 
 this society can offer, should be denied to women, I have some- 
 times thought *hat we may be rash in judging what may be best 
 for races and people and religions so different from our own as are 
 those in this country : but I cannot be wrong in thinking that as 
 we in old time derived all our knowledge and civilization from 
 the East, so we should bring to the East and offer as a debt of 
 gratitude the fruits of that which we derived from them; The 
 result must be in the hands of your own people ; and we must 
 look to the leaders of society that what we think reforms shall 
 have their support to be judiciously carried out. No greater 
 bond can exist between the Natives of this country and their 
 foreign rulers than the common desire for their future advantage. 
 Gentlemen, finally, the Supreme Government have empowered 
 this University, with those of Calcutta and Madras, to confer 
 honorary degrees. This power will enable the University to 
 reward merit in many quarters in which at present no recognition 
 is possible. It will, I doubt not, be exercised with discretion 
 and reserve, for, as in the case of fellowship, the value of such 
 
1884.-— ilfr. JusHce West ' 149 
 
 • 
 
 degrees depends upon their judicious distribution. With regard 
 to fellowships, I may say that it is a matter as much of regret 
 as it is a bounden duty to Government to confer that honor only 
 in the case of academical and literary distinction^ while a degree 
 may be not inaptly given in recognition of service which would 
 not qualify for a fellowship. I thought when I rose that I had 
 little to say, and that my observations would not be long, yet 
 there is one more consideration I would offer, which I trust will 
 not be out of place, and which I cannot reconcile to myself to 
 omit. In the year 1883 the country has been greatly distracted 
 The nibert ^^ political strife. Animosities have been ex- 
 Bill Contro- cited, as they must always be excited by a political 
 ^®^^y- difference, which has been greater than we can 
 
 remember for many years. The University has the privilege 
 of sitting high above the waves of faction. Those — and there 
 may be some amongst us — who have taken part in the controversy 
 of the past year never ought to carry it into their academical 
 life. What occurs to me, gentlemen, is this. We have in 
 such an institution as this a healing element which may go 
 far to soothe the difficulties which political controversy has 
 raised, because in this Senate sit men of different races and 
 countries, actuated simply by the one common desire, to benefit 
 the people of this country of whatever races in one and the same 
 way. With us there is only that (iesire to impart to them to the 
 utmost the knowledge which we ourselves prize, and this consider- 
 ation, which seems to me to rise to the highest stage of Catholicism, 
 must, I think, so heal dissensions that they will endure but for a 
 day and in a few years be forgotten. Gentlemen, I trust that this 
 is one of those institutions, which will bring home to the people of 
 this country the true and deeply-seated desire of England to use 
 her great mission in this country for the highest benefit of India ; 
 and that it may be seen that Englishmen, and Muhammadan, and 
 Hindu, and Parsi may sit on the same benches to co-operate, not 
 only without jealousy^ but with one motive and aspiration, — the 
 advantage of our fellow countrymen. 
 
 THE FIRST SPECIAL CONVOCATION. 
 
 A Special Convocation of the Bombay University was held 
 on the 18th December 1884, to confer the Honorary Degree of 
 LL.D. on the Marquis of Ripon. Sir James Fergusson, Bart., 
 K.c.M.G,, C.I.E., Governor and Chancellor, was present. The Honor- 
 able Mr. Justice West, the Vice- Chancellor, said :— 
 
 Gentlemen, — By an Act of the Indian Legislature, No. 1 
 of 1884, this University has been vested with the power of 
 
»l56 tJniversity of Bombay, 
 
 conferring the honorary degree of LL.D. on any person who by 
 reason of eminent position and attainments is a fit and proper 
 person to receive such a degree. In accordance with the pro- 
 visions of this Act the name of His Excellency the Most Moble 
 the Marquis of Kipon has been brought before the Syndicate and 
 Senate, and it has been voted unanimously that this degree be 
 conferred upon the retiring Viceroy. Now, Mr. Chancellor, 
 although it might be superfluous on the present occasion and in 
 the present instance to enumerate the special reasons for which 
 the bestowal of this degree is specially appropriate, yet this is 
 the first occasion on which this degree is to be conferred ; and 
 the Syndicate of this University felt, as you yourself, Mr. 
 Chancellor, also must feel, that we should be cautious and exact 
 in setting up a precedent of what is to be done and what is to be 
 provided before aught is done in relation to the conferring of 
 honorary degrees in future. We are bound to establish well, in 
 the light of day and in. the face of the public, the right of every 
 recipient of such a distinction — the recipient ought to stand forth 
 as a representative either of learning, which will give illustration 
 to this institution, or else as on^ distinguished for eminent public 
 services which make us proud of him who receiving our humble 
 honor thus associates himself with us. 
 
 For this reason, therefore, the duty has been assigned to 
 me, unequal as I feel to the function, of stating as I can to you, 
 Mr. Chancellor, the particular public services which the illustri- 
 ous gentleman, who has to receive the degree of Doctor of Laws 
 to-day, has performed to entitle him to that distinction and to 
 make us anxious to have him associated with us as a member of 
 this University. 
 
 The Marquis of Ripon began his'public services by entering 
 
 Parliament at an early age in the year 1852. He 
 
 The Marquis succeeded to his Peerage in 1859 and was immedi- 
 
 lic career! ^^ " ately afterwards made Under-Secretary for War, 
 
 In 1861 he became Under-Secretary of State for 
 
 India, and so commenced that association with this country 
 
 and its interests which has been of such manifold advantages to 
 
 all the inhabitants of India. In 1863 he became Secretary of 
 
 State for War with a seat in the Cabinet. In 1866 he returned 
 
 again to the care of the interest of India in a still higher 
 
 position as Secretary of State for India. In 1868, and from that 
 
 time till 1873, he was Lord President of the Council. During 
 
 that period, I need hardly remind any of my English hearers, 
 
 that great measure was passed under the care of Mr. Forster 
 
 which has made a revolution in the educational condition of 
 
1884.— Mr. Justice West. 161 
 
 England, and will probably be looked back upon in the ages to 
 come as constituting one of the great eras in our history. 
 Certainly we may look forward with hope and confidence seeing 
 what education has done for Scotland and Germany, and con- 
 sidering the extraordinary advances made in England, as every 
 one revisiting the country must have noticed, during the last 
 twelve or fourteen years in the education and intelligence of the 
 people. We cannot but bless the name of one who has brought 
 such manifold blessings upon our Native land. Now this work 
 was carried on very much under the care and guidance of Lord 
 Ripon, who was at that time Lord President of the Council which 
 had the controlling power and direction over the work of educa- 
 tion in England. In 1869 his Lordship was made a Knight of 
 the Garter and in 1870 he received the degree of Doctor of 
 Civil Laws at Oxford. 
 
 In the period during which Lord Ripon was President of the 
 Council, a serious question arose between England 
 Lord Ripon and the United States, and it became necessary 
 of Vi'shington! to determine how that difference was to be settled, 
 and to place matters, if it could be done, upon 
 such a footing, as to remove all the motives of estrangement 
 which might exist between these two sister nations. For this 
 duty Lord Ripon was selected. He negociated or helped to 
 negociate as a member of the High Commission the Treaty of 
 Washington. It may be that some of us Englishmen think that 
 in the final event when the treaty having been completed, 
 active operations were transferred to Geneva and the Committee 
 of experts sitting there gave their decision in the international 
 cause, poor England came off second best. That may be ; but 
 let us remember that three or four millions to a great nation 
 was but the price of a fortnight or less than a fortnight of war. 
 By the Treaty of Washington was first established, and by the 
 subsequent proceedings effect was first given, on a large and 
 important scale to the great principle of settling international 
 differences by reference not to the arbitrament of war, but to 
 the decision of persons recognised as specially competent to 
 deal with the questions in issue. This idea of a universal peace 
 and of a council governing Europe in the interests of peace and 
 reducing its jarring elements to one great harmony originated 
 first in modern times in the mind of the great Statesman Sully, 
 and was adopted by Henry IV of France, his equally great 
 master. Our own sagacious Queen Elizabeth gave her adher- 
 ence to the scheme, but in the then existing state of Europe it 
 proved impracticable The conception was revived under 
 
152 University of Bombay. 
 
 Louis the XY by that prolific genius St. Pierre. He com- 
 raunicated his ideas to many of the Governments of Europe, 
 whose Statesmen, however, received them with but an academic 
 approval. Leibnitz, who wielded at that time an almost im- 
 perial sceptre in the world of thought, replied to the humbler 
 philosopher's claim for approval and support in a half-cheering 
 and yet half-jeering tone : '^ I trust, my good friend, you will 
 live to see your noble plans carried out," and to another friend 
 he wrote : ^' In one place I have seen the proclamation Pax per- 
 petua, but that was over a cemetery. Till people reach that last 
 retreat they still must go on fighting." Yet the plans and visions 
 of the philanthropic speculation though hitherto it has been found 
 impossible to give them any direct effect in the international 
 concerns of Europe, have not been fruitless, as great and humane 
 ideas seldom are fruitless. In several ways they have permeated 
 the minds of Statesmen and the miseries of wars which have 
 occurred in more recent times have been alleviated very much 
 by the ideas which were put forward by the thinkers of two 
 centuries or more ago. I feel certain that as he recollects the 
 events of his active life, when he approaches the end of his dis- 
 tinguished career. Lord Ripon will look back upon no part, no 
 transaction in this career with greater satisfaction than on 
 the part he took in the settling of the Treaty of Washington. For 
 many of his acts and much of his work he will occupy a distin- 
 guished place in the history of his country and of this great 
 dependency ; but with the Treaty of Washington he takes a high 
 and distinguished position, one never to be lost, in the history 
 of the progress of mankind. That progress, gentlemen, as we 
 must hope, must involve at no very distant stage a universal or 
 at any rate far more widely extended peace than has hitherto 
 been known. As a messenger of peace, as a negociator of a 
 great international arrangement, Lord Ripon may congratulate 
 himself on the position he has won in history. 
 
 With, these antecedents, and with these claims to public 
 fill. J- • respect and confidence. Lord Ripon accepted in 
 of IndiS" when 1880 the post of Viceroy in India. He landed 
 Lord BipoB land- here at the end of May 1880. You will all re- 
 ed m India, member who were here at that time, that it was 
 the end of a somewhat troubled and depressing period. We had 
 had during the preceding years a war which could hardly be 
 pronounced aught else but inglorious in spite of some brilliant 
 episodes. We had incurred a great increase of burdens conse- 
 quent on the war, and there was a generally spread feeling of 
 unrest and craving for some new departure in politics, some 
 
1884.— JIfr. Justice West. 163 
 
 relief from the burdens of war, some definite movement in the 
 direction of internal reform. To all who looked forward for 
 these advantages the advent of Lord Ripou was welcome. His 
 character and antecedents were such that the whole community- 
 joined in hailing his arrival. We looked to him who had 
 negociated peace with the great sister country of England across 
 the Atlantic, as one who would maintain peace in this country, 
 and that hope has never been disappointed. With a few most 
 insignificant exceptions peace has been preserved all through 
 the course of Lord Kipon^s administration, and with peace have 
 arisen the opportunities for all that progress and all those great 
 measures with which his name must be indissolubly associated. 
 The charm of H^w did he Set about the work he had to do ? 
 his personal in- He moved amongst the people, was facile of access, 
 fiuence. gentle and simple in demeanour, winning all hearts 
 
 by his suavity of manner : 
 
 ** Not with half disdain hid under grace, 
 Bat kindly man moving amongst his kind.** 
 
 Whoever came within the circle of his influence, was charmed 
 into communicativeness as when some kindly soul enters a 
 house and draws the children of that household towards him by 
 an irresistible attraction. They sidle up to him, whom they 
 find really interested in their child nature ; to him they reveal all 
 their little troubles. In six minutes he has won all their love^ 
 and all their trust, and thus has paved the way for impressions 
 which will extend all through their lives. Now such was the 
 position taken up by the distinguished Viceroy on his arrival in 
 this country ; and at every moment of this close converse with 
 the people with whom he was in communication he reaped the 
 advantage of that freedom of intercourse. His was not a nature 
 that needed disguising under any muddy wheel of mystery. 
 He could afford to stand forth in the bare simplicity of steadfast- 
 ness and sincerity before the eyes of the people he had come to 
 govern, and being known to be received by them for all in all, 
 or not at all. Thus he won their confidence, thus he gained 
 their hearts, and thus entered into the spirit of the people in 
 the way that best qualified him for the work he had to do. 
 
 Now there is a necessity for every man who enters in a 
 career such as that of a Viceroy of India, whether 
 L^d^ipwf ^^ -^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^® needs must frame some plan of 
 action, some theory of human affairs, and of the 
 affairs of the nation or the community whom he comes to rule, 
 unless his rule is to be misrule and the consequent confusion and 
 chaos. Such a theory, no doubt. Lord Kipon formed reposing 
 
154 University of Bombay, 
 
 on the communications to which. I have adverted. He found 
 India in one of those cntical stages which arise at times in every 
 nation when men's minds having become imbued vvith a new set 
 of ideas aud desires, certain changes in the spirit of the adminis- 
 tration are absolutely necessary, unless there is to be a decided 
 falling back in policy, and thence dissension leading on to strife. 
 There is a period in the progress of every community, in the 
 history of every government, when the rulers of the community 
 must adapt themselves to changed circumstances, to new and 
 enlarged views, for, if they do not, from the divergence of the 
 views of governors and subjects must surely spring in time a 
 total alienation. It is the part of a Statesman to anticipate any 
 such events. He must look back on history and consider such 
 periods as when Christianity invaded the Roman Empire and the 
 Government based on a too narrow set of conceptions found itself 
 unequal to the direction of the new moral forces that thus grew up 
 around it. That faith and that spiritual enlargement which might 
 have been the saving of the ancient civilisations were hence felt to 
 be a cause of enfeeblement and disintegration. Again, when the 
 spread of new learning in Europe gave to men's minds a fresh 
 stimulus and a first standpoint from which to survey the problems 
 of individual and social actions, the Governments, fast-rooted in 
 old prejudice, were blind to the portents that pressed on their 
 attention. The questions had to be settled in foreign and domestic 
 wars which provident Statesmanship would have averted. A 
 kind of half repose was gained by exhaustion until once more in 
 the last century an audacious literature, sapping the foundations 
 of the existing social structure, filled men's minds vvith new ques- 
 tions, with discontent and wild dreams of what miglit be effected 
 by better institutions. Once more the Statesmen lagged behind 
 tlie march of ideas and then the moral earthquake of the French 
 Revolution carried waste and desolation over the fairest fields 
 of Europe. These are examples which no doubt presented them- 
 selves to the mind of our distinguished Viceroy, and he felt that 
 everywhere and in every country the highest utility unites itself 
 with the highest benevolence, and that the lesson that philan- 
 thropy dictates is responded to by history and philosophy. 
 
 Such, then, were the principles with which our Viceroy 
 Beriew of entered on his active course. The whole of his 
 Lord Ripon's career has been a working out, a development of 
 Viceroyalty. those noble principles, and here to-day we come 
 to recognise both the principles themselves and their rich and 
 manifold fruits. I have stated that we have had peace, and 
 peace having been secured. Lord Ripon turned his attention 
 
1884.--irr, JunHce West, 165 
 
 immediately to a measure which the* public voice in India had 
 ah-eady cried out for in unmistakable tones. That was the 
 repeal of the Vernacular Press Act. Tnat Act, I believe, and we 
 all here believed from the beginning, was passed under a total 
 misconception of the necessity for it. It was opposed to the 
 spirit equally of Englishmen and of Natives, who have been 
 brought up not in vain to English ways and habits of thought. 
 It could not effectually be carried our, by an Engbsh administra- 
 tion and by English officers whose whole life and training had 
 been in a diflerent atmosphere. They could not deal with such 
 a measure without falling into contradictions and a constant 
 sense of a false position. It was abortive, and it was well got 
 rid of, in the opinion of the general public. Next let me refer 
 to the finnncial and fiscal measures. First, I will refer to that 
 which met with anything but universal approval, and specially 
 on the part of my Native fi'iends and associates, that is, the 
 abolition of a large portion of the import duties. I believe that 
 Lord Ripon and his Government in awlishing these import duties 
 were doing what was perfectly right in the interests of this 
 country and in the interests of England and of the world. But 
 whether that was so or not, the spirit in which Lord Ripon met 
 with such an opposition as he encountered on that occasion 
 showed him to be a man not to be deterred from what his 
 conscience bids him to do, by any outcry of the crowd. Next I 
 will mention the resolutions of his Government which go to 
 determine in a way more favorable to the cultivator and 
 the landowner, the calculation of the land revenue in times to 
 come. This subject has been treated by a very able and distin- 
 guished Native friend of mine, and it has some technicalities 
 about it which are not well fitted for discussion on an occasion of 
 this kind. I call attention only to the careful watchfulness with 
 which Lord Ripon's Government have set themselves to alleviate 
 the unnecessary burdens of the people. 
 
 But, then, comes a measure of greater importance for 
 the future than one of revenue. Lord Ripon, as Lord President 
 of the Council, had had the educational department in England 
 under his charge, and one of the greatest measures of his 
 Viceroyalty will doubtless be commemorated in the future as 
 the institution of the Education Commission and the resolutions 
 of his Government consequent on its report. It is now a 
 generation since the working upon the basis of the Despatch 
 of Lord Halifax began in this country, and to one who can 
 look back at the early years of progress of that great mea- 
 sure, the amount of advancement that we have enjoyed ia 
 
156 tfniversity of Bombay, 
 
 sometliing almost marvellous. We could hardly credit it but for the 
 evidence that is before our eyes. I believe that the invef^tigations 
 luade by the Education Couimission, and the Resolutions of the 
 Government of India od the report of that Commission, will in 
 future be the starting point of a new and equally great ad- 
 vance. It depends on Native intelligence and Native industry to 
 take advantage of the policy adopted by the Government of 
 India ; and if they do, if the enthusiasm which is burning in 
 the breasts of many of my young friends of the Native community 
 be burning as brightly at the end of thirty years, I venture to 
 say they will stand, if not foremost, yet equal in rank at least as 
 regards a large class with the most educated nations. My valued 
 aud respected friend. Principal Wordsworth, the other day congra- 
 tulated this University on the fact, that higher educatiou was not 
 to be set aside or degraded in favor of lower education. I felicitate 
 the public and the Senate on this arrangement, and I have only 
 to add, with regard to the educational policy of Government, 
 that I do trust they will see the advisability of taking measures 
 soon, and taking effectual measures for the spread of the education 
 of those who are not to become scholars, but engineers and workers 
 in other walks of life which do not require high scholarship, but 
 rather a trained faculty and a technical education. I believe 
 they will be seconded in that by the universal voice in India, and 
 that all reasonable burdens will be. readily borne for such a pur- 
 pose^ in preference to almost any other that can be named. 
 
 Time presses, and I pass by the well-worn topic of local self- 
 government. The next point which I venture to observe upon, is 
 the bearingof Lord Ripon's Government on the subject of the High 
 Court at Calcutta. We are all familiar with the circumstance^ 
 that in the High Court of Calcutta a necessity arose some time ago 
 for appointing an acting Chief Justice. I believe that even 
 amongst those who doubt the policy of the appointment made by 
 Lord Ripon's Government, there is no question as to the noble 
 motives and high courage which dictated its action. For myself 
 and in my own humble person I will venture to go a step further. 
 It has been said that when you give power it is useless to hamper 
 it, or attempt to hamper it with useless restrictions ; and I add 
 to that that it is futile to introduce amongst a body of enlightened 
 and distinguished men a fertile principle andthen to deny or refuse 
 the fruits of that principle. It is for a Statesman to take care 
 before he introduces a principle what are the logical consequences 
 to which that principle leads; but when the principle is introduced, 
 to follow it out loyally to the end, trusting to its intrinsic sound- 
 ness to prevent all evil results. 
 
1884.— ilfr. Justice West. 157 
 
 Next there is one other subject, and I believe for me — who 
 enjoy, as I trust, the confidence and in a certain measure the 
 respect of most of those who are sitting near me — it is not 
 necessary to avoid even that subject, the glowing embers of 
 which are still led beneath the ashy soil. I refer to the amend- 
 ment of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On the policy of that 
 measure I do not intend to say anything ; but I do call your 
 attention, gentlemen of the Senate, to the noble and magnani- 
 mous bearing, the self-respect, charity and kindness and absence 
 of all retort by Lord Ripon in relation to that measure and the 
 clamour with which it was received. Probably Lord Ripon knew 
 practically the spirit and the character of his countrymen so 
 much better than those who have retorted ill for ill and hard 
 words for hard words that their outcries made less impression on 
 him than on the volunteer defenders who were comparative 
 strangers to the rough struggles of intense political life. There 
 is in truth not |imch to wonder at, and but little to resent now 
 that the contest is over. We know that the Englishman, who 
 has conquered in all climates and peopled the waste places of the 
 earth, is an energetic and self-willed being with unbounded 
 resolution, but also with a large share of the faults of his high 
 qualities. These defects could no more be removed from his 
 nature than the wart from the portrait of Cromwell. The man 
 would no longer be the same. Lord Ripon knows this well, and 
 no doubt his historical reading has taken hirn back to the pas- 
 sage in Milton — certainly a liberal, if ever there was one — where 
 he describes our countryman in his time as having minds not 
 readily accessible to civil wisdom and a sense of the public good, 
 " headstrong* and intractable to the industry and virtue of exe- 
 cuting or understanding true civil government, valiant indeed and 
 prosperous to win a field ; but to know the end and reason of 
 winning injudicious and unwise, in good and bad success alike 
 intractable." These are the characteristics of an Englishman. 
 These are the characteristics which have prevented him so often 
 from knowing when he was beaten and often gained him an 
 unscientific victory. Come down to Goldsmith and he paints our 
 ancestors with 
 
 ' Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,* 
 
 and when as the poet conceives them they are 
 
 ' Intent on high designs' 
 
 Lord Ripon knows, and we all know, that there is no nobler 
 breed. Let this be said of my countrymen in relation to the 
 measure which Lord Ripon as a part of a great policy and as 
 an act of great justice to the Natives of this country thought ifc 
 his duty to make law. It cut sharply across the masterful 
 
168 University of Bombay* 
 
 instincts, the intuitions and the cherished habits of our British 
 race, before their intelligence was enlightened and convinced. 
 The soreness of the struggle has not quite passed away. But 
 I feel certain that when a generation has elapsed they will feel 
 not less kindly to Lord Ripon than he now feels to them. In 
 their reflections of the future,, they cannot as Englishman but 
 admire the tenacity of purpose, genuineness of character, and 
 command of temper which they individually bow down to in the 
 circle of their friends. 
 
 We have thus seen history as it were in the making and 
 watched the influence of a calm commanding mind 
 s hdt ^f^L^d ^^^^ *^^ current of events and the form of consti- 
 Ripon. tutional growth. Let me further remind my Native 
 
 friends that here they have as their friend not 
 only a politician, but a Christian man. We had a few years 
 ago to commemorate an eminent and able man, a late Vice- 
 Chancellor of this University, Dr. Wilson. I ventured then to 
 say in the presence of a large majority of Native friends who were 
 not Christians, that it was not in spite of his Christianity but in 
 virtue of his Christianity that Dr. Wilson became all he was to 
 their people, and I say now that the Christian spirit which has 
 animated Lord Kipon and so many of his predecessors, has been 
 of untold benefit to this country. Hence should some charity 
 and love be learnt from this Christianity even by those who reject 
 its dogmas. The same invincible moral courage that has sup- 
 ported martyrs at the stake and block is fruitful still in making 
 men submit to toil and suffering and obloquy for the sake of their 
 fellow-men. Viewed from this standpoint the career of Lord 
 Ripon in this country has given to Englishmen and Natives alike 
 reason to be proud of the association between the two countries. 
 He, too, comes from that land not only of the pioneers of the 
 forest and wilderness, but of Howard, Clarkson, Wilberforce, of 
 Mrs. Fry and of Miss Nightingale, and in their spirit he has con- 
 ducted the administration. It has been by his love and tenderness 
 for the weak and those who needed aid that he has won a return 
 of affection and confidence beyond any other Viceroy amongst 
 all who have ruled this country. The manifestations of popular 
 opinion and popular approval such as Lord Ripon has been over- 
 whelmed with during the last few weeks are calculated not only to 
 give him just joy and satisfaction, but they are calculated also to 
 produce a great effect upon the great people of England. Never 
 before I believe, has the community of this country shown so well 
 that it possesses strong elements of political life and how capable 
 it is of entering in due time into the wider and nobler £atare« 
 
1884.— ifr. Justice West 159 
 
 These impressions would surely be deepened and intensified should 
 our countrymen but look for a while upon this present spectacle. 
 The very hall in which we are assembled is the gift of a Native donor 
 — aParsee. The neighbouring library and tower are due to the 
 munificence of allindu^who in his days of great prosperity showed 
 his countrymen how wealth could be worthily expended, alone at 
 that time, almost like Vespasian, amongst the Emperors, showing 
 himself improved by his great fortune. 1 shrank from his acquaint- 
 ance then, but often since have I admired the cheerful stoicism 
 Indian Uni- with whicli he has borne a reverse of fortune and 
 yersity— their harder lot. Then, apart from the building, Mr. 
 importance. Chancellor, I invite you to look at this assembly. 
 
 A foreigner not long ago, a man of great acuteness and observa- 
 tion, told me that he had seen many striking things in India, 
 but what had struck him most was the working of this Univer- 
 sity. " Here,'' he said, " I find a liberality and single-minded 
 pursuit of knowledge to which nearly all Continental Universities 
 in Europe are strangers." On a Board of Examiners one finds 
 on his right hand a Jesuit and on his left a Presbyterian Minister. 
 Facing him are a Parsi and a Jew. Amongst them all a common 
 spirit prevails, of disinterested zeal in diffusing the light of 
 science. Men of every race and creed unite without chicane 
 in the simple furtherance of learning. It is a glorious work 
 of English principles and wisdom. The teaching by which our 
 young members are trained is equally single-minded and equally 
 free. There is no educational police, no Government scheme 
 of morality or politics to hamper the intellectual action and 
 the influence of our Professors. They throw their whole energies 
 into their work and under such teachers as Principal Words- 
 worth our students learn how to the burghers of the Middle 
 Ages in Europe their clock tower was the centre and the symbol 
 of their civic life. They look up to the noble tower that rises over 
 this group of buildings and resolve that, gathering round this 
 centre of their new intellectual being and aspirations, there shall 
 for them too be a civic life,and an effort to win for India an honour- 
 able place in the society of nations. Such is our University and 
 such is the University life in India. It is only on these grounds 
 that we could venture to ask so distinguished a^man as Lord 
 Ripon to accept the humble tribute we offer him. .Montesquieu 
 said, *' I don't like small honours ; they seem to fix your position 
 and measure your merits too exactly." And &o it were no 
 wonder if Lord Ripon, who has held the greatest oflBce of 
 State, and gained the highest tokens of approval from his 
 Sovereign, had declined the compliment we desire to confer. 
 But when we take up, not without warrant, a representative 
 
160 University of Bombay. 
 
 position, we gain confidence; tlie case is greatly altered. We 
 presume to call ourselves the spokesmen here of India, and sure 
 I am that every emotion of admiration and regard that stirs your 
 breasts, gentlemen, to-day will be repeated a million and ten 
 millions fold as the electric wires like nerves radiatiug from this 
 centre convey to the cities and villages of this great country 
 tbe tidings of our celebration. We may venture, then, to ask 
 Lord Ripon to inscribe his name first on the roll of our honorary 
 graduates. I trust, it will be followed in that roll by many dis- 
 tinguished names, and certainly each one of the honorary gradu- 
 ates in that golden book of fame may well look up to the one which 
 stands first there as an encouragement to be just and fear not, 
 and to put great powers and opportunities to worthy uses. Our 
 departing Viceroy when he has left us in a couple of days will be 
 attended by the good wishes of none more than of tbe members 
 of this University. His whole spirit has been in accordance 
 with the spirit of the University, and the University trusts that 
 when he has returned to his beloved country he will still find 
 occasions to render us some service and often turn his thoughts 
 towards those who Avill never forget him. Love and sympathy 
 can bridge an intervening ocean, and many a patriot and philan- 
 thropist here will feel the spirit of his friend beside him in his 
 struggle to do good. It will bid him to be of good cheer in 
 adversity, to maintain fortitude, patience and faith, to meet oppo- 
 sition with firmness, gentleness and charity. And so we bid our 
 guest farewell with hopes for his happiness, whether he choose 
 the active or the meditative life, and until at the call of his 
 great Master he can with calmness pass 
 
 " To where beyond these voices there is peace." 
 
 The Chancellor then addressed the Senate as follows : — 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — The honour which has just been 
 
 conferred is one wliich should always be rare, con- 
 
 lor^s^speech"^^^' ^^^'I'^d- with discrimination, and founded on general 
 
 acceptance. I am sure that these requisites are 
 
 fully satisfied by the degree that has just been conferred. It is 
 
 rare, for it is, indeed, at this moment unique. That it will be 
 
 conferred in future with discrimination I am also certain, and 
 
 so will its value be maintained ; but I am still more sure, that in 
 
 the act of the Senate in electing the Marquis of Ripon to this 
 
 honour, they h^ve met the wishes and satisfied the heartfelt 
 
 desires of every member of this University, and so this is the 
 
 parting gift of the University of Bombay to the retiring Viceroy. 
 
 Gentlemen, I would say, though the Vice-Ghancellor has set 
 
 forth fully the claims of Lord Ripon to this degree, that although 
 
1884.— iorfi Bipon^ 161 
 
 there may be in this Senate differences of opinion, as there must 
 always be about worldly affairs upon details of policy, by the 
 whole Senate it has been heartily bestowed. For myself I would 
 say that no act of duty could be more gratifying to myself than to 
 be the spokesman in conferring the degree upon one whom I 
 have served during his whole Viceroyalty, and in whom I have 
 only recognized again a kind and considerate friend. And 
 though it be to compare small things with great, I cannot but 
 recall at this moment that nearly thirty years ago, at the outset 
 of my parliamentary life, my noble friend introduced me and 
 procured my election to a literary society at home. We then sat 
 on opposite sides of the house, and here to-day I am proud to 
 repay him in kind. May he long live to enjoy this and other 
 honours. I do not hesitate to congratulate him on the honour 
 so nobly bestowed, and congratulate you, gentlemen of the 
 Senate, on the admission of a member so altogether worthy of 
 the honour. 
 
 Lord Ripon expressed his acknowledgments as follows :— 
 
 Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Yice-Chancellor, and G-entlemen, — I 
 have seldom had a task in some respects more diflBcult than 
 that which falls to my lot at the present moment. When I 
 entered this hall, I knew that a distinction was about to be 
 conferred upon me which I highly valued, because I saw in it 
 a proof of the approval of a body which had devoted itself for 
 many years to the advancement of the cause of education in 
 India. But I was little prepared to find that I should have, if 
 I may be pardoned the word, to encounter so appreciative a review 
 of my public life as that which has fallen from my friend, your 
 Yice-Chancellor. I only wish that I could think that his friendly 
 judgment rightly described the course of that life, but I may 
 perhaps be permitted to claim for it that there has at least been 
 about it a certain unity. Throughout more than thirty years that 
 I have now taken part in public affairs in England, and now here, 
 I have been actuated by the same general principles of policy, 
 and I may say that I have adhered to them without wavering, 
 I will not venture to occupy your time by following in any degree 
 the observations which have been made upon the details of my 
 public course either at home or in India ; but I will say this, that 
 I esteem it an honour of the highest kind that a body such as 
 this should have given such an unmistakable intimation of their 
 approval of the policy which I have pursued. I should be the 
 last man to take an unfair advantage of the signs of esteem which 
 you have given me to-night, and to interpret them as meaning 
 that all the members of this University approved of each indi- 
 21 
 
162 University of Bomhwy. 
 
 vidual measure of my G-overnment. That of course is impossible, 
 but at least I liope that I may interpret the meaning of this degree 
 as indicating that this distinguished body has followed with its 
 sanction and with its approval the educational policy of the 
 Government of India since I have been connected with it. You, 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor_, have reminded me that a large portion of 
 my public life has been given to the promotion of education in my 
 own land — of education in the widest and the broadest sense^ 
 of education for the most enlightened and of education for the 
 masses. And that same policy which I endeavoured to apply 
 when I had the honour to be connected with the Department of 
 Education at home I have pursued in India. Gentlemen, it would 
 have been indeed strange if I had not taken an interest in 
 Indian education, for I have sat for many years at the feet of 
 Lord Halifax, and I am proud to count him among my warmest 
 friends, and to call him my honoured master. The principles 
 of that great Despatch of 1854 were those which I sought to 
 apply and develop when I came out to this country ; but I 
 knew that, however sound these principles might be, it would 
 not be wise after a lapse of thirty years to take measures for 
 practically applying them to the existing circumstances of India 
 without first ascertaining exactly what these circumstances were 
 and what was the best means by which the principles of that 
 Despatch might be applied to them at the present time. I 
 therefore thought it wise to institute a searching inquiry into 
 the condition of education in India. That inquiry was con- 
 ducted with great ability by those to whom it was entrusted, 
 and it has resulted in the suggestion of measures which have 
 been in the main adopted by the Government of India, and 
 adopted, I think I may say, with general acceptance. I found, 
 gentlemen, ever from the first moment that I accepted the office 
 of Viceroy, that those who were interested in the progress of 
 education in India were keenly desirous for its extension among 
 the masses of the people. But the question of primary educa- 
 tion in India is beset by many difficulties, the chief of which 
 arise from the very common perhaps, but very vital, difficulty 
 — want of funds. There were those who in their zeal for 
 elementary schools would have been prepared to see secondary 
 and higher education imperilled and its advance delayed, bnt 
 the Government of India never yielded to views of that descrip- 
 tion — and they w^re always determined that, whatever measures 
 they might take to spread primary education throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land, they would do nothing which 
 could endanger the advance of higher instruction. It is true 
 that we made an appeal to private aid, and that appeal has 
 
XSS4r—Lord Eipon. US 
 
 already received many responses wliicli are, I trust, only the 
 first fruits of that noble harvest which will be gathered hereafter 
 by those who come after us. For my own part, gentlemen, I 
 An explana- ^^^ truly say that the more I have studied this 
 f iou of Lord question in India itself the more convinced I have 
 Bipon's policy. become that it would be a very serious mistake to 
 do anything which could interfere with the onward progress of 
 higher culture — or which could tend to place it beyond the reach 
 of youths of limited means. The resolution whichhas been recently 
 issued by the Government of India, and which constitutes almost 
 my last political act in this country, has been framed upon these 
 lines, and inspired by that spirit. But, gentlemen, I am very 
 strongly impressed with the conviction that the spread of educa- 
 tion, and especially of Western culture, carried on as it is under 
 the auspices of this and the other Indian Universities, imposes 
 new and special difficulties upon the Government of this country. 
 It seems to me, I must confess, that it is little short of folly that 
 we should throw open to increasing numbers the rich stores of 
 Western learning ; that we should inspire them with European 
 ideas, and bring them into the closest contact with English 
 thought ; and that then we should, as it were, pay no heed to the 
 growth of those aspirations which we have ourselves created, and 
 the pride of those ambitions we have ourselves called forth. To 
 my mind one of the most important, if it be also one of the mos^- 
 difficult, problems of the Indian Government in these days is how 
 to afford such satisfaction to those aspirations and to those am- 
 bitions as may render the men who are animated by them the 
 hearty advocates and the loyal supporters of the British Govern- 
 ment. It is in such considerations that those who care to seek 
 for it may find the explanation of much of the policy which I 
 have pursued in this country. Gentlemen, at this late hour I 
 will detain you no longer, but I will assure you that the deep 
 interest which I have felt, and ever shall feel, in the progress of 
 education in India makes me esteem very highly indeed the 
 honour which you have conferred upon me to-day. My best 
 wishes will ever accompany the onward progress of this Univer- 
 sity, which is doing in India for England work so noble, and is 
 binding together the two lands and their numerous races with 
 cords more powerful than the strength of armies and more 
 enduring than the craft of Statesmen. Gentlemen, I thank you 
 heartily. 
 
164 University of Bombay. 
 
 TWENTY-FOURTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable J. B. Peile, O.S., C.S.I.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — When I succeeded to the office 
 of Vice- Chancellor on .the departure of my friend Mr. West, I 
 did not anticipate that I should so soon be called upon to under- 
 take the duty of addressing you in this place at the Annual 
 Convocation of our University. I should -have accepted with 
 more pleasure a responsibility so honourable, if I did not deeply 
 regret, as you also must regret, and it is a feeling which the 
 Chancellor has begged me to say that he entirely reciprocates, 
 the absence from the Chancellor's seat at the last Convocation 
 which falls within his term of office, of a Governor of Bombay 
 who is so steadfast and liberal a friend of education, so cordial 
 in recognizing private educational enterprise, and so unwearied 
 in encouraging our scholars by his kindly presence at school 
 anniversaries, as is Sir James Fergusson. 
 
 The Registrar has read to you portions of the report of the 
 proceedings of the University since the last Convocation, and the 
 full report will shortly be placed in your hands. You will find 
 therein the results of the University Examination, of which let it 
 suffice to say that they are generally satisfactory, and prove by 
 the increasing number of successful students in nearly all branches 
 of study that the demand for higher education is still extending. 
 The unprecedented number of 2,036 candidates presented them- 
 selves for Matriculation. As three-fifths of these candidates 
 were unsuccessful, I note, without disparagement of others almost 
 equally meritorious, the New English School at Poena and the 
 Native State Schools of Bhavanagar and Junagad as distinguished 
 by passing all or nearly all the candidates they sent up. Of 
 the successful candidates, 22 were female students. I have been 
 asked to observe that for the first time two members of the com- 
 munity of Beni-Israel have received University degrees to-day. 
 There has been an addition to endowments in the shape of a 
 medical prize and indeed I do not know that any year has passed 
 without adding something to the endowments of this University. 
 
 But beyond the ordinary statistics of business, there is much 
 in the record of events which give a special signifi- 
 EduSlon °^ cance and importance to the history of the past year. 
 The spontaneous energy in education which is mani- 
 festing itself in our large towns may perhaps owe some of its 
 vigour to the invitation held out by the Government to private 
 enterprize, but chiefly it marks the fact that forces which have 
 
1885.— r/ie Honorable J, B. Peile. 1 65 
 
 been gathering strength beneath the surface of society are begin- 
 ning to show their vitality in a practical way. From much on which 
 I might dwell, including the remarkable movement in the cause 
 of higher female education at Poona^ and the acceptance of the 
 management of primary schools by our Municipalities, I select 
 for remark the foundation of the independent Arts College in the 
 capital of the Deccan to which we have recently granted recog- 
 nition. In the narrative of the origin and purpose of this college 
 it is stated that it is designed as a private arts college which 
 might become in time to come a source of continuous supply of 
 graduates and under-graduates ready to carry education for a 
 small remuneration into the remotest parts of the Deccan, and 
 thus to cover, if possible, the whole country with a network of 
 private schools under the direction and control of a central edu- 
 cational organization. There is a modest strength of purpose 
 about this forecast, which commands our sympathy and respect. 
 
 It recalls to me what I have recently read of the 
 ai^le^^^^^ ^^' ^^^^ ^^ *^® Christian Brothers in France set on foot 
 
 at the close of the sixteenth century By John Baptist 
 de la Salle, who abandoned his prospects of advancement and 
 devoted his life to the humble task of organising and spreading 
 elementary education. He founded an institute, the members 
 of which after a careful training for the oflSce of school-masters, 
 were to devote their lives to the work of primary education. 
 The Brotherhood extended its labours over France, it survived 
 the Eevolution of the Commune and carried its operations into 
 other countries, and although the present Government has 
 unhappily withdrawn from it all countenance and support, yet 
 in Paris alone it has 60,000 scholars and is largely aided by the 
 private benevolence of all classes, both the rich and the poor. 
 Here is a noble and encouraging example for the infant institution 
 in the Deccan, and if its spirit is equally pure and disinterested, 
 I doubt not that its success will not be less remarkable. 
 
 From the contemplation of this college of poor scholars — 
 if I may so call it — let us turn to the college in Kathiawar, 
 newly founded ; and to be endowed from the revenues of Bhava- 
 nagar, by the ruler of that State, Sir Takhtsinggi, in memory 
 of a faithful minister. This college is also a sheaf of the harvest 
 returned by the education which we foster, for it is to the good 
 principles grafted by liberal and judicious teaching in the Kaj- 
 kumar College on an open and generous nature, that we must 
 trace the [public character of a prince distinguished above his 
 peers for loyal affection to the Government which guided his 
 youth, and wise munificence in contributing from his revenues to 
 
,w6 University of Bombay. 
 
 every good work of the time, for instance althougli this Chief 
 is establishing an arts college in his capital at his sole cost, he 
 has also by a donation of a large sum of Rs. 20,000 aided the 
 Committee of the Gruzerat College in making up their endowment 
 fund to a sum sufficient to meet a liberal oSer of Government for 
 the reconstitution and expansion of that college, which we may 
 hope to see carried into effect in the course of the present year. 
 
 Above all our University and the Presidency are to be con- 
 gratulated on this, that with all the colleges newly established 
 in our proWnces, and the Native States at Poena, at Ahmedabad, 
 at Kolhapur and Bhavanagar and Baroda, our older colleges are 
 not depleted of their students, nor are the means of collegiate 
 education found to be in excess of the demands. On the con- 
 trary, the Elphinstone and Deccan Colleges hail the affiliation 
 of the new institutions as a timely relief to their overcrowded 
 lecture rooms and to classes which are so overgrown as to have 
 passed beyond the grasp of their professors. 
 
 And now, as I have taken for the key-note of my remarks the 
 springing forth of spontaneous and independent educational 
 enterprise, as a practical end and object on which the growing 
 power and activity of thought of which our educated classes are 
 conscious, may satisfy their craving for expression and action, 
 my train of reflection leads me to the motive of the first exercise 
 by this University of the power of granting an honorary degree 
 under the Act of 1884. That ceremony is too fresh in your memo- 
 ries, and was too fully illustrated by the eloquence and enthusiasm 
 which it evoked, to require many words from me. It seems to me 
 that the strong emotions which then broke through the normal 
 calm of oriental life are attributable to this coincidence, that at a 
 time when the social forces created by the educational work of our 
 Governments and Universities during the last 30 odd years 
 had begun to seek a voice and recognition. Lord Ripon met 
 and gratified these aspirations when he reasserted with the 
 point and the emphasis of intense personal conviction, the prin- 
 ciples of policy which have long guided England in its splendid 
 duty of raising the people of this empire to a higher place 
 among civilised men. 
 
 You have been reminded by a passage in the report just 
 read that we have to condole with the sister University on the 
 death of the Principal whose value we can well estimate by the 
 quality of the services which he rendered to this University. 
 Sir Alexander Grant brought to our infant University in Bom- 
 bay the high academic tone of Oxford and ike mark of his 
 
1885.— T/i^ Honorable J. J5. Peile. 167 
 
 spirit and touch of his hand are perceptible in every part of our 
 system. It has been said that by the devotion of his best years 
 to India he sacrificed something of the reputation which he 
 miglit havfe achieved in England. However that may be, those 
 years in India were expended on noble work, and his memory 
 is green among us as one of the foremost founders and guides 
 of Indian academic life. Next, let me say a word of another 
 Vice-Chancellor who has gone from among us, and whose loss, 
 as more recent, may be more sensibly felt by those to whom I 
 am speaking. I refer to Mr. West, to whose last eloquent words 
 in this office you listened in this hall hardly more than a month 
 ago. He has gone to aid a country which is sorely in need of the 
 reign of law under which our University prospers, and what is your 
 loss is Egypt's gain. I do not doubt, however, that these young 
 students and lawyers here present will miss the tonic of his 
 frank and blunt but never unkindly counsel . But the example of 
 his life will remain with us and I would remind the young gradu- 
 ates around me that Mr. West was known as a patient and indus- 
 trious student from the first day to the last of his career in India, 
 and that by these unremitting labours, not less than by his high 
 natural abilities, did he achieve one of the noblest positions 
 which can be held by a servant of the Crown, the position of a 
 sound and learned Judge who commands the confidence of all 
 who come before him. 
 
 And now it remains for me to say a few words of exhortation 
 and encouragement to those young men who have to-day received 
 their University Degrees, and are about to go forth with the 
 good seed of education in their hands, to sow and reap. My time 
 of preparation for this duty has been so short that my words 
 will be plain and brief. I shall not follow my learned predeces- 
 sor in dwelling on the delights of learning pursued for its own 
 sake and for the good it can do, in disregard of earthly honours 
 and ambitions. That prospect is all-sufficing for a selected few 
 and my earnest hope is that is may attract and enchain more and 
 . more of our students as the academic life is more highly esteemed. 
 But no more in an Eastern than in a Western University can any 
 but a small proportion of students devote themselves to a life of 
 philosophic research. And in truth it is evidentthat the material 
 progress of India demands ever more imperatively that those 
 whose minds have been strengthened and cultured in our Univer- 
 sities should apply their powers to practical life as teachers and 
 workers. But if I direct you rather to the active than thee on- 
 templative life, I shall of course avoid any contact with the 
 strife of |R)litical parties above which as the Chancellor pointed 
 
168 University of Bombay. 
 
 out last year, the University dwells serene. I propose only to 
 Various op- suggest the answers to this question. What out- 
 portunities for look has the Indian graduate in active life and 
 d^^tiSion ^^^ **^ what purposes can he apply his acquirements ? 
 Firstj then let me say that, with the great and urgent 
 needs of your country, intellectual, moral and material, your 
 career should be one of life-long and devoted labour, if it is 
 to be worthy of your University and fulfil the expectations of 
 your Government. You have won nothing as yet but the means 
 of usefulness, the weapons of your warfare, and you will do well 
 not to look for a premature reward in some inglorious stipend 
 or rest content with a cheaply earned, unproved and unfruitful 
 reputation for ability. You can act more worthily by entering 
 into the competition of the learned professions, law, medicine 
 and civil engineering, which are open to all according to their 
 capacity and in which field the Indian graduate has already estab- 
 lished his place. Then there is the public service of the country — 
 a most legitimate object of aspiration. And although impatience 
 is often expressed at barriers and restrictions in the oflicial career, 
 yet when I see natives of this country in the Legislative Councils, 
 on the Benches of the High Courts, in the Magistracy, the Civil 
 Service and in nearly every department of State, I cannot admit 
 that the obstacles to the higher offices are such as need depress or 
 discourage. I would remind you that under your Government 
 bai:riers are temporary and are surmountable by the force of 
 proved merit and worth. And no victory over difficulties is of 
 much ethical value which is achieved without serious effort. 
 The great field of local public business has been made your own 
 to occupy and possess. And I hold that whatever limitations 
 must in this day be imposed on access to higher office, the 
 selection of men to conduct local affairs should be subject to no 
 other conditions than the selection of men to serve the public in 
 the liberal professions. The man who is best fitted by education 
 and character to perform the services which the public requires 
 should be the man who is employed. But besides all these 
 there is a boundless field of useful activity open to those who 
 have acquired in this University the habit of research, and 
 will apply it to investigations useful to Government and 
 their country. Reflect, for instance, on the imminent problem 
 connected with the growth of population under the Roman 
 peace of this empire. How shall these multiplying millions be 
 sustained ? By what resources of agricultural science may the 
 land through higher cultivation be enabled to support a larger 
 number ? What products can be grown for export which will 
 bring wealth in return from other lands ? What alternative 
 
1885.— TAe Honorable J, B. Peile. 169 
 
 V '■■■" " ■ — - 
 
 industries can be set on foot for the employment of the surplus 
 population ? These are a few of the economic questions to the 
 solution of which natives of the country trained in scientific 
 knowledge and to accurate habits of thought should be able to 
 contribute. With all these interesting subjects and pursuits 
 opening and expanding before us and with freedom of speech and 
 thought, one is disposed to envy the young scholar of India, his 
 free and various opportunities for usefulness and activity in civil 
 and political life. 
 
 Let me in conclusion, along with the promise of your future 
 
 present a few words of caution to you graduates 
 
 Words of cau- ^f 1884 and to all those before you, who in the 
 
 won and adyice. , . „ , ' \ ji t 
 
 long procession or years, have received the degrees 
 of this University and gone out hence to encounter the struggle 
 of life. You are living in a dawn of much promise of which no 
 man can yet foresee the perfect day. Then realise how much in 
 the future of your country depends upon yourselves and the 
 character you have formed under the discipline of your colleges. 
 If you are called on hereafter, as you may and will be, to think 
 and speak and write on public affairs, let your participation 
 therein be in the spirit of the great authors whom you have 
 studied, — thoughtful, scrupulous, liberal and free from pre- 
 judice. Let me draw your attention to the words uttered lately 
 at Poena by one whose great historical attainments entitle 
 him to speak with high authority of the lessons of history — 
 I mean the learned Principal of the Elphinstone College, who 
 told you that you as an educated minority among illiterate 
 masses are exposed to special temptations and dangers from 
 which you can be protected only by habits of mental discipline and 
 patient self-denial. Keep your minds free from exaggerated ideas 
 and pretensions. Do not mar and nullify the great power and 
 privilege of a free press by petulant and inaccurate criticism of 
 public affairs. Let honest work in some of the fields of action 
 which I have briefly indicated, and the patriot^s singleness of 
 purpose for the public good, abstract your minds from any crav- 
 ing for the personal notoriety which is so often mistaken for fame. 
 Thus may you obey the charge which I have addressed to you, 
 that ever in your life and conversation, you shew yourselves 
 worthy of the degrees conferred upon you by this University — a 
 University founded in a year of war and tumult, by a Government 
 which revolution was impotent to divert from completing the 
 beneficent work of which you enjoy the inheritance. 
 
 22 
 
170 University of Bombay, 
 
 ' — — — — ^ „.«,^ 
 
 TWENTY-FIFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (The Honorable J. B. Peile, C.S., M.A., C.S.I.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate,, — In a second year the duty has 
 fallen to me of addressing you in this place at the Convocation 
 for conferring degrees. I had hoped that this chair would be 
 otherwise and more worthily filled to-day. You, I am sure, 
 hoped that also. If you are denied an intellectual pleasure on 
 which you had counted, it will still be easily understood that 
 the claims and interests of education in this empire, the aim 
 and grasp, the tendencies and influences of the University and 
 of public and private instruction, are many-sided and complex, 
 such as are not to be learnt from books or the conversation of 
 those who have been in India ; and the mastery of them in all 
 lights, political, social, material, literary, requires some time. 
 Next year, if I am present, I shall be glad to take a lower 
 place, and to listen while our educational performances are 
 passed through the crucible by the refined intelligence of Lord 
 Reay. 
 
 Now, I will advert here to an unpleasant subject which I 
 am bound to notice, but from which I shall be 
 
 worthyhSSr* S^^^ *0P^s» ^^* ^ SP^^^ ^^t^^ unhappy event 
 which marred the Matriculation Examination of 
 1885, and which, though its shadow lies only on the threshold 
 of the University precincts, is so abhorrent to the clear air 
 of elevated studies, that it may well fill all friends of learning 
 with dismay. If there was a breach of trust, latent it may 
 be, in a carelessness which is not defensible, or even corruption 
 somewhere, the reproach of which rests on us — the Executive 
 of the University — how much more grievous was the breach of 
 trust committed by the young men who were not true to 
 themselves at a time of life when all the worth of the future 
 character is staked on a rigid conscientiousness about the work 
 in hand? What can be the value or quality of a youtVs studies 
 at college who gains his title of entrance to the higher course 
 by an acted lie ? Carlyle, addressing the students of Edin- 
 burgh, said of even the minor offences of shallow pretentious- 
 ness and cramming : — " Avoid all that is entirely unworthy of 
 an honourable habit Miorality as regards study is, as in all 
 other things, the primary consideration, and overrides all others. 
 A dishonest man cannot do anything real. This is a very old 
 doctrine, but a very true one ; and you will find it confirmed 
 by all the thinking men that have ever lived in this long series 
 of generations of which we are the latest/' 
 
1886.— T?ie Honorable J, B, Peile. 171 
 
 The new benefactions of this year are from the province of 
 Gujarat. The most interesting is that of a Fellow of last year — 
 the Thakore Saheb of Gondal — who has presented Ks. 6,000 to 
 form a collection of ancient records of the literature of India 
 to be placed in the University Library, The second is the 
 endowment of a scholarship in memory of the late Majumdar 
 Manishankar of Kathiawar. The third is an endowment of two 
 scholarships by Mr. Haridas Veharidas Desai, of Nadiad, and 
 Divan of Junagad, a filial tribute to the memory of his respected 
 father. It is worthy of record that one female student passed 
 the First Examination in Medicine, aud eleven female students 
 passed the Matriculation Examination. Of the latter, three are 
 Parsi young ladies, and I am informed that all of them will carry 
 their studies further, one in the Grant College and the other two 
 in a college of Arts. Examination results show, in Matriculation, 
 2,262 candidates, of whom 837 finally passed. Last year the 
 numbers were 2,036 and 840. There is a decrease in the number 
 of candidates who passed the Previous Examination, and in those 
 who have qualified for the degree of B.A. The successful 
 candidates for the degree of B.Sc. numbered only three. There 
 is an increase in the new graduates in Law and Medicine; 
 a decrease in those in Civil Engineering. There are no 
 doctors in Medicine this year, and a fall from 9 to 3 in Masters 
 of Arts. Looking back some fifteen years to the time when I 
 was more specially connected with the administration of public 
 instruction, I observe that the yearly average of men who 
 Matriculated was then under 200. The B.A.'s were about 
 12 to 18 yearly. The average of the past three years is over 70. 
 The M.A.^s were very much as they are now. The number 
 this year represents the average since 1865. Some thoughts 
 are suggested by these numerical results reviewed side by side 
 with the means of teaching. We have four Arts Colleges of old 
 standing, with a College of Medicine, a College of Science, and a 
 School of Law, all recognized between 1860 and 1869 — chiefly 
 about 1860. Then comes the younger generation — the Gujarat, 
 Kolhapur, Baroda, and Bhavnagar Colleges, and the Fergusson 
 College at Poena, all recognized in the last five or six years. 
 But these are elementary colleges, teaching the less advanced 
 part of the Arts course ; they are all concerned with the Arts 
 course ; they are also scantily provided with European Professors. 
 Three of these are supported by Native States. The other two, 
 though partly supported by subscriptions or endowments, make 
 a demand on our public taxation fund. So also will the college 
 to be established in Sind. It would seem, then, that the increase 
 of the higher teaching power — ^by which I mean the fresh acces- 
 
172 University of Bombay. 
 
 sion of Professors of liigli attainment from Europe — ^kas not been 
 in proportion to that of the numbers seeking to be taught. The 
 subject presents itself in this light that, if there are narrow 
 limits to the increase of the professorial body maintained by 
 the State, as I am afraid that we must admit that there are, it 
 is better to apply some sifting process to the stud-ents than to 
 allow the teaching power to be overtasked by numbers. The 
 Previous Examination of this year has certainly acted as a sift- 
 ing process, 345 candidates having been rejected out of 487. Half 
 of all the candidates failed in English, and cannot have been 
 competent to profit by lectures given in that language. But not- 
 withstanding this check, the numbers who pass the preliminary 
 barrier, and the numbers who reach the B.A. degree, show a 
 remarkable increase in the last two or three years. This is no 
 doubt attributable to the enlargement of the means of secondary 
 education, but the question suggests itself — What is the object 
 of this great body of students marching chiefly on one and the 
 same line, and would any just expectations be thwarted by the 
 adoption of stricter methods for the exclusion of the unfit ? Cer- 
 tainly no public object is gained by increasing the number of our 
 graduates in Arts at the expense of their quality. In regard to 
 the best way of using a higher teaching power which cannot be 
 much augmented, the military principle commends itself, that, 
 when a force is small in proportion to its field of occupation, it is 
 more effective when collected at a centre than when its strength 
 is dissipated by sub-division. Lower down in the educational 
 system, there are financial reasons, but others also, why the Gov- 
 ernment should cease, at a certain point, to rnultiply Grrammar 
 Schools and elementary Arts Colleges. I do not mean that general 
 education should be starved. Every boy should have within his 
 reach the means of education appropriate to his position. But it 
 would seem that the appetite for secondary education may 
 soon be trusted to supply for itself what more is needed of these 
 institutions, whether designed to supply the particular wants of a 
 locality, or leading up to the University course in languages, his- 
 tory, literature, political economy, or moral philosophy. It may 
 be observed that the course in Arts or letters is much more 
 commonly selected by students than the courses in natural philo- 
 sophy. That which is most popular is also most c.ipable of self- 
 support. The upholding hand of the State may properly transfer 
 itself from that side of national education where it has planted 
 both a demand for teaching and the knowledge how to supply 
 it, to help in its turn another side where at present there is little 
 either of knowledge or demand. That side is fcechnical educa- 
 tion, which is a good deal discussed in these days. The founda- 
 
1886.— T/ie Honorable J. B. Peile. ITS 
 
 tion of a Technical Institute, in memory of the Viceroyalty of 
 Lord Ripon, lias brought the subject forward in the past year. 
 Madras has anticipated us by the publication under authority 
 of a comprehensive scheme of examinations in Science, Arts, 
 and Industries, supplemented by grants-in-aid and scholarships, 
 the Government at the same time preparing to enlarge its own 
 institutions for scientific and technical instruction. Now what is 
 it that is wanting ? If we look to the University, we find, besides 
 the science course which comprehends most of the branches of 
 natural science, the more special programme of studies and 
 degree in Civil Engineering, and the affiliated College of Science 
 where technical education is given of the kind suited to the higher 
 and middle class of professional men. I do not say that either 
 the College of Science or the allied institution for teaching deco- 
 rative art and design is as complete or potent as it should be, 
 and we are preparing to strengthen both of them. But where 
 is the sub-structure of which a Polytechnic College is the upper 
 story ? The answer is that it does not exist. Our elementary and 
 middle school course has no regard to technical instruction, nor 
 is it linked with a system of special technical and art schools for 
 handicraftsmen or for foremen and manager of works. Drawing 
 is restricted to our high schools. 
 
 Nothing that is not quite fragmentary is being done to 
 develop the intelligence of our industrial population 
 ^ Tecluucaland as such. There is a dearth of skilled workmen, 
 Stion."* ^ ^^ scientifically educated supervisors of workmen 
 and employers of labour. There is no connect- 
 ing bond of trained intelligence among the classes interested 
 in skilled industry, no elementary training of workmen in 
 sympathetic alliance with the superior technical knowledge of 
 the directors of work, such as had long existed in many small 
 Continental States. Our science is not wedded to manipu- 
 lative skill. Now, as experience has shown that the nation 
 which most vigorously promotes the intellectual development of 
 its industrial population takes the lead of nations which dis- 
 regard it, this is a matter which will not bear neglect. Palaeo- 
 graphy, epigraphy and the like are luxuries, but the enlightened 
 employment of the forces and products of nature is a vital need. 
 India has entered into competition with other nations in the 
 market of the world, and competition in the world's market is 
 very keen. The hold of Indian produce on foreign markets is 
 somewhat critical and precarious. India cannot afford to despise 
 any reduction of cost price or improvement in quality which 
 can be made by the substitution of scientific for rough processes 
 
1^4 Uni/versity of Bombay. 
 
 and manipulation. Nor should India continue to buy at a great 
 price in silver any commodity which an increase of industrial 
 capacity may enable her people to produce well and cheaply for 
 themselves, ^gain, there is the growth of population liberated 
 in a great measure from the checks of war and famine. "We 
 have districts in which a margin of only 5 or 6 per cent, of land 
 is left available for the extension of tillage. Either the land 
 must soon produce more under higher cultivation, or other 
 means of industrial livelihood must be opened out. Undoubt- 
 edly there are great difficulties. Industries have to be created, 
 others rehabilitated rather than merely improved by science. 
 An indebted peasant proprietary is not the most capable of 
 utilizing the steam plough or the chemical factory. Yet we see 
 around us signs of a renascence of manufactures. Our mill 
 industry, though now struggling with difficulties, has promise 
 of a great history. Indian silks, muslins, gold and silver 
 brocade, carved work, dyes — all old Indian products — are in 
 evidence in the international exhibitions, and where manu- 
 factures touch the province of the Fine Arts, we have the old 
 forms and traditions, which, if now productive in a somewhat 
 mechanical way, are still among us as suggestive guides to 
 excellence. It may be said that to organize technical education 
 is the duty of the Government which provides such educational 
 means and appliances as seem suited to the needs of those whom 
 it rules rather than of the University which confers degrees 
 for proficiency in the use of those means* This must be 
 frankly admitted. The Government must lead the way, and 
 1 had it in view when indicating technical education as in 
 my opinion that object to which public expenditure in this 
 department may now be directed with the greatest benefit 
 to the Indian people. Examples in this matter may best be 
 sought on the Continent of Europe. Twice in the last twenty 
 years the English Government has turned for instruction to 
 those examples. In 1867 there was reason to fear that England, 
 though possessed of great advantages in raw material, was 
 being rivalled and surpassed in its own specialities by nations 
 which had developed their manufacturing skill by well-organized 
 technical education. Exhibitions and Hoyal Commissions re- 
 vealed the fact that France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and 
 Switzerland were counterbalancing the initial advantages of 
 England by the scientific education of masters and foremen, and 
 the industrial training of workmen. The report of the Commis- 
 sion of 1884, full of most interesting information as to the 
 comparative progress of industrial teaching on the Continent and 
 in England, shows how much has been done in both under 
 
1886.— TTie BonoraUe J. B, Peile, 176 
 
 stress of keenest competition and what remains to be done in 
 England. Even now it is confessed tliat the advocacy of techni- 
 cal teaching as an extended and systematic education up to and 
 including the methods of original research has not entirely 
 prevailed. But it must be remembered that, even with defects 
 of organization, England is rich in the great names of scientific 
 discovery and invention, that national poverty is not the difficulty 
 in England, and that the English workman is second to none 
 in natural energy, intelligence, and inventiveness. In our 
 Indian Empire I need not say that the difficulties are incom- 
 parably greater, and their very outworks have still to be attacked. 
 Where taxation is not cheerfully borne, where the workman is 
 apathetic under the superstition of custom, and content with a 
 bare subsistence, where the reach of elementary education is 
 small, where the upper classes are indifferent or inadequately 
 appreciate the needs of their country, a too ambitious scheme 
 put forward by the Government on a European model would 
 certainly be doomed to failure. But it is profitable to observe 
 by what efforts and sacrifices the successes of European nations 
 in industrial progress have been purchased. Both Governments 
 and peoples are animated by the conviction that the prosperity 
 of their industries depends on the cheapness and attractiveness 
 of their products, and these on the high perfection of manual 
 skill combined with artistic culture. Thus, while the State 
 undertakes the cost of the highest general and technical instruc- 
 tion, most of the cost of the secondary and elementary 
 instruction, both in science and in art applied to industrial and 
 decorative purposes, is cheerfully borne by the localities. 
 Moreover, elementary education, which everywhere includes 
 instruction in drawing, is in the most European nations com- 
 pulsory. Both republics and monarchies have accepted the 
 principle that there is a discipline and restraint which a free 
 people may impose on individual freedom for the attainment 
 of a great public object. If an Indian Presidency need not 
 despair of doing, in a measure, what a Swiss Canton or a small 
 German State succeeds in doing completely and excellently, it 
 is time to lay down the lines of action. The admirable system 
 of technical education in the countries of the Continent had its 
 origin only half a century since with the creation of railways 
 and factories. A similar educational development should follow 
 in India on the extension of railways, the expansion of commerce, 
 and the freer interchange of thought. Municipal law, has also 
 been advanced so far as this, that the new liocal Government 
 Acts impose on local boards and municipalities the obligation 
 to maintain an adequate system of elementary schools which is 
 
176 University of Bombay, 
 
 indispensable basis of teclinical education. Most remarkable in 
 the history of technical education on the Continent is the great 
 part taken in its support by communes and municipalities. 
 We also must use these agencies. I venture to think that an 
 institution in memory of the man who stirred in so many 
 million hearts the ambition to share in the duties and responsi- 
 bilities of Local Government should be content with nothing 
 less than a wide-reaching endeavour to guide those impulses 
 to this practical end, stimulating into action the authorities 
 who now control commercial and municipal expenditure, 
 and imparting knowledge and assistance to all centres of 
 population in Western India, by subsidies, by opening artisans' 
 evening classes and model technical schools, by distributing 
 mechanical appliances and objects of art, by promoting museums 
 and art collections. In 1869 when I was Director of Public 
 Instruction, when the law left it quite optional with municipal 
 bodies to support schools or not, and in fact 1| millions of towns- 
 people was contributing less than Rs. 14,000 yearly for school 
 purposes from municipal funds, I made a proposal to Govern- 
 ment for imposing by law a school-rate on municipal towns, and 
 one of my suggestions was that by aid of this rate each town of 
 higher class should support an industrial college or school of 
 instruction in science and art. I said : — *' The object would be 
 twofold : first, to teach practically the common trades and turn 
 out skilled masons, carpenters, and smiths ; and, secondly, to 
 teach theoretically and practically, the application of science to 
 the work of the builder and mechanician, and to the higher 
 industries with a view to the production of articles of luxury 
 and export; skill being here expended on products special to 
 the country, or for manufacturing which there are special local 
 facilities."-.! proposed that there should be workshops and 
 schools of science and art teaching, and continued: — "For 
 teachers in these schools^, I look to the Poena College for gradu- 
 ates in Civil Engineering and to the Central School of Art in 
 Bombay for certificated teachers of art. I am afraid some of 
 this may appear Utopian. But a beginning must be made in 
 the restoration of Indian industries. In 1862 Mr. Laing said : — 
 With cheap raw material, cheap labour and many classes of the 
 native population, patient, ingenious, and endowed with a fine touch 
 and delicate organization, I see no reason why the interchange 
 between India and Europe should be confined to agricultural pro- 
 duce against manufactures, and why in course of time manufactures 
 of certain descriptions where India has a natural advantage, 
 should not enter largely into her staple exports.". ^ I am afraid 
 my scheme did appear Utopian, for nothing was done at that 
 
1886.— 27ie Eonorahle J. B. Peile. 177 
 
 time. But as we have now advanced a little further in the 
 science of municipal government, I hope the project may at last 
 
 be carried out. Last year I somewhat briefly and 
 ardf^^^° '^' iiiiperfectly directed the attention of the students 
 
 before me to the opportunities open to them of 
 developing the resources of their country by scientific research 
 and the application of science to industries. I say further to- 
 day that this appears to me to be the appropriate direction 
 of the widest current of our public education, because by 
 far the greatest part of Indian students are, like the Eng- 
 lishmen in India, of the class of working men. As the great 
 majority of them have to contribute their labour in some special 
 calling to the public stock, the best they can do is to promote 
 their country's prosperity by directing a skilled intelligence to 
 extract from nature, through science, the services of her means 
 and agents of material progress. It is quite true that the Uni- 
 versity may direct the use of scientific method to the study of 
 languages and philosophy as well as to the study of the natural 
 sciences. There is room for science of both kinds ; but I think 
 that there is more need for the latter, and that specialism in the 
 study of the natural sciences is more useful for the young men of 
 this day than general culture, and. wholesome as well as useful. 
 Science and art applied to invention and production pay no 
 regard to distinctions of nationality or clime. They choose as 
 their most honoured agents those who are best educated, 
 whose natural taste and aptitude have been best cultivated for 
 the work to be done. The competition in the world's indus- 
 trial school gives the prize to those results of labour which 
 derive the highest excellence from enlightened skill and the 
 fine artistic sense, and to the peoples who most assiduously 
 cultivate those faculties. There is no room there for the asser- 
 tion of an equality which cannot prove itself by facts and 
 achievements. That arena is quite apart from baseless jealousies 
 of class and race, their passions and profitless strife. The com- 
 petition is waged under conditions likely to promote the modesty 
 which is an element of wisdom and the reverence which Goethe 
 calls the soul of all religion. With these elementary remarks I 
 leave a great subject, of which I am glad to call myself a student, 
 hoping that at next Convocation there may be a record of some- 
 thing done in this matter. 
 
178 University of Bombaif. 
 
 TWENTY-SIXTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honoeable Mr. Justice West.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — On tlie occasion o£ your last 
 assembling Herein Convocation,! find,by a reference to his address, 
 that my predecessor in office almost promised you that on this 
 occasion you should be adressed by His Excellency the Gover- 
 nor of Bombay. It must be a subject of deep regret to you as 
 it certainly is to me, that His Excellency has been unable to 
 fulfil on this occasion that engagement, if engagement it can be 
 called, but that wish and desire certainly. He was unable to 
 realize it, owing to his other public duties, which have called him 
 to another part of the Presidency over which he rules. And 
 with him unfortunately for us has also departed from Bombay 
 for a time that lady, who fulfils so graciously and so gracefully 
 her part in the not unimportant domestic duties which devolve 
 on the Governor of Bombay. "We regret the absence of both 
 of them very much, and it only remains for me to discharge as 
 well as I can, however imperfectly, the duty which His Excel- 
 lency and the exigencies of the situation have cast upon me. I 
 will begin by what claims a word of tribute from a Vice-Chan- 
 cell or of this University — ^from any one who standing here feels 
 the interest which I do, and which you do in the welfare of the 
 institution, — a tribute of kindly memory and regard to one who 
 stood here on many occasions and addressed many who are 
 sitting here now, always to your gratification and always with a 
 deep interest in the welfare of this University, I mean the late 
 Honorable Mr. Gibbs. He, although not a profound scholar 
 himself, always manifested a deep interest in the advancement 
 of learning and scholarship in this Presidency, and, as Vice- 
 Chancellor for many years of this University, he devoted him- 
 self to the institution with steady, regular, and unfailing inter- 
 est and industry. He will never perish from the memory of 
 those — and they are many — who have experienced his personal 
 kindness, and I trust these few words of tribute will long remain 
 recorded in the archives of this institution. Since 
 portan^^^ aSd I had the happiness of addressing the members of 
 influence of the the Senate about four years ago, this institution 
 University. -j^^^ been daily, almost hourly, extending in its 
 
 importance and its influence. If we compare the numbers 
 of those who aspire to its degrees and who come up to the 
 earlier examinations, which lead to those degrees now, with 
 what they were four years ago, we observe a very vast increase. 
 But more than that, the studies have been extending, and as we 
 hope improved, new institutions have been affiliated to the 
 
1881.— The Honorable Mr. Justice West. 179 
 
 University, and those that were affiliated before have been 
 extending and enlarging and elevating their course of instruc- 
 tion. Even within the last year, the course of study for 
 the Science degree has been revised and extended, and, I trust, 
 very greatly improved by a committee, whose assiduity and 
 devotion to duty in the performance of that arduous task claims 
 the recognition of the members of the Senate especially, and 
 of the members of the University at large. The study of 
 French has been introduced into the University, and a prize 
 has been instituted for ancient Palaeography as an optional 
 subject in the higher degrees, which, I trust, may lead many 
 gentlemen, who have laid the foundation of sound and good 
 scholarship, to devote themselves and the ability they have 
 thus acquired and cultivated to the acquisition and spread of 
 a knowledge of that most useful and interesting subject — a 
 subject which has a peculiar claim on the devotion and labours 
 of Indian students, anxious for the renown and the welfare 
 of their country, seeing that the present and the future 
 are linked inevitably to the past, that everyone who throws 
 additional light on the past furnishes a fresh interest and incentive 
 to those who are intent on the progress of the present and the 
 future. As for the French language and literature, I trust that 
 those who are studying that language will come up in increased 
 forces in future examinations. It is a study which is at present 
 in its infancy, but I trust that it will make considerable progress, 
 and that by-and-bye we shall have efficient teachers not only 
 outside the colleges and the . University, but within them, — 
 Professors properly provided for by endowments in those col- 
 leges. If anything were "Vv anting to indicate the advanced posi- 
 tion which the University 1 is gained during the four years that 
 elapsed since I addresed thV Senate last, I think that this very 
 meeting in which we are standing would afford a happy and a 
 conclusive indication of the extension of the interest felt in it and 
 of the importance of the institution. We see here assembled re- 
 presentatives of the chief classes of Bombay, and the interest 
 which they manifest in this University is an ever-growing 
 interest and one which extends to every section of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 But let me indicate by another sign the importance of the 
 University. Its growing importance could in no way be more 
 clearly manifested than by the list of gentlemen whom we have 
 been very happy to receive for the first time on this occasion as 
 new Fellows of the University. Amongst those gentlemen are 
 to be found representatives of all the principal subjects of 
 
180 University of Bombay* 
 
 human learning and study, of law and medicine and engineer- 
 ing, and, above all, of general literature and science. All these 
 subjects have here their representatives, and these representa- 
 tives have been chosen from every class and creed. Our Uni- 
 versity spreads its roots thus amongst Hindus and Mussalmans, 
 Parsis and Christians. Every class unites with the others in the 
 noble effort to promote the welfare of this country and the ad- 
 vance of its people along the great lines of civilization and learn- 
 ing. I will not attempt an enumeration of all the names which 
 this day for the first time grace the list of our Fellows. But 
 there is one gentleman whose name is added to our list to-day, 
 who does claim a special recognition, both on personal grounds 
 and also on account of the special honour to us of his annexation, 
 to use such a phrase, to our University. I speak of 
 mesteter and Professor James Darmesteter. To say a word of 
 other French the eminence of that gentleman in literature and 
 savan . oriental learning would be quite superfluous in an 
 
 assembly which itself comprises many distinguished oriental 
 scholars ; and I know that the modesty which is one of the 
 most marked characteristics which accompany the genius of 
 that gentleman would shrink from enumeration of his claims 
 to our regard and respect. I will content myself with saying 
 that no one has ever quitted the shores of India, which he 
 is about to leave very shortly, with more personal respect and 
 with greater regard on the part of all those who have come into 
 personal contact with him. But let me add a word as to the 
 institution to which he belongs, and of the claims which his 
 country has to our regard on account of the progress which it has 
 made, the services which it has rendered to our oriental scholar- 
 ship in that College de France, of which he is so distinguished 
 an ornament, and in the Societe Asiatique of France. There has 
 never been wanting there a number of men of the highest ability 
 and of the most distinguished scholarship who side by side with 
 the savants of other parts of Europe have been pushing forward 
 those researches by which you, gentlemen, especially as natives 
 of the country, must be gainers, and which call from you for 
 high appreciation. Let it be remembered that it was Anquetil 
 du Perron who first rescued the Avesta from the slumber of ages 
 and brought it to the notice of the learned of the world. Let us 
 remember that it was another French scholar, Eugene Bournouff, 
 who first deciphered the Avesta for European scholars, brought 
 it into the full light of day, and made it the subject of critical 
 examination to a line of scholars like Darmesteter, who will, no 
 doubt, illuminate many of the still obscure passages of that 
 interesting compilation. It must surely be a moment of pride 
 
1887.— T/ie Honorable Mr. Justice West. l81 
 
 and happiness to all the gentlemen who have taken prizes here 
 to-day to be admitted on an occasion like this to such a dis- 
 tinguished company as that of which I have spoken. I trust 
 that those who have received prizes and those also who have 
 been admitted to degrees to-day will bear in mind that this 
 distinction does impose upon them a certain duty to this insti- 
 tution, and a certain duty to their country and their countrymen. 
 They are bound to live up to the honour they have gained to-day, 
 to prove themselves worthy associates of those amongst whom 
 they have been admitted, and they are bound, in so far as their 
 abilities will enable them, to push forward the cause of civilization, 
 enlightenment, and learning in all the remoter corners of this 
 country in which there is so much still to be done. The gentle- 
 men who have passed on this occasion for the lower stages 
 leading towards the degrees, are very numerous — more numerous, 
 I believe, than on any former occasion, and it is rather sad to 
 observe that of those who have succeeded so well, perhaps the 
 largest proportional number is due to two institutions over whose 
 face there has been not a little just lamentation in recent days. 
 It happens by a strange coincidence that in some of the exami- 
 nations the largest proportional number of those who have passed 
 relatively to those who have come up have issued from the 
 Gujarat and the Deccan Colleges. I say no more on this subject 
 at this moment, except that it proves that these institutions, even 
 as it maybe in their hour of weakness and impending danger, have 
 still worked up to a high standard, and have done their duty by 
 the people amongst whom they have been placed. The great 
 increase in the numbers of the gentlemen who come up for these 
 lower stages leading towards the degrees suggests always to 
 one interested in the advancement of learning that the prepara- 
 tory studies for this University ought to be made wider, deeper, 
 and more complete than they are. I believe there are few of 
 the gentlemen who have taken their degrees to-day, and few 
 who had to go through the torture of examinations in the lower 
 stages, who will not admit that they have suffered considerably 
 by the defects of the primary and secondary education through 
 which they have passed preparatory to their coming to this 
 University. And certainly it is an object well worthy of the 
 attention of an enlightened Government to endeavour to complete 
 the course of study, to enlarge its scope, and to ripen it especially 
 in the secondary schools of this Presidency, if it wishes to have 
 genuine scholarship apart from the mere faculty of passing 
 examinations amongst those students who are hereafter to be 
 the representatives of the intellect of India to the learned world. 
 The Government, however, is not the only power or the only 
 
l82 University of Bombay, 
 
 institution whicli is responsible in a matter like this. In every 
 Miiuicipali- Roiiian city of the ancient days there were estab- 
 ties and Edu- lishments for the education of the people which 
 cation. were supported out of municipal funds. Every 
 
 great municipality of the Roman empire encouraged learning 
 in its schools by liberal grants, by obtaining for the Professors 
 in those scohols certain political privileges and titles, and 
 by freeing them from municipal taxes. I believe that the 
 Professors in Bombay would highly appreciate an honour of 
 that last kind. But whether the municipality may feel itself 
 disposed to violate all the canons of political economy or 
 not by conferring an exemption of that kind, I do say that 
 the municipality of Bombay might very well, and with great 
 advantage to the citizens it represents, do something towards 
 supporting three or four or six secondary schools of the first 
 ranks, presided over by men of distinguished abilities and 
 distinguished attainments, and teaching pupils sent into them 
 upon the two great lines of literary and scientific develop- 
 ment, and then sending them so prepared into this University 
 to make in this University an entirely new career for it, to set 
 up a new standard, and to make the institution more and more 
 worthy of the great place which, I believe, it occupies now and 
 is destined to occupy in the future of India. That great in- 
 terest is felt in this University amongst all the classes of the 
 community in this Presidency is in no way perhaps so well 
 indicated as by the endowments which it receives from year to 
 year. Never, I believe, since this University began its career, 
 since the Chancellor or Vice- Chancellor addressed you from this 
 place, has any occasion passed without the announcement of 
 some endowments. This year the endowments are not large, but 
 still the stream lias not failed. They have been commemorated 
 in the report which has been read to you, and they claim a 
 word of gratitude from us. Divan Mambhai Jasbhai, the 
 Committee for the Countess of Bufferings Fund, and the Com- 
 mittee for establishing a memorial to the late Mr. James Grreaves, 
 have made endowments which demand our recognition and our 
 
 gratitude. But perhaps there are not a few here 
 
 ^eZi ^ sn ^r- ^^^ have a good deal of wealth to dispose of, whom 
 
 fluous wealth. we may remind that although a great deal has been 
 
 done, a great deal more remains to be done, and 
 there is still room for the munificence of our wealthy citizens. 
 For instance, we have only to look round the enclosure of 
 this noble building to see that a handsome railing round 
 it would add to the beauty and the architectural effect of 
 this magnificent pile. Again, our University Library, which 
 
1887,-^The Eonorable Mr. Justice West 183 
 
 has formed so pleasing a topic of discussion to the jonrnal- 
 ists for some years back, and which may be destined to 
 form a topic of their discussion still for some time to come, is 
 really but the leavings of three or four old libraries, a collection 
 of scraps and odds and ends. It has nothing of the systematic 
 or complete in it_, and I put it to you, gentlemen, who have 
 wealth, and to gentlemen who shall read what I am now saying, 
 whether some portion of their riches would not be really well 
 disposed of in adding to the treasures of the library by which 
 all the citizens of Bombay might be benefited. Again, we have 
 been extending the range of our University examinations, we 
 have been enlarging the theoretical sphere of its influence ; 
 but where are the Professors, where are the teachers, who are 
 to give life to this skeleton, who are to fill out this great outline 
 and make our performance equal to the promises that we hold 
 forth to the world ? I think that for the completion of this 
 University course it is obviously necessary that there should be 
 constituted, in one at least of the colleges, a Professorship of 
 the classical languages, Grreek and Latin. Perhaps it is news to 
 many of you that there is such a deficiency, but it does exist, 
 and I trust it will not be suffered long to exist. Again, those 
 gentlemen who were so zealous in. advocating the cause of the 
 French language in the curriculum of the University are, 
 I think, bound to go about among some of their wealthy 
 friends and to urge them with all the influence they possess 
 to establish a Professorship of the French language and litera- 
 ture. No language and no literature could be more interest- 
 ing, none could be more worthy of the expenditure of some 
 of the superfluous wealth which is now rusting, actually rusting, 
 in the coffers of the wealthy of Bombay. Again, we have 
 established a degree in Science, but it has unfortunately not 
 proved very attractive hitherto, and the somewhat poor 
 show in point of numbers of the gentlemen distinguished, as I 
 have no doubt they are in their attainments, who have come up 
 to take their degree of Bachelors of Science to-day, indicates 
 that there is something wanting in the attractions as yet held 
 out to a career in that line. I believe that as the system of 
 technical education is extended, the Science degree will become 
 more and more appreciated, as it certainly ought to become. 
 But in the meantime I will put it to those who have the means, 
 that they might do a great deal of good to their University and 
 their countrymen by establishing one or two chairs in the 
 department of Applied Science, such as a chair of Agricultural 
 Chemistry. Those who are desirous of filling out the great 
 outline which is laid down of University studies here will find 
 
184 University of Bomhay. 
 
 plenty of opportunities, and they can gratify their own indivi- 
 dual taste in supporting or endowing this or that particular line 
 of research or mental development without in auy way affecting 
 the special susceptibilities of any members of this institution. 
 Bombay the There was a city in ancient days founded by a great 
 modem Alex- conqueror, — I am speaking of Alexandria, -^and 
 andna. when that great conqueror founded that city he 
 
 established it as a gateway of communication and as a means 
 of connection between the East and the West. That great city 
 of commerce was the seat of a long line of kings. It had wealth 
 beyond most cities of the ancient world, and it was the favoured 
 resort of many of the great ones of the earth. It has occupied a 
 great place in history, but the greatest place it has taken has been 
 on account of its library, on account of its learned men, and on 
 account of the philosophy and learning which grew up there, and 
 which have left its name, whatever its future fate may be, imper- 
 ishable in the intellectual history of mankind. Now in our day 
 and our age Bombay occupies quite an analogous position to that 
 of Alexandria in the ancient world. Bombay is for us the gateway 
 between the Bast and the West. There meet the men of various 
 nations, and there they exchange their merchandise. There also 
 then, I say, should be that interchange of thoughts and ideas by 
 which Bombay, like Alexandria, may rise to a fame quite independ- 
 ent of the wealth of its citizens, and of any fate which may befall 
 it. Here in Bombay, where converging races from the East and 
 West meet, should rise a school of scholarship and philosophy, 
 which should make this city a worthy successor to the great city 
 founded by Alexander the Great. Surely to forward such a 
 work as this is an ambition worthy of the greatest and most dis- 
 tinguished of our citizens. I hope they will now and in all 
 future time rise to the occasion, and it will be a part of 
 their ambition — certainly it will be the noblest and purest 
 part of their ambition — to endow the learned institutions, 
 and especially the University in this city, with such gifts, 
 make them so rich, and furnish such encouragements to learn- 
 ing, research, and study, as shall make Bombay intellectually 
 the first city in Asia and second to none in the world. Let me 
 remind these citizens that at the period of the Renaissance in 
 Europe, which corresponds much in many ways to the awakening 
 of thought and intellectual light which is now making its way 
 in India, the citizens of the great cities were lavish in their gifts 
 and in their expenditure for the encouragement of learning. The 
 great merchants of Florence, as some of their day-books, their 
 *^ mels,^' preserved down to our own time show, not only had 
 tkek* correspondents in all parts of the world for gathering up 
 
1887.--TAe Honorable Mr. ^mtice West, 185 
 
 rich merchandiso, but also to seek out learned men and to send 
 home valuable manuscripts. There is an example for our citizens 
 
 to follow. Again, I find at the same stage in the 
 andUnivSy! world's progress that a city like Bologna spent half 
 
 of its municipal funds in the support of its Univer- 
 sity. Now I should like to go to the Municipal Council of Bombay, 
 and ask them what they would say to expending fifteen lakhs per 
 annum on the University of Bombay. In these days when there 
 are so many calls on the funds of the municipality as on those of 
 individuals, no one looks for such liberality as that. But something 
 at least might be done, and certainly when we look to the history 
 of great cities in the past, it can hardly be said to be an improper 
 disposition of municipal funds, when at any rate within moderate 
 limits they are expended on the advancement of learning and 
 science. Padua, another great city, supported at one time thirty 
 Professors in its University — Professors of Law and Medicine 
 and General Literature. Now, if the Municipality of Bombay 
 would undertake to support in this institution even one-half of 
 that number, I am sure that the community would be extremely 
 grateful, and this institution would derive the greatest possible 
 benefit from such liberality. But at the same time that the 
 municipalities of Italy at the period of the Renaissance were so 
 liberal in their gifts in aid of learning, there was still a field left 
 for the princes and nobles and chiefs of that country, and there 
 is still a field left for the princes and nobles and chiefs of India 
 Excellent ad- *^ ^^ ^ great deal for the University of Bombay. It 
 vice to Indian will be familiar to those of you who have read 
 bWn*"*^'^*'" *^® bistory of that great period of the re-awaken- 
 ^ °* ing of European life and knowledge that the new 
 
 learning was but somewhat coldly received by the Univer- 
 sities themselves, which by that time after a period of three 
 or four centuries of activity had already sunk pretty deep into 
 the ruts of routine. It was in the courts of Popes and of the 
 princes and nobles of Italy that the great scholars found means 
 for carrying on their studies and the Universities, which were 
 somewhat chary of receiving them, found to their cost after- 
 wards that the wave of learning had in the long run passed 
 them by and left them standing. Here is an example for the 
 chiefs in India, and especially chiefs who have any relation 
 to the Presidency of Bombay. Here is an institution which 
 would be in no wise jealous of anything they can do for learn- 
 ing. It invites them to come into its arms and to go hand in 
 hand along with them in the work of assisting and promoting 
 learning, literature, and science. I suppose there are few 
 chiefs of higher rank who would not ^yq a lakh or even two 
 
186 University of Bombay, 
 
 or five lakhs for an addition of one gun to their salutes. I do 
 not ask these gentlemen in any way to despise the salute, which 
 shows the respect felt for them by the Paramount Power in 
 India. Far from it ; but I ask them to win a still greater and 
 nobler salute by giving a lakh or two or five to an institution 
 of this kind, and then on every occasion of their entering this 
 building, and showing their face among the community to 
 which they belong, they will receive the noblest salute of a 
 people's applause. I would fain see on every one of the panels 
 of this hall, in which we are assembled, a tablet containing 
 the names of chief after chief, hereditary donors of bounties 
 to this University, hereditary benefactors who would within its 
 sacred walls find a nobler Walhallah than anything ihat 
 northern mythical imagination can conceive, where instead of 
 drinking mead out of the skulls of their slain foes, they would 
 move about in ideal society, one with the other, an idolized 
 body of benefactors worthy of the recollection and almost 
 of the worship of those who in future generations will flock into 
 this hall, as they have done to-day, to take their degrees and 
 to receive the recognition of those who come to witness the 
 Government proceedings. Now I dare say that the benefactions 
 and Higher Edu- which I have had to acknowledge to-day would 
 cation. have been somewhat greater than they have been 
 
 but for some degree of uncertainty and of a strain of misgiving 
 which pervades the mind of the community at this moment as to 
 the future of education in this country. We have recently seen 
 one educational institution very materially changed in its condi- 
 tions. We see, or we think we see, a sort of sword of Damocles 
 hanging over another institution which is much prized by the 
 community. I do not venture at all to question the policy, from a 
 strictly political point of view, which dictates the movements of 
 Government in this respect. But it may be allowed to us as an 
 University, however great and emergent the necessity may be, to 
 express our regret that any evil fate should befall institutions 
 such as these, and that is an evil fate, we consider, which 
 severs them now from the control and the support of Govern- 
 ment. We think, we members of this University think, and I 
 am sure I am speaking the feelings of nearly all, if not all, 
 who are assembled here, that it is desirable in the present 
 state of education in India that there should not be a total 
 severance of the Government from the higher educational 
 institutions. No doubt in England, with its peculiar history 
 and with a special individual character which has been devel- 
 oped there, the Government may sever itself from schools and 
 institutions for higher education* But a great deal of that 
 
1887.— r/ie Honorable Mr. Justice West. 187 
 
 depends on the special circumstances of the history of Eng- 
 land, and we think that those circumstances may not exist 
 here, and that, therefore, the reasons why a particular line of 
 policy may be expedient in England, at least deserves fresh 
 examination and review before they are applied crudely and 
 without consideration to the circumstances of India. However, 
 in saying what I have said, I would not be understood, for a 
 moment, as calling in question the necessities which press on the 
 Government at this moment. We are living in a period of very 
 great financial pressure, every one knows so much as that ; but 
 no one feels it, I am sure, so acutely as the Government^ 
 Moreover, the Govemlnent is called on at this moment to consider 
 what aid it can give to the advancement of technical education, 
 
 Importaaice of ^^^ ^^^ ^^ * matter of vast importance. Technical 
 Teciinical Edu- education is that on which a great deal of the 
 cation. future development of this country depends. It 
 
 is one of the most striking phenomena of the day, the swift 
 advance of the European countries in applying the resources 
 of science to the advancement of technical education ; and we 
 cannot any more than England afford to be left behind in the 
 competition and race for progress in this line. The Govern- 
 ment must do what it can to support technical education; 
 and technical education on its own behalf, even if there were 
 no competition and no stress of necessity, has great and para- 
 mount claims to the support of the Government and the com- 
 munity itself. It is through technical education that the riches 
 of the world are brought to our feet, that the weak are made 
 strong, and the poor rich, and that the fainting soul receives 
 the lightning-like communication that gives it peace. All these 
 things are owing to the application of science in our day, and who 
 shall therefore say that it does not deserve the recognition and 
 support of the enlightened men of the community. The Govern- 
 ment in supporting it deserves our sympathy, and if sacrifices 
 must be made for it in some directions, we must be reasonable 
 and enlightened enough to see that the Government itself is in a 
 Btrait, and submit to the necessity in the hope that better times 
 
 Q ,, will come. This subject of technical education has 
 
 indifEerence to hitherto been, I must say, somewhat lamely handled 
 Teciinical Edu- ^s far as One Can gather from what has appeared 
 in public by the Government. It seems almost 
 sometimes as if they had called up a Frankenstein, and were 
 afraid to look the subject in the face, and as if they were 
 hesitating with the "blank misgivings of creatures moving 
 about in worlds half realized.'* So much has been talked and 
 so little has been done in this great and important sphere of 
 
l88 tJniversity of Bombay, 
 
 activity ! But I hope that ere long something like a practical 
 beginning will be made, and that then step by step we shall rise 
 through those middle principles on which Bacon has dilated as 
 being so important in connection with the progress from the lower 
 to a higher, that by degrees we shall introduce technical schools 
 to advance our humbler students to a perfect grasp of what they 
 now but faintly appreciate, and also that the masters and managers 
 of factories and agriculture on the larger scale will be furnished 
 with that higher technical education which is so essential, and 
 which comes into close communication with the abstract physical 
 sciences. It is at this highest point that technical 
 
 Teohnic^ Edu- education comes into connection with the Univer- 
 University. sity and polytechnic institutions. Whether the one 
 
 or the other should be the culminating point is a 
 problem which has been resolved in different ways by the think- 
 ing and practical minds of Europe. One thing, however, is cer- 
 tain, that whether a polytechnic institution or University should 
 be the ultimate home of science education, a preparatory system 
 laying the groundwork of general literature and science can do 
 nothing but good. The highest grade of instruction in general 
 literature and general science, according to the conceptions which 
 have prevailed, and which I think must be sound, has been allot- 
 ted hitherto to the Universities, and I think that whatever might 
 be the result from other points of view, the University itself would 
 largely gain by an addition to its forces in the department of 
 science. There is no doubt that mere learning and philosophy 
 faint and fade and wither in the absence of contact with positive 
 science and the daily interests and needs with which it is con- 
 nected. That has been illustrated by many instances, and not least 
 by the Universities of Italy to which I have made reference. No 
 University can afford to put itself oiit of touch with the general 
 movement of thought in the world, and when the general move- 
 ment is proceeding along the line of science, it is fatal to any 
 institution, be it ever so capable and learned in other ways, to let 
 itself fall out of communication with that movement. I say, 
 then, that it is in the University that we should, for the benefit 
 of the Universities and I think of the community, have those 
 masters of pure science who will furnish to the professors of 
 technology the means of carrying on their teaching with the 
 greatest benefit. These University professors of 
 
 Qualifications science should be men specially devoted to their 
 
 Science!**^" ^ subject ; they should be men not engaged in many 
 
 different occupations, but there should be in them, 
 
 in order that they may attain perfection in their own pursuit, 
 
 that specialization of labour, that devotion to single subjects 
 
1887.— ne Honorable Mr. justice West. ,180 
 
 of study which it would be impossible for any one engaged 
 in an ordinary profession, or in any ordinary business to have. 
 The professor of a particular subject, as of Chemistry in an 
 University, must give himself up to that one subject. At the 
 same time mixed trades and professions on account of their 
 involving attention to a great many fragmentary subjects are in 
 themselves almost incapable of being taught in an University ; 
 you require a combination of qualities, a readiness of resources, 
 and an application of very various species of information for the 
 purpose of carrying on any business which is not best learnt in an 
 University or not learnt there at all, but must be learnt in the 
 practice of the profession and of the business itself. Therefore, I 
 say, that although the scientific part of an education can best be 
 communicated in the University, and by University teachers of 
 the highest rank, yet as for the mixed business and professions 
 but little can be done in the Universities except laying the 
 foundations. These remarks apply especially to the University 
 of Bombay, and I hope that while technical education is being 
 advanced by the Government it will still be accompanied side 
 by side with a large endowment for pur© science in the Univer- 
 sity, and that from out of the studies and the lecture rooms 
 of the professors of science will proceed a large number of men, 
 who will then apply their scientific attainments to the instruc- 
 tion of those who again, in the descending scale, will communi- 
 cate that fertilizing stream to the members of the community 
 who must needs use it in their ordinary avocations. 
 
 These are the chief remarks that occur to me on this occa- 
 sion. Gentlemen of the Senate, I had intended to say something 
 at greater length on the position which Indian Universities have 
 now attained, on the great services they have rendered to the 
 community amongst whom they are placed, on the duties which 
 devolve upon them, and on the great future which is before 
 them. The topic, I find, is somewhat too extensive and too 
 important to be treated at this stage of my address to you. 
 , I will reserve it, if ever I have the opportunity, for 
 
 vi»a tol^diafl* some other occasion of addressing you, and I will 
 say no more on the present occasion than to remind 
 my younger hearers, in whom we all feel so much interested, that 
 whether in the field of science, or in the field of literature, there 
 is a certain exaltation of spirit required, — and that can be attained 
 by true attachment to a great institution of this kind, which brings 
 out the noblest abilities into splendid activity ; that they owe to 
 this institution and to their country great services on account of 
 their connexion with the University, that they should make theii' 
 
190 University of Bombay, 
 
 position in it tlie means of guarding and guiding them amidst 
 the manifold temptations of life ; that they should remember that 
 in the literary field especially, a great literature implies a great 
 and noble national character ; that the literature of a nation pre- 
 sents the prevailing thoughts, passions, tendencies and aspirations 
 of its people, as these are reflected by men of genius, and there- 
 fore as the nature of a people is higher, purer and richer, so will 
 their literature be higher, purer and richer, and the more will that 
 nation have to contribute to the wisdom, and the elevation, and 
 the prosperity of mankind. Then I say, love your country and 
 your people. Let the motive to push forward their welfare be 
 ever and ever the monitor of your souls, and resolve that in the 
 future of the world this country, which in the past has played so 
 important apart, shall now recover it and be amongst the great- 
 est of the earth. 
 
 TWENTY-SEVENTH CONVOCATION, 
 
 (By Sie Batmond West.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — It must be a subject of regret 
 to you that our learned and eminent Chancellor is not able to 
 preside here on this occasion. Other public duties have with- 
 drawn him for this time, and the duty has devolved upon me, 
 who am so ill able to perform it, not only for reasons which 
 would be good enough in themselves, but which would not per- 
 haps be altogether modest to dwell upon — since recounting in 
 detail one's deficiencies differs but little from elaborating one's 
 merits ; but I also feel that on this occasion there are so many 
 interesting subjects to dwell upon that it is doubly and trebly a 
 matter of regret that one so much more able to deal with them 
 than I can pretend to be is not here to discuss them as you 
 would desire. However, if you find what I have to say some- 
 what tedious, as no doubt you will, I think I can promise you 
 that that irksomeness shall not be repeated. You will no doubt 
 yourselves feel that it is desirable that this University should be 
 represented by some one, who is free from any trammels which 
 might interfere with his duty to the University. And even if 
 one is not bound by such trammels it is desirable that even the 
 bare suspicion of any cross-lights or clashing interests should 
 never touch the Vice-Chance llor of this University, who has so 
 often to represent it before the public and before the Govern- 
 ment. I feel also that the duties which have now devolved upon 
 me and the changed position 1 occupy since I last addressed 
 you, as they call me away from Bombay through the greater 
 
1888.— Sir Raymond West 191 
 
 part of the year, must interfere with my presiding at the meet- 
 ings of the Syndicate and with my presence and active part in 
 the daily affairs of the University. Therefore, for these, if for 
 no other reasons, I propose to take an early opportunity of re- 
 signing a post which I have felt it a great honour to hold and 
 in which I have experienced so much kindness from you, but 
 which I now feel is becoming in a manner untenable. 
 
 There are some interesting features in the results of our 
 UniTersity examination this year, and you will recongnise the 
 culture for propriety of my first of all dwelling on the cir- 
 ladies. cumstance that this year we have our first lady 
 
 bachelor. This University was one of the first in Her Majesty's 
 dominions to recongnise the equal rights of either sex to 
 the honours and distinctions which it confers, and by the 
 introduction of a few words, that words in the masculine in 
 the rules of the University shall for the future include also 
 the feminine, we have effected a very considerable revolution in 
 the future constitution of our University ; and now we feel for 
 the first time in the active life of our institution the results of 
 that change. We must all wish the young lady, who has this 
 day by her ability and perseverance attained so honourable a 
 position, every success — equal and still growing success — in all 
 her future career. Although the liberality which our University 
 has shown in the instance of ladies, who desire to become graduates, 
 is in very recent times perhaps a matter of some note, yet I 
 may remark that in those Universities which first spread the 
 light of the renascent learning through Europe, learned ladies 
 were never wanting, and if one looks to the history of Padua, 
 he recognises the propriety of Shakspeare drawing his advocate 
 from that University. For, if not Portias as advocates, Portias 
 as lawyers or as scholars there were there and at Bologna in an 
 almost continued succession till a very recent period, and thus 
 the tradition of female scholarship was kept up in Italy, and 
 from Italy it was transferred to other countries in Europe. I 
 may point to the learned Madame Dacier in France as having 
 been one of the most eminent commentators on the Classics, a 
 commentator whose explanations and discussions of passages in 
 the Greek authors are still referred to with great respect by 
 scholars. The tradition has now been taken up in England and 
 with excellent results. Now it may be said that females devot- 
 ing themselves to the pursuits which have hitherto been mono- 
 polised by males, and which have been pursued with an energy 
 and an amount of toil for which the female physique, it may be 
 supposed, is somewhat too feeble, are stepping out of, their 
 
192 University of Bombay, 
 
 proper lin^, and tliat they can never hope to attain the success in 
 farther life, which ought to be the aspiration and the reasonable 
 expectation of those who enter upon a learned or professional 
 career. But I think all that may very well be left to the arrange- 
 ment of fortune, or rather of Providence, and that if a young 
 lady feels a special call for learning as her vocation she ought 
 no more to be excluded from learning than she is excluded from 
 the career of music or painting. And if any of my own rougher 
 sex are inclined to feel jealous, which I trust very few are in 
 this community, one may point to the fact that it is only ladies of 
 very special gifts who have achieved the first distinction either 
 in painting or music, and still fewer perhaps in the kindred art 
 of sculpture. But beyond that, here in India there is an absolute 
 want of learned ladies, and in the pursuits especially of medicine 
 and teaching, there is an ample field for far more than any number 
 of lady graduates that we are likely to have for many years, and 
 perhaps even for generations to come. We may all, therefore, 
 congratulate this lady on having entered upon a career in which 
 I trust she will be successful, and will have many followers 
 equally successful, and lending lustre to the University from 
 which they have proceeded. 
 
 There is another point in the results of our examinations 
 Stirring of "^^lich is of very great interest. You will have been 
 the Mussulmaa struck by the recurrence of Mussulman names in 
 ^^^^' the list of gentlemen who have this year taken 
 
 prizes. It is only a few years ago that the idea was very 
 prevalent that the Mussulmans in this country had for ever 
 abandoned the pursuit of learning, that they had given it 
 up to the Hindus, and that if ever they were to come to 
 the front again, it must be by physical force and fighting. 
 There were, however, some in those days, who like myself, re- 
 fused to believe that this was to be the course of events which 
 Providence had chalked out for the future of this country. We 
 refused to believe that the Mussulman intellect was in any way 
 essentially inferior to the Hindu or the European intellect, and 
 looking to what Arabian scholars had done in the centuries 
 which followed the ages of darkness, we thought that there was 
 nothing either in the Mahomedan religion, or Mahomedan 
 character, which ought in any way to check their progress in 
 learning. Three or four years ago, you will remember, that a very 
 considerable impulse was given to Mahomedan education, and 
 like all stirrings of the human mind, the waves of this educa- 
 tional movement spread themselves far beyond the immediate 
 point to which the impulse was directed, and now we see this year a 
 
1888.~/S'tr Raymond West. 193 
 
 gentleman coming up from the Free General Assembly's Insti- 
 tution and winning at the Matriculation Examination the first 
 prize in Latin. We also see him the very first out of, I think, 
 about 780 candidates who have passed the examination. Who 
 shall say that there is not much here to encourage the persevere 
 ance and devotion to duty of the Mussulman youth of our com- 
 munity ? Not only so but in the Previous Examination this 
 year we find that the Hughlings' prize for proficiency in 
 the English language has also been won by a Mahomedan gen- 
 tleman from Saint Xavier's College, so that here again we see 
 the effect of the stirring of the Mussulman mind, on which we 
 must congratulate that great community. 
 
 Our examinations for Matriculation have been attended this 
 year by, I may say, an unprecedented number of candidates. 
 Upwards of three thousand presented themselves before the 
 astonished, and perhaps, half-bewildered examiners, who could 
 not have anticipated from anything in the past so extraordinary 
 an influx of candidates for Matriculation. It was inevitable that 
 out of so large a number — a great many of them not quite 
 prepared for the work they had to do, and some of them, I 
 believe, coming up experimentally to see what an examination 
 looked like — there should be a good many failures. But I have 
 observed that those who passed have exceeded those who passed 
 last year by more than fifty per cent. This must in itself be very 
 satisfactory. For an increase of fifty per cent, in the number of 
 the students, who are fitted for the Matriculation, represents far 
 more than what the normal increase of population or the powers 
 of teaching as measured hj numbers can be- And it seems to, 
 point to this that the schools are beginning to acquire greater 
 efficiency in preparing for the examination. The schools will, 
 by-and-by, under the auspices of the University and under its 
 guidance and control, have a new and very important duty cast 
 upon them, that of preparing students for what has been termed 
 the Middle Class Examination. I think we have reason to hope 
 from the results of our Matriculation Examination this year, 
 that for the other examination also, the High Schools of this 
 Presidency will be able to gird themselves up, and they will 
 send forth a great number of young men, who, not caring or not 
 having the means to pursue the avocation of a scholar even in 
 its initial stage, will still have received an excellent elementary 
 education, and be well fitted for the ordinary callings of life. 
 This year, as in other years, we have had some complaints made 
 about the severity of the examinations, the impossibility of 
 answering questions within the time prescribed, and so forth. 
 25 
 
194 University of Bombay, 
 
 Solvitur amhulando is the answer to the problem which the 
 large number of successful gentlemen present here have given. 
 As a matter of fact they have answered the questions and they 
 have passed the Examination s_, so that there is no absolute 
 impossibility in the matter, and for my part, and I think I may 
 speak for the executive council of the University, the Syndicate, 
 that we see no reason whatever to doubt for a moment either 
 the capacity or the goodwill and kindness of the examiners, who 
 have had so hard and irksome a task cast upon them. These 
 examiners, gentlemen of the Senate, need the support of your 
 good opinion and confidence, and they ought to receive it in 
 unstinted measure, because it is one of the first points of morality 
 in an institution of this kind, one of the elementary points on 
 which its constitution and subsistence depend, that there should 
 be perfect confidence in the working of the institution; and that 
 the verdicts of the examiners should be entirely above question 
 by those who have submitted to them. Any course taken by 
 those who are interested in the University, which is contrary to 
 the principle I have laid down, is a course which, I think, 
 cannot but prove deeply injurious to the institution. We know 
 that not only very young men, but men of more advanced years 
 are much more ready to cast their failures and their disappoint- 
 ments on any other cause than the cause which rests within 
 Advice to dis- themselves. The bringing into question the ver- 
 appointed can- dicts of examiners or the decisions of bodies 
 didates. having authority tends to create doubt and hesi- 
 
 tancy, to bring all matters as it were into controversy, and 
 to make the matter after all in the opinion of those who are 
 concerned something on which a great deal may be said on 
 both sides. Thus faith is lost and the energy inspired by 
 faith. Whether the University examinations are carried on 
 honestly and judiciously or not, is not a profitable topic for 
 undergraduates. Instead of putting any ideas of this kind 
 before the minds of young men, who have the misfortune to 
 be disappointed this year, I would say to them : "Accept the 
 ill-fortune which has now befallen you with manly fortitude and 
 modesty, with simple dignity, and with a resolution to overcome 
 the evil star which apparently has shone malignly upon you this 
 time. Perhaps the very disappointment which you have 
 experienced will be the starting point of your chief success in 
 life, and if you make up your minds to go forward instead of 
 looking backwards, you will find that the obstacles which now 
 appear to be so impervious and insurmountable will fall away at 
 the touch of honest and assiduous toil, and in the end you will 
 go on your way rejoicing/' 
 
1888. — Sir Raymond West. 195 
 
 We have this year, as in past years, had many expressions 
 Universifcy ^^ *^® general confidence of the great community, 
 the pillar of in which WO are placed, in this institution. To them 
 people's hope. j|. ^g^ ^^ j^ ought to be, the pillar of the people's 
 hope and the centre of this little world's desire. Wherever 
 the resolution exists in the breast of a cultivated member 
 of our community to connect his name with some benefit to 
 his fellow-countrymen, we find now that as a rule he resorts 
 to this University, and we have some bounty, some blessing 
 to acknowledge in the speeches which are annually delivered 
 from this place. This year has been no exception to that rule, 
 or if an exception, it is an exception which is far from being a 
 disappointing one. To begin with, an endowment 
 to'^^'co^em^- was presented to the University in honour of 
 rate valuable the late Mr. James Greaves, a gentleman who, 
 services. after carrying on the mill industry with very 
 
 great success, devoted himself in his later years a good deal to 
 the advancement of education in the place where he acquired 
 fortune, and whose memory is now rightly preserved by those 
 who witnessed his benevolence and shared his toils, in the 
 institution of a scholarship in this University. Then there was 
 another great friend of the natives of this country in the days 
 when they needed friends more than they do now. He also has 
 passed away from active life, not from life wholely, but merely 
 into the autumn of retirement in which, I hope, he will long 
 continue his benevolent existence — I mean Colonel French — the 
 late chairman of the B. B. & C. I. Railway Company. A sub- 
 scription having been raised in his honour, a scholarship has been 
 founded in this University. Colonel French, it may interest you 
 to know, gentlemen of the Senate, felt as long ago as 1828 or 
 1829 so strong an interest in the then infant institution, the 
 Elphinstone Institution, which had not at that time been divided 
 into a school and a college, that being an Adjutant to a regiment 
 he brought his moral influence to bear upon it, and obtained all 
 round from the men a day's pay for that institution. That is an 
 example which in our days might be followed with great advan- 
 tage by many Adjutants or even Colonels of regiments. Then we 
 have further a scholarship founded in honour of Rao Bahadur 
 Lukshman Jagannath, an eminent administrator of the Native 
 State of Baroda. These have been realised some little time ago. 
 But yesterday another additional bounty was placed in my hands, 
 which gave me no little pleasure, and which will give you, too, 
 no little pleasure to hear. A fund has been raised to com- 
 memorate the services rendered to this University especially, and 
 in other departments of public life, by our distinguished fellow- 
 
i96 University of Bombay. 
 
 citizen R^o S^lieb Y. N. Mandlik. A sum of Rs. 6,000 was 
 handed to me yesterday (Monday) with, a view to the foundation, 
 on terms which we shall have to settle hereafter, of a Sanskrit 
 scholarship to bear the name of that eminent individual. I am 
 sure that whatever views different persons may take of the line 
 which the^Rao Saheb has adopted, either in politics or social move- 
 ments, or any other ways, every one will admit that in this Univer- 
 sity he has been a faithful and a devoted sustainer and supporter 
 of learning. His services have been constant and unremittiug, 
 and nothing can give us greater pleasure than to find that he is so 
 highly appreciated, and that his name is to remain for ever in 
 the golden book of this institution. He will be enshrined 
 amongst the best and most deserving men of our institution, 
 uniting within himself the attributes of a Sulpicius, a Varro, and 
 a Macenas, and the fame of them all. Even our late Assistant 
 Registrar, Rao S^heb Granpatrao Moroba Pitale, I believe, is to 
 be shortly conmiemorated. A movement is on foot for present- 
 ing to the University some memorial of that gentleman whose 
 services and his figure in our ceremonials you no doubt remember 
 very well. And as the committee for commemorating his name 
 is headed by so eminent a scholar and so devoted a friend of the 
 University as my friend Mr. Justice Birdwood, I have no doubt 
 that next year a successful result of this movement will have to 
 be announced. 
 
 Hitherto I have been on comparatively common ground. 
 But now faulo majora canamus, and although the 
 Sir Dmshaw "bounty which I have next to speak of is not 
 libMality.^ ^ ^ ^ directly bestowed on the University, yet it is so 
 closely connected with it, that this is no doubt 
 the proper place in which to make a public acknowledgment 
 of it. When I mention the name of Sir Dinshaw Manockjee 
 Petit, I mention a name which calls up a glow and a thrill of 
 gratitude in the hearts of every one who is interested in the 
 welfare of our community, or who has sympathy for kindness, 
 goodness and pity for suffering. Sir Dinshaw Petit has placed 
 at the disposal of the Grovernment a building, the value of which 
 is estimated at three lakhs of rupees, and by an interchange of 
 the locality in which the Elphinstone College is placed — 
 supposing that can be carried out with the assistance of the 
 learned Judges of the High Court — we shall have that College 
 brought very shortly into the immediate neighbourhood of this 
 University. That, for the College, will be a great advantage ; 
 for the students will then be placed close to the library of the 
 University, and will have an opportunity of making use of it to 
 
1888.--/Sfir Haymond West. 19? 
 
 a much greater extent than they have hitherto done, the 
 number of readers up to this time, as I have been credibly 
 informed, being only two. Now it must not be supposed for a 
 moment that in commemorating as I do, and in the Government 
 commemorating as it has done, the bounty of Sir Dinshaw, there 
 is any, even the slightest, inclination to overlook the claims of 
 high education in this Presidency. That bounty, aided as it will 
 be by the transfer to the Government of the Ripon Memorial 
 Fund, will bo the commencement of a very great and beneficial 
 work in this Presidency. I believe that the trustees of the Ripon 
 Memorial Fund have found a way in which they may secure a 
 perpetual memorial of Lord Ripon in whom we are all so deeply 
 interested, and whose -memory we would all wish to keep green. 
 They have found the means by which it is expected that they 
 will keep his memory distinctly alive and yet united with the 
 larger and all-embracing institution, the Victoria Jubilee Tech- 
 nical Institute. It is to be hoped that the arrangements by 
 which these designs are to be carried out will very soon be 
 accomplished, and then we shall have the University standing 
 side by side with this great technical institution, each of them 
 pursuing a beneficial course of its own. The University has thus, 
 for the future, to share its duties in pushing on the intellectual 
 training of the people of this Presidency with another institution. 
 But let it never be said by way of reproach to the University that 
 this new way has been found, and that the University was not 
 The blessings awake to it when it was founded. The University 
 conferred by the has in no wise fallen short of its high calling. It 
 Umversity. jg Qj^jy necessary to look back to the Act of Incor- 
 
 poration to see how difiicult it was then even to form a Senate 
 by which the Institution could be carried on, and it was neces- 
 sary in those days of comparative backwardness for the Univer- 
 sity starting as a great experiment in this country to found 
 itself on the recognised and established courses of study. The 
 University based itself mainly on the old established lines of 
 mathematics and literature, and surely it was right in doing so, 
 because at that time all was uncertain, and surely no better 
 discipline to the intellect could possibly be found than a study of 
 mathematics, and the teaching it affords, in closeness of reasoning, 
 in perspicuity, in the exercise of the discursive faculty, in the close 
 examination of truth, and after that the embracing and holding 
 fast of the truth, once realised, in a way in which no outcry of 
 any multitude will ever shake. Then too literature surely, the 
 literary line of study which this University has pursued, has its 
 great and manifest advantages. The literature of the world 
 represents the freedom and activity of the human spirit. It 
 
1#8 University of Bombay. 
 
 reflects the great movements of the thought of the world. The 
 very fact that a man is great in literature implies that he has 
 penetrated deeper than others into the human faculty and human 
 nature, and that he has been able to select for us those types of 
 character for imitation which we may recognise as leading us 
 on to the cultivation of the higher parts of our nature and the 
 gradual suppression of those which are more ignoble. For all 
 this and more literature is an instrument of education which 
 cannot be surpassed. The history of the world, and more 
 especially the history of our own country, shows that instruction 
 based on classical literature has been sufficient for generations, 
 and even for centuries, to train up for the English Senate, and 
 in the public life of the country, a series of men who were want- 
 ing in none of the attributes of greatness and statesmanship. 
 But in this country, too, we have seen the beneficial results of 
 this classical and mathematical training. We have disseminated 
 all over this Presidency, and to a circuit far beyond this Presi- 
 dency, our engineers, who are evolving and developing anew the 
 resources of the country. We have sent to the remotest towns 
 of this Presidency physicians, who carry with them not only a 
 rational practice of medicine, but take with them also that 
 method of viewing the facts of nature, which in itself is an 
 instruction to all who become acquainted with them. They are 
 reproducing and repeating in this country the course which was 
 taken by their great predecessors in Europe at the awakening 
 of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, when the 
 physicians were the great leaders of advancing thought, and 
 were opening the way to the great development of the inductive 
 sciences. Then, again, in the field with which I am more nearly 
 connected myself, the field of the law, have we not diffused 
 through this Presidency, and a region of far greater extent, the 
 noble principles of the English law? Have we not sent out 
 gentlemen, who, having been first well trained in general 
 literature, have been able to make their profession and persons 
 well respected, and who being thoroughly well trained in the 
 law, which is the very life of English institutions, have laid the 
 foundation amongst their own people for an indefinite progress, 
 political and social, in the future. This our University has ac- 
 complished in the past, and, I think, we must say that when we 
 find journalism also so developed, and when we find the teaching 
 profession so well filled in this Presidency, our University has 
 no reason to hang down its head and say : *^This we have done, 
 but we have not done enough.' ' When we see the general 
 powers and capacities of people widely expanded and elevated ; 
 when we see institutions fairly, though frankly, criticised ; when 
 
1888.— /SV Raymond West. 199 
 
 we see the openings to reform pointed out and a general hope 
 of greater things for the futnre diffused among the people — and 
 these are the very elements of national progress — we find that 
 for all this the community is indebted to our University. 
 
 But while this movement has been going on in the world 
 ■M-^^^ ^^4.. presided over by the University and directly in- 
 
 Movements r j -i •< iTl t. i_ ^ t 
 
 concurrent with iluenced by it, there nas been a concurrent and 
 and parallel^ to parallel movement no less astonishing. We have 
 seen an extraordinary development of agriculture, 
 the introduction of tea and coffee planting, the extension of 
 improved cotton growth, a general stir and progress such as 
 there never was before. We have also seen that remark- 
 able expansion of the railway system, which has converted 
 India into one of the countries best provided with great roads 
 in the world. We have seen commerce developing itself on a 
 scale which heretofore was unknown ; and in the train of com- 
 merce have followed also banking and exchange on a great 
 scale. Now all these material arts on which the genius and 
 disciplined ability of many of our own students and graduates 
 have been expended have been found to have beneath them, as 
 in all arts and sciences, certain rules and principles which, 
 having been gathered from particular instances, then form 
 themselves a basis from which by inference new rules and new 
 principles may be derived. The want is felt by degrees here as 
 in other countries of a teclinological institution, which should 
 gather up these results, satisfy these needs, and give us the 
 training which our new circumstances require. The movement 
 has been greatly aided and stimulated, no doubt, by the corre- 
 sponding movement in England, for there, as here, it is felt that 
 the competition of the world every day grows more keen, and 
 that it is only by a perpetual striving and a thorough cultivation 
 of the faculties that we are likely to keep our place, either in 
 England or in India, in the race for competence and prosperity. 
 In this very city we have seen the mill industry grow up, which 
 makes Bombay one of the great manufacturing cities of the 
 world, and here, especially, the want of technological instruction 
 has been a growing want, which has made itself keenly felt and 
 has been loudly expressed. Now comes an institution which, I 
 trust, will supply that great want : nor let it be supposed for a 
 moment that an institution of that kind need be deficient in the 
 higher elements of intellectual cultivation. It is certainly true 
 that technical instruction, when it is pursued on a scientific 
 basis, affords exercise to the very highest powers of the intellect. 
 If we follow out the development of any one of the great 
 
wo University of Bombay, 
 
 branches o£ physics or chemistry or any of the great inventions 
 by which the world has been enriched in its material sphere 
 from the early gropings of its first devotees down to its develop- 
 ment in our days, we find in that task a noble and worthy 
 exercise of the highest capacity. If we attempt to appreciate 
 the influence of such an invention or discovery on the world as 
 it exists now, we are involved in a very comprehensive view of 
 the existing conditions of human existence. If we attempt to 
 anticipate what these inventions are to produce in the future we 
 are engaged on a problem which is worthy of the very highest 
 speculative ability. It should never be said then that techno- 
 logical instruction, when properly pursued on a scientific basis, 
 is in any way opposed to the high cultivation of the mind or to 
 the objects of a University. It takes its part beside, and in no 
 way under, it. At the same time the objects of a technical 
 institution, its aims and its method, must differ to a considerable 
 extent from those of a University. It seeks to utilize generally 
 the material productions of the earth, to improve our meana 
 of locomotion, to give us better clothes to wear, better houses to 
 live in, and make the conditions of our physical existence alto- 
 gether more comfortable. And this it does by taking generally 
 the sciences, perhaps in a somewhat fragmentary way, and 
 bringing their different results together — focussing them on 
 some particular point on which it desires to build up some 
 structure of comfort and advantage to mankind. Its spirit is 
 strictly and intensely practical. The ruling idea of a University, 
 on the other hand, is a spiritual and intellectual one. It desires, 
 not to produce immediate material results, but to enrich and 
 discipline, to expand and enlarge the human mind, to make it 
 more worthy of the capacities with which the Creator has 
 endowed it, and to go on to heights which we never reach, but 
 which we ever try to approach, in learning and science pursued, 
 not for their material results but as an exercise to the intellect, 
 and as sufficient and satisfactory in themselves. A University 
 which pursues this course, however, must at the same time not 
 cut itself off in arrogance or apathy from the influences by 
 which it is surrounded. No human institution can afford to live 
 
 isolated, and if a University divorces itself from 
 latlm^^ °^ ^^°' ^^^ active life around it, it is pretty certain that 
 
 it will very shortly become hide-bound, narrow, 
 and pedantic, and will ultimately perish or sink into insigni- 
 ficance, through a kind of inanition. If we want examples 
 of this we have only to look to the history of Athens, through 
 several centuries ; and we have only to look to China at this 
 day to see that, although there is a good deal of learning 
 
1888.— iSf^V Raymond West, 261 
 
 tliere^ yet there is little progress and mental expansion. Even 
 in the Universities of Italy the resolution not to take up the 
 new learning was in the end almost fatal to them. In Bologna, 
 and Padua^ as in Salerno, the refusal to accept the new 
 learning left the Universities at last high and dry, while the 
 stream of progress was passing by them. On the other hand, 
 the University of Paris developed a splendid faculty by its 
 readiness to accept light and truth, and thus became the centre 
 and the soul of the Universities all over Europe — the great 
 mother of Universities — an institution in which the light of 
 science and literature has never paled through any length of 
 time down to our own day. But, bear in mind, it was the 
 professional Universities, the Technical institutions of those 
 times that showed most of the narrowness I have mentioned and 
 most suffered by it. - In the time of James I, Lord Bacon com- 
 plained that there were so many Universities in Europe which 
 had devoted themselves to professional pursuits, and which 
 wanted the liberality and expansion which he desired; and 
 wanting it they gradually faded away from the learned world of 
 Europe. Our own English Universities showed for a time a 
 tendency to adopt the more liberal course of learning which 
 Lord Bacon advocated, but in the end they fell back into the 
 rut of theological logomachy, and resting on the old classical 
 literature and the strict line of mathematics they severed them- 
 selves from the great movement of the inductive philosophy 
 preached by Lord Bacon, and advocated practically in the great 
 experiments of Galileo. Thus our English Universities by the 
 beginning or the early part of the last century had sunk into 
 such sluggish torpor that the chief intellectual benefits which 
 our country derived were not from the wealthy English institu- 
 tions, but from the poor and comparatively remote Universities 
 of Scotland. Yet we find, after all, that even at their worst 
 these Universities had their Newton in science, their Bentley in 
 classical literature. The influence of such men could not at 
 once die out. The race of scholars was diminished but not 
 extinguished, and although their course of studies was narrow,, 
 yet their love of mathematics and literature subsisted almost 
 unimpaired, even though deep and thorough scholarship was 
 wanting. Thus the sacred flame was kept alive and ^stained, 
 and now the English Universities have adopted a course which 
 is varied and flexible enough for any species of capacity, and 
 they yearly send out men, who once more take their place, not 
 only in what are supposed to be the higher pursuits of intellect, 
 but also in manufactures and commerce, and in the more material 
 parts of the national existence. Our Universities in England 
 26 , 
 
202 Wniversity of Bombay. 
 
 have thus united themselves once more to the general movement 
 o£ thought^ and here is a blessing to the country which furnishes 
 a bright and an encouraging example to us, who are interested 
 in this University and in the kindred institutions. The character 
 of the men who go from the University is such that every 
 business and even profession in which they enter becomes 
 benefited by it. The very residence at a University is in itself a 
 moral lesson, for nothing that we know influences the minds of 
 young men more than the place in which their education is carried 
 on and the associations by which they are surrounded at that 
 impressionable period of their life. You will pardon me for 
 occupying your time, but I should like to say a few words on 
 that interesting resolution of the Government of India which we 
 have all been reading within the last few days, and with the 
 purpose of which we must all sympathise. The Government of 
 India in that resolution insist on greater efforts being made 
 
 towards moral training in schools and colleges. 
 ing'^n^sdiodT" ^^^f moral training, in so far as it relates to the 
 
 mere mechanical obedience to rules, can very well 
 be put into formulas, and can very well be enforced in 
 schools j and I do think that that part of the resolution of the 
 Government of India, which directs or recommends that the teach- 
 ers should spend some time in normal schools before they enter 
 on the practice of their profession, is a thing most desirable in 
 itself and which all our experience must confirm. But if it is to be 
 supposed that the boys whose names are set down most regularly 
 in the attendance book, and who have never had a bad mark 
 for committing any little peccadillo in schools, will turn out men 
 of the most noble and promising character, I think our expe- 
 rience will teach us that that is not a thing which can be 
 altogether relied upon. Our hopes and fears founded on mere 
 regularity of behaviour before the character is definitely formed 
 are often fallacious. I think most of us know that there are 
 many men who in their mature years lead the most active and 
 energetic and also the noblest lives, to which activity and energy 
 are essential ; these very men have passed a most turbulent and 
 boisterous youth ; and, therefore, although these good and bad 
 conduct registers may be all very well in themselves, and 
 though the good boys may be patted on their back by their 
 masters, I trust no one will suppose that the boys who have 
 failed to attain to these distinguished honours are to be esteemed 
 hopeless members of society, or not destined to be so distinguish- 
 ed as the others. When we come to the later stages of the 
 educational progress, something more is necessary than this 
 laying down of rules. How are we to understand these formulas ? 
 
1888.—- Sir Raymond West. 2G3 
 
 What are to be their real contents ? If we look into the works 
 on ethics, from Aristotle down to our own day — take up, for 
 instance, the work of Herbert Spencer on the Data of Ethics, 
 or that of Leslie Stephen on the Science of Ethics — I think you 
 will find that in no two works is there any precise agreement as 
 to what are the primary grounds of moral obligation. You will 
 see that in the search as to what are the grounds of moral 
 obligation the thing itself fades away like beauty while you seek 
 it, or as life when you are pursuing it to its centre — as life 
 perishes away under the knife of the dissector. I came across 
 a passage the other day in Mr. Helps's thoughts on Govern- 
 ment, which is very pertinent to the subject. He says some- 
 thing to this effect : — " Look through history, and you will find 
 few instances of a noble life in any man that has not had noble 
 examples presented to him by those who have been the instruc- 
 tors of his youth." ' Then, I say, the ways in which you may 
 
 secure true ethical instruction and influence, the 
 
 The way to se- way in which you may fill the minds of your stu- 
 
 kSS-ucSon^ ^^ dents with those tastes, and ambitions and desires, 
 
 those fine sensibilities, which form a lofty charac- 
 ter, with the result that the low vices and the more ignoble 
 parts of our nature perish, the way to attain this object is to 
 put them under good instructors, securing men of fine capa- 
 city and noble nature for the purpose. Leave these teachers to 
 do the work, and they will find the way in which to impress 
 themselves on the students. We have had examples of that in 
 this city and Presidency ; I will mention one or two names 
 which, I am sure, will awaken a responsive chord in many of 
 those present. Mr. Green, who was one of the earliest pioneers 
 of education in this Presidency, has a memory, which is still 
 fondly cherished by many who were his pupils. In later times 
 we come to Sir Alexander Grant, a fine and noble nature, who 
 impressed himself upon his students, to whom was transmitted 
 in some form and degree, at least, his generous character. 
 There is another whose absence to-day we regret — I mean my 
 eminent and valued friend Mr. Wordsworth. I think it will be 
 admitted, certainly by every one who has had the blessing and 
 the advantage of close intercourse with that gentleman, that no 
 student ever passed a month or a day under his instruction, but 
 that he came forth from it better as well as a wiser man. This, 
 then, is what I conceive to be the way in which ethical and moral 
 instruction ought to be conveyed to comparatively adult pupils 
 who are placed under professors. I have little faith in any 
 other method, and for those who desire a continued progress 
 and elevation and refinement of character, as well as the 
 
204 tfniversity of Bombay. 
 
 development and expansion of the intellectual faculties, I say. 
 Get good and capable and highminded teachers. If we have our 
 University thus manned, and if we have it properly constituted, 
 we shall have realised the highest and more than the highest 
 expectations of those who founded the University of Bombay. 
 
 The University must in its constitution be an independent 
 body. It must be independent of the Government, 
 ^^® ■f^fh^U^'^" because it ought to have, and must have, if it is to 
 versity. live, a character and vitality of its own deeply root- 
 
 ed in the needs and nature of the people amongst 
 whom it is placed. It must also have another kind of independ- 
 ence. Turning once more to history we find the early Univer- 
 sities were the homes of liberal feeling and of independent 
 thought. Now in these days the Universities in Europe, and 
 also in India, may have a still more arduous task to perform, 
 when democracy is advancing with such giant strides, and when 
 the multitude almost thinks it has a sort of divine right to go 
 wrong. The Universities may have to set themselves up and 
 recognise their function as the asylums and the rallying points 
 of independent thought, the home of the right-thinking few 
 against the ignorant many. They preserve the memory of hard- 
 fought fights for truth ; they are very sceptical of new light 
 coming in from pretentious ignorance, and they may have very 
 often to oppose the specious suggestions of what to them is 
 little more than fatuous folly although by others it may be deem- 
 ed inspiration. The Universities must be made and kept inde- 
 pendent on that side as well as the side which they present to 
 the Government, and they must always seek in the faculty of 
 arts — the source and guardian of all the others — to maintain the 
 very highest standard of learning in science and literature. 
 There they are to present in their learned members who have 
 passed through the course of preliminary study that constant 
 research after new truth, that aiming at perfection and complete- 
 ness which will afford a stimulus to the younger members, and 
 under the influence of which we may hope that knowledge will 
 at length attain that highest point of dignity where it unites 
 with reason to form true philosophy. 
 
 In laying before you, gentlemen of the Senate, this neces- 
 sarily hasty sketch of the University system as it has been in the 
 past, as it is, and as in India it ought to be, to enable it to 
 realize a worthy and noble future, I have naturally had in view 
 most particularly the crowd of youthful hearers whose patience 
 and attention during this long speech has in itself been no 
 trifling exercise in moral discipline. It is you, young graduates. 
 
1888.— /S^r Baymond West. 205 
 
 and you, still younger, who are to be graduates hereafter, 
 that I would most of all desire to have thoroughly saturated 
 with all the beneficial influence that a University can impart 
 to its children. We live at the time of a momentous con- 
 fluence and conflict of ideas, principles, and interests. You will 
 probably have to take your part in a profound moral strife ; but 
 if that part is a noble one, you may rest assured of abundant 
 sympathy The establishment of the Victoria Jubilee Technical 
 Institute, which will make a new departure in the educational 
 system of Bombay and of India, will stand also, like this Uni- 
 versity, as a striking and permanent sign of our readiness to ad- 
 mit and welcome every duly accredited addition to the means 
 of advancing the moral and material welfare of the community. 
 It is a wedding by which we bring a new sister into the family 
 without abating one jot of our love and reverence for the members 
 who were there before. The literature in which we delighted 
 aforetime is still dear to us ; the rigorous laws of mathematical 
 science still command our reverence and admiration. But we 
 think that while we keep room for our possible Newtons, Words- 
 worths, and Macaulays, we may find a place also for our Fara- 
 day s and Darwins. We may hold out hands of fellowship to an 
 Indian Watt or Arkwright, a Stephenson or Bessemer, and strive 
 by mastering the principles which their genius anticipated to 
 make the path smoother for new conquests of nature. When I 
 see my beloved country seated majestically in her centre of 
 empire, yet thus diffusing the highest blessings she herself 
 enjoys to all who will accept them in this great dependency, I feel 
 myself filled, I confess, with a patriotic pride, which no tales of 
 mere victory could inspire. To her, and her alone, I feel those 
 fine lines of Claudian are applicable : — 
 
 Hsec est in greinio victos quae sola recepit 
 Humanumque genus communi nomine foyit 
 Matris non dominae ritu j civesque vocavit 
 Qaos domuit. 
 
 All you are invited to come in and realize these blessings of a 
 peaceful and beneficent dominion, and share the pride of a com- 
 mon citizenship with the great men whose writings have formed 
 the nurture of your adolescence. But more, you are called on 
 to go forth from this institution as apostles and interpreters to 
 your countrymen in this generation and the next of the vivifying 
 influence by which in our own day Europe has been renovated. 
 The historical glory of a great civilization glows behind you ; 
 the rising splendour of an enlarged nationality, and of a new 
 intellectual world is before you. You may well be stirred with 
 noble emotion at the sight of where you are and what you have 
 
206 University of Bombay, 
 
 to do. Accept this as a commaiid from Heaven, as a divine im- 
 pulse to work and wait for the complete regeneration of your 
 people, and resolve to act worthily of so high and sacred a 
 behest. 
 
 TWENTY-EIGHTH CONVOCATION, 
 
 (By His Excellency Lord Reay, LL,D., G.OJ.B.) 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — The 
 past academic year has been one of unusual activity. The chief 
 event has been the discussion of the Bill framed by the late Yice- 
 Chancellor. Its importance was clearly shown by the exhaustive 
 debates which took place when it was considered. These debates 
 bore witness to the fact that there is in the Senate much 
 academic vitality, that various interests are well represented, and 
 that there is no danger that rash innovations will be received 
 with favour. The amended Bill is now before Government, and 
 it will receive from Government a most careful scrutiny. Mean- 
 while the University is engaged in considering what changes 
 should be introduced in the various examinations, and as these 
 changes entail alterations of the programmes of studies, you 
 are virtually engaged on reform of higher education. As your 
 proposals, gentlemen, are still incomplete, and as Government 
 will have to deal with them in course of time, I am precluded 
 from joining in the discussion. The University School Final 
 Examination has now become an accomplished fact. It will 
 be the terminus of secondary education and to those who do 
 not wish to enter upon a University career it will be the final 
 examination. It has been accepted by Government as a test for 
 entrance to the public service. It will give to Matriculation its 
 proper status as the entrance examination to the University, and 
 give to those who do not seek a University education a distinc- 
 tive diploma. The recognition of the Sind Arts College for the 
 purposes of the B.A. and B. Sc. degrees from the beginning of 
 this year will, I hope, give to education in Sind the impulse 
 which that province needs, and it is a tribute paid to the energy 
 of our Sind friends in improving their higher education which 
 Government as well as the University thoroughly appreciate. 
 We paid our tribute of respect to the University of Bologna, 
 at its jubilee, and cemented our friendly relations with that 
 ancient seat of Italian learning, by the deputation of our Yice- 
 Chancellor, who was able to convince himself of the high esteem 
 in which that University is held by the Italians and their King 
 
1889.— Zord Reay. 207 
 
 The most unfortunate event of the year has undoubtedly- 
 been the serious loss the University has sustained 
 University^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ resignation of Sir Kaymond West, its learned 
 Vice-Chancellor. The loss of the University has 
 been the gain of Government. Another blow was inflicted by 
 the departure of the distinguished Principal of the Grant Medical 
 College. In Dr. Vandyke Carter, the University has lost a man 
 who lived for science, and whose whole life was devoted to its 
 pursuit with a singleness of aim which, has left its beneficial 
 influence behind, and established a tradition which, must be 
 guarded as a precious heirloom. In the Law Faculty we have 
 to mourn the death of Mr. Tyrrell Leith, the founder of the 
 Anthropological Society, and an ardent lover of books. The 
 Archaeological world will long venerate the memory of the late 
 Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji, on whom my own alma mater, the 
 University of Leyden, conferred the rare distinction of an hono- 
 rary degree. Dr. Buhler was fully justified in writing : " I 
 trust that all European Orientalists will join with his compatriots 
 in order to do honour to the memory of their distinguished 
 colleague who spent his whole life in the pursuit of disinterested 
 scientific work.^^ I need only refer to the Memoir of the late 
 Pandit read before the Asiatic Society on the 21st of May by 
 Mr. Javerilal Umiashankar Yajnik. 
 
 We have to congratulate two ladies on their attainment of 
 the B.A. degree, and the Parsi and Jewish com- 
 HonoTirs at munities on their success, as well as Mr. Ardeshir 
 tions. ^"'"^'"'^ Framji, one of the recently appointed Fellows, 
 who at the same time has the pleasure of seeing 
 another of his daughters pass in the First B.A. Examination 
 and his son take the degree of B.A. with honours. The same 
 Mahomedan student who was first last year in the Matri- 
 culation Examination stands alone in the first division of the 
 Previous Examination, having obtained the Hughlings^ English 
 Prize and the Sir Frank Souter Scholarship. A Portuguese 
 student is first in the Second B.A. Examination, and a Mahratta 
 takes the first place in the Matriculation, so that several sections 
 of our community divide the honours between them. This is as 
 it should be, and shows that all classes of the community realise 
 the necessity of exerting themselves. 
 
 It is an encouraging feature in the history of this University 
 
 that it has become an annual duty to record the 
 
 Benefactions large and continually increasing benefactions which 
 
 sity. ^ ^^^^^' i* receives. The gifts which have been accepted 
 
 during the past year, together with those which 
 
268 University of Bombay. 
 
 are shortly to be laid before the Senate for its acceptance, 
 amount to the large sum of Rs. 1,03,600. These have come 
 from the different parts of "Western India to which the influence 
 of this University extends, from the more distant Kutch and 
 Junagadh, as well as from the City of Bombay and the near 
 parts of the Presidency, and they are designed for the further- 
 ance of several of the branches of learning over which the Uni- 
 versity presides. Medicine, Indian Philosophy, Literature, 
 Science and Law are included within the scope of these bene- 
 factions, and it is a matter for congratulation not only that the 
 interest of the people of Western India in the University is so 
 widespread, but also that it shows so intelligent an appreciation 
 of the University's varied wants and of the special need of the 
 time. The munificent gift made by Bai Motlibai of Rs. 1,50,000, 
 together with a valuable site for an Obstetric Hospital, and Sir 
 Dinshaw Manekji Petit's well-timed offer of Rs. 1,25,000 for a 
 hospital for children's diseases and for gynascological research 
 and in close proximity to the Cama Hospital, the Obstetric Hospi- 
 tals to which the Allbless family devote a gift of Rs. 60,000, 
 have placed this city under great obligations to these generous 
 benefactors. In addition to fulfilling their primary object, the 
 alleviation of human suffering, these endowments will give an 
 impulse to special departments of medical study, and it is there- 
 fore fitting that they should find mention on this occasion. 
 It is unnecessary to allude on this occasion in any detail to 
 the great national movement which has for its aim the pro- 
 vision of efficient medical aid to the women of India, but I refer 
 to it in this connection, because amongst the gifts which it falls 
 to me to announce are several which show a laudable desire to 
 associate the University with this great movement. We have 
 the Sir James Fergusson Scholarship for lady medical students, 
 to which part of the sum of Rs. 22,500 presented to the Uni- 
 versity for Scholarships by the Sir James Fergusson Memorial 
 Committee has been devoted; the sum of Rs. 3,000 bestowed 
 by the women of India Medical Fund Committee for a 
 similar purpose; and the sum of Rs. 6,000 presented by 
 Mr. Harkissondas Narotumdas for the foundation of a Lady Reay 
 Gold Medal and Scholarship also to be awarded to successful 
 lady competitors. The desire to advance the cause of Maho- 
 medan education is represented by the wisely directed liberality 
 of Bahudin Vazir Saheb of Junagadh, who has placed the sum of 
 Rs. 30,000 at the disposal of the University for the foundation of 
 a Scholarship in memory of Sir Mohobat Khan Bahadur, the late 
 Nawab of Junagadh, to be awarded preferentially to Mahomedan 
 graduates of the University. We may congratulate the Vazir 
 
1889.— Lord Beay. 209 
 
 Saheb on the fact that the number of Muhomedan students taking 
 distinguished position on the lists of the University gives promise 
 that his munificent gift will not remain inoperative. Associated 
 with the same Native State is the gift of Rs. 15,000 in 
 commemoration of the late Rao Bahadur Sujna Gokalji Zala, 
 Devan of Junagadh, which his friends and admirers have 
 handed to the University for the encouragement of the study 
 of the Vedanta, a system of philosophy in which the late 
 Devan was himself so proficient, as shown in the record of 
 his life written by Mr. Manassukharama Suryarama Tripathi, 
 The services rendered by another administrator to the neigh- 
 bouring State of Kutch — I refer to its- late Devan Bahadur 
 Manibhai Jasbhai — are similarly commemorated by the gift of 
 Rs. 12,000 bestowed upon the University for the purpose of 
 founding two Scholarships, one to be connected with the science 
 course of study in the University, the other with the Victoria 
 Jubilee Technical College. I am glad to observe that theBhattia 
 community is beginning to associate itself with the work of the 
 University. The Committee of the Valabhdas Valji Memorial 
 Fund has placed the sum of Rs. 5,000 at the disposal of the Uni- 
 versity for the encouragement of higher education in the Bhattia 
 community, by the awarding of a Scholarship to the most deserv- 
 ing Bhattia student passing the Matriculation Examination. 
 Zend and Pehlvi Scholarships will receive an impulse from 
 the recognition of the Zend and Pehlvi languages in the higher 
 examinations of the University, and from the Scholarship endowed 
 by Mr. Nasarvanji Manekji Petit, in memory of his much-lamented 
 son, the late Mr. Jamsedji Nasarvanji. In thus carrying out the 
 unfulfilled purposes of his son, Mr. Nasarvanji Manekji Petit 
 has raised an additional memorial to one whose life was distin- 
 guished by high and generous aims. Within the last day or two 
 the Secretaries of the Spencer Memorial Fund presented to the 
 University the sum of Rs. 5,100 for the endowment of a prize of 
 books in memory of the late Mr. N. Spencer, Barrister-at-Law, 
 late Judge of the Small Cause Court. This prize will perpetuate 
 a worthy and honoured name, and the winners of this prize, we 
 trust, will be influenced by the example of one who was during 
 so many years a good judge and a trusted friend of the people. 
 I have great pleasure in noticing the donation of my friend 
 H.H', the Thakor Saheb of Gondal, k.c.i.e., to establish and 
 increase a collection of Sanskrit manuscripts to be available to 
 all scholars in this University. I should like to be able to add 
 to this enumeration of benefactions that the Bhagvanlal Memo- 
 rial Fund was in a flourishing condition, but I now make an earnest 
 appeal for the support which its name and its object deserve. 
 27 
 
210 University of Bombay. 
 
 There is in certain quarters, in various parts of the globe, a 
 growing distrust of the educated classes — a latent 
 Distnist of misgiving in India with regard to the policy of 
 closest ^°^ ^ Macaulay's Minute and of Sir Charles Wood's De- 
 spatch,embodying the principles of the Whig party, 
 any departure from which in this respect the people of England 
 would, I feel sure, view with regret. That distrust, gentlemen, 
 is to my mind absolutely groundless, if it refers to classes who 
 come under the sway of sound educators. There is a danger, a 
 very great danger, in partial, superficial, and unreal education. 
 Such education however is a mere sham, a parody of University 
 education. The danger lies in the absence of a really educated 
 class. A man may have passed a score of examinations and still not 
 be qualified to call himself an educated man, because he is deficient 
 in the refinement which always accompanies and betokens aca- 
 demic distinction. Universities in one sense are exclusive. They 
 cannot tolerate any standard but the highest, they cannot recog- 
 nize any education but that which at once places a man in a sepa- 
 rate category. On the other hand. Universities are accessible to 
 all who submit themselves to the strictest discipline. Subject to 
 that condition and in that sense they are absolutely democratic. 
 An intellectual aristocracy is recruited from all stations in life, but 
 it is an aristocracy to which nobody can belong who does not 
 satisfy the highest tests, those which obtain in the republic of 
 letters, and we must add the republic of sciences. The fran- 
 chise in this republic can never be lowered and must always rise 
 higher aa literature and science are constantly adding to their 
 treasures. The meter of University standards is simply that 
 which is given by an ever-increasing stock of knowledge. If 
 you lower the franchise with the standards and reject the meter, 
 you cease to belong to this great republic of letters, your edu- 
 cation is not higher education, and your educated classes sail 
 under false colours. Indian Universities cannot escape from a 
 rule which is binding on all Universities, and there is no reason 
 why they should evade it. There is nothing in the conditions of 
 social or of individual life in India to discourge that severe 
 application to scientific training which alone gains admission to 
 the academic ranks. There is plenty of leisure and there is 
 nothing in the social customs of India to deter a man from lead- 
 ing a student's life. I need only quote Sir H. Maine, whose loss 
 India mourns as much as England, to convince you that indivi- 
 dual capacity, and especially the versatility, the flexibility of 
 mind which predisposes to academic studies, exists in India to a 
 very large extent. Sir H. Maine's opinion was : " In those sub- 
 jects in which high proficiency may reasonably be expected, the 
 
1889. --Lord Eeay. 21 1 
 
 evidence of industry, quickness and clearness of head, is not very 
 materially smaller than the proof of similar qualities furnished 
 by a set of English Examination papers. Superficiality will to 
 some extent -form a part of the results of every examination, but 
 I cannot conscientiously say that I have seen mach more of it 
 here than in the papers of older Universities/^ Want of energy, 
 want of sustained effort, the desire to avoid the strain of hard 
 labour, these are our foes. In Mr. Bright we have brilliant 
 illustration how the equivalent of academic distinction can be 
 achieved without a previous University career, by the adoption 
 of academic discipline in after-life. His forcible style derives its 
 vigorous simplicity from his command of pure Anglo- Saxon words. 
 
 We are at the parting of the roads. Indian Universities 
 must choose. They may consider it sufficient to 
 of^^rSs?"^ examine in ever-increasing numbers young men 
 who will delude themselves with the notion that a 
 University degree is equivalent to academic birthright, or they 
 may confer the latter not in name but in reality. Constant im- 
 provement of the method of teaching, even where Universities 
 are not teaching bodies, belongs to their domain. I am very far 
 from advocating a system of centralisation such as is represented 
 by the French University. I am quite willing to admit that higher 
 education can be imparted in a variety of ways, and that infinite 
 harm would be done by stereotyping the method. What I con-, 
 tend is, that a University cannot fulfil its obligations towards 
 higher education by mere examinations, least of all in India, where 
 the Western University system is an absolutely new creation, an 
 exotic which requires very careful nursing. I am afraid that to 
 our present system the criticism of Mgr. Dupanloup is applicable : 
 *' Le programme, qui a engendre le manuel, qui a engendre le 
 preparateur, et qui, tons les trois, ont engendre la ruine de la 
 haute education intellectuelle.'^ And the opinion of Mgr. 
 Dupanloup is also that of M. Bersot, who attributed the decay of 
 higher education to the fact that examinations had been made 
 the foundation of University teaching. Unless our Universities 
 take a wider conception of their responsibility, higher education 
 must decay. Let me once more quote Sir H. Maine : " It is 
 quite true that conceit and scepticism are the products of an 
 arrested development of knowledge." Therefore he says : '^In- 
 tellectual cultivation should be constantly progressive." 
 
 In three faculties at least the Government is alone directly 
 
 Hesponsibili- responsible for progress. As long as it alone 
 
 ties of Govern, appoints Prof essors of Medicine and of Law and of 
 
 *^®"^- Engineering, it exercises a more immediate influ- 
 
212 tfniversity of Bombay. 
 
 ence than the University can exercise through its examinations. 
 In the Faculty of Medicine we have introduced reforms of a 
 tentative character, circumscribed by existing regulations. 
 The principle of those reforms is to strengthen the scientific 
 character of the Institution, to create a faculty, membership of 
 which will constitute the highest reward for professional 
 ability ; to ensure continuity of teaching as well as to open 
 possibilities of research ; to make the fullest use of the splendid 
 opportunities which this city offers to the medical student by 
 throwing our hospitals open to the best men of the local pro- 
 fession, so that their professional knowledge may benefit our 
 students, and that they themselves may remain in touch with 
 medical science. In doing this — and I only discovered the fact 
 after the Government Resolution was issued — I find that we have 
 acted in accordance with the views of the two eminent late Prin- 
 cipals of this College. Dr. Cook said on March 2nd, 1882, at tu 
 distribution of prizes to the students : " I would strongly advocate 
 that the process might be immediately begun by the appoint- 
 ment of members of the general profession as a supplementary 
 staff to the existing hospitals. While I hope the time is not far 
 distant when other hospitals may spring up in this city and else- 
 where, which may be entirely under the management of medi- 
 cal men independent of the medical service.^' According to 
 Dr. Cook, " the profession had reached a stage when it may lay 
 claim to a share of those public duties which, though they should 
 "be here as elsewhere unpaid, bring with them their own reward." 
 On the 10th of February 1883, at the annual meeting of the 
 Grant Medical College, Dr. Carter gave it as his opinion that 
 " it has become urgently desirable to appoint a few talented 
 native tutors and demonstrators, whose whole time would be 
 devoted to the learner's benefit ; and he might ask whether or 
 not it be expedient also to nominate an assistant or deputy pro- 
 fessor in the more highly technical subjects, who on emergency, 
 or as a successor, could take the place of the full professor." 
 " The suggestion," he further said, " seems not amiss, that col- 
 lege professors be always taken as they are in the chief European 
 colleges from amongst the best qualified men available, where- 
 ever to be found ; and eventually it may happen that a moiety^ 
 at least, of our teachers, will be thus derived from the alumni 
 of Grant College, their alma mater J* A great deal more remains 
 to be done. How much you will understand if I 
 lectuS?™edf gi^® yo^ *^^ programme of lectures by Profes- 
 cai) in the Uni- sors of the Medical Faculty of the University of 
 ^^^^^^y oi Am- Amsterdam. (1) Anatomy, General and Compara- 
 B er am. ^^^^^ ^^j Physiology, Microscopy, Practical Physi- 
 
1889.— L(y)'d Reay. 213 
 
 ology, (3) Pathology, Practical Pathology, (4) Morbid Anatomy, 
 Forensic Medicine, (5) Medicine, Clinical Medicine, Therapeutics, 
 (6) Surgery, Clinical Surgery, (7) Clinical Medicine, (8) Clinical 
 Surgery, Operative Surgery, (9) Ophthalmology, (10) Hygiene, 
 (11) Obstetrics, (12) Dermatology, (13) Aural Disease, (14) 
 Chemistry, (15) Materia Medica, (16) Botany. Besides the above, 
 courses of instruction are given by lecturers in the following ; — 
 (1) Military Surgery, (2) Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery, (3) 
 Gynaecology, (4) Bacteriology, (5) Surgery, (6) Histology, (7) 
 Diseases of the Nervous System. I purposely take that Uni- 
 versity, and not the Strasburg programme, for this reason, that 
 the University of Amsterdam is a Municipal creation, entirely 
 supported by Municipal funds, and as such it teaches a lesson 
 which our Corporation may take to heart, in contributing to the 
 further development of higher education in this city. Local 
 self-government in this city would cover itself with glory if it 
 showed a due appreciation of the requirements of higher educa- 
 tion, and filled up the many gaps which exist in our system. 
 To the enlightened heads of Native States whose subjects 
 obtain their training at our colleges, who recruit their doctors, 
 surgeons, jurists, engineers, from our colleges, I should also like 
 to point out what a splendid field our University offers to their 
 liberality. 
 
 There is another precedent which might be followed by 
 Another pre- *'^® Medical Faculty. One of the most important 
 cedent for the events in the life of our University has been the 
 Medical Faculty, foundation in 1888 of a Chair of Agricultural 
 Chemistry for the whole of India. This has been brought about 
 by a combined effort of the various Provinces on the invitation 
 of the Government of India. It has thus become possible to 
 secure an eminent Professor, who will divide his time among the 
 various Provinces, and his advent will mark a new era in agri- 
 cultural education. The same principle can be applied to other 
 branches. We thereby gain the immense advantage of obtaining 
 the best tuition, and we spread its benefits over the whole country. 
 Through co-operation of the various Provinces we preserve intact 
 the progressive development due to and dependent on decentral- 
 isation, aud we obtain results which the absence of co-operation 
 would imperil. We may give further extension to this principle. 
 Nothing would stimulate higher education more in India than lec- 
 tures on any subject, by a highly qualified expert, even though 
 he could not permanently be absorbed in our staff. I do not see 
 why eminent men at home should not be invited to give a 
 course of lectures at our Universities. Occasional teaching of 
 
Sl4 University of Bomhay, 
 
 this kind would in any Faculty, not only benefit the students, but 
 graduates and others would secure thereby a fresh impetus to 
 their own intellectual life. If we could have induced Lord 
 Herschell and Mr. Bryce to give us, whilst they were here, some 
 of the treasures of their store of knowledge, we should certainly 
 have been the better for it, even though no examination tested 
 the results. I shall not fail to communicate with my University 
 friends on the subject. It is a great mistake to confine higher 
 teaching to those who occupy chairs. Universities should seize 
 ever^ opportunity of opening their doors to those whose learning 
 can be made available, even though it is only for a short period. 
 As long as excellence is reached it matters very little what the 
 nature of the connection is of the lecturer with the University. 
 To attain excellence we must have endowments, and select care- 
 fully the beneficiaries of the endowments. Sir John Strachey, 
 in his valuable book on India, bears testimony to the " remark- 
 able aptitude for surgery " of the Natives of India, " to the great 
 aptitude shown by them in the practice of surgery and medicine." 
 This University must make use of these gifts, and its energetic 
 initiative will lay the foundation of what I cannot help thinking 
 is destined to be one of the foremost scientific bodies. Amsterdam 
 has certainly not the many advantages which are at our disposal. 
 I am only too well aware of the difficulties which it had to con- 
 quer, as I had with some of my friends in the States- General to 
 fight very hard to secure a small majority in favor of a charter 
 for the University, by.t the Municipal Corporation of Amsterdam 
 has amply justified our anticipations of its fostering care of the 
 Institution of which it is most justly proud. 
 
 With regard to the Faculty of Law, the observations I have 
 made with regard to Medicine equally apply, 
 pubUcTlw fssen! That Faculty also is undermanned, and its full 
 tial to adminis- equipment is desirable for many reasons. In all 
 trators. Countries with a strong bureaucracy — and India 
 
 will for a long time to come have to be administered on bureau- 
 cratic principles — it is desirable that all branches of the bureau- 
 cracy should have a thorough knowledge of administrative law, 
 of the principles underlying their practical work, and from which 
 it derives a value that in the absence of such knowledge it lacks. 
 For admission to the Public Service, attendance at lectures 
 on public law, of which administrative law forms part, should, I 
 think, be made compulsory. Administrators in local bodies will 
 also avoid many errors if they have sought such knowledge 
 before they seek the votes of electors. All those who aspire to 
 take part in public affairs should make use of the opportunity 
 
1889.— iord Beay. 215 
 
 given tliem. This University cannot allow the stigma which the 
 absence of such teaching entails to rest on it even temporarily. 
 The best illustration of the malignant results of the absence 
 of such teaching is to be found in the misunderstandings which 
 must arise when principles have not been mastered. No con- 
 troversy should have arisen about local self-government if a clear 
 understanding of its meaning had been the result of previous 
 University teaching. I do not wish to give an essay on the 
 subject, as I am not a candidate for the chair which will ere 
 long I trust be created, but I may briefly point out what a 
 lecture on the subject would contain. It would point out 
 how you can have in the same country unity of legislation 
 without unity of administration ; self-government without 
 autonomy, partial decentralisation ; unity both of legislation 
 and of administration; absence both of self-government and 
 of autonomy, absolute centralisation ; variety of legislation with 
 unity of administration or legislative decentralisation with ad- 
 ministrative centralisation; variety of legislation and variety 
 of administration — self-government combined with autonomy; 
 absolute decentralisation. 
 
 In England we have self-government without autonomy- 
 Different sys- ^^*^ ^^ Parliament rule and overrule every detail 
 temsofadminis- of the administration, but the administration is 
 tration. ^^^^ Carried out by a bureaucracy ; it is left to a 
 
 variety of local bodies to carry out the laws. These local bodies, 
 however, have no legislative functions. In England, we have 
 the maximum of legislative centralisation with the minimum of 
 bureaucratic centralisation and of autonomy. The adminis- 
 tration is carried on by the people themselves, but it is carried 
 on without autonomy on lines laid down by the central legis- 
 lature. There are no inferior legislative bodies with independent 
 powers. A strong legislative centralisation is quite compatible 
 with delegation of administrative powers to local bodies subject 
 to carry out what the law prescribes, and unable to follow their 
 own inclinations or to wander outside a strictly defined legal 
 sphere. The results of this system are general respect for the 
 law based on general understanding of the law, as all classes of 
 the community are called upon to join in its execution, absence 
 of conflict between the central law and the laws promulgated by 
 other legislative units, absence of bureaucracy except for the 
 highest Imperial concerns. In France we have neither self- 
 government nor autonomy. '^ L'tat c'est moi^^ means that the 
 lawgiver, whoever he is, not only legislates for the whole country 
 but administers it. No self-government is tolerated; no inde- 
 
216 University of Bombay. 
 
 pendent local administrators are tolerated, whoever disposes 
 of legislative power also disposes of administrative power. 
 Whether the form of Government be autocratic, democratic, 
 or parliamentary, its distinguishing characteristic, common to 
 all these forms of government, is, that Frenchmen have no self- 
 government, but are governed by a bureaucracy which receives 
 its impulse, its ideas from Paris, whatever may be the special 
 idiosyncrasies of the populations to whom laws are applied. 
 For local autonomy and for local administration there is no room 
 in such a system because they might develop the germs of an- 
 tagonism to the central power. The Prefet and the Maire 
 receive their instructions from the Home Department. Advice 
 may be tendered by Committees which are elected, but they are 
 not administering bodies as ours are. The next system is that 
 of Germany and of Austria ; a great variety of legislative units, 
 but a strong bureaucracy in all of them, and a strong bureau- 
 cracy for Imperial purposes. Legislative and administrative 
 centralisation in essentials ; legislative and administrative decen- 
 tralisation in details, to suit the heterogeneous elements out 
 of which these Empires are composed, great care being taken, 
 that in all matters not essential to the security of the Empire, 
 the idiosyncrasies of its component parts should be respected, 
 and the bureaucracy should not come into conflict with the 
 traditions and customs of the people. In the United States of 
 North America we find self-government as well as autonomy, 
 decentralisation of the legislation and of the administration, but 
 great constitutional safeguards and effective means to prevent 
 any departure from the written Constitution by any member of 
 the Confederation. 
 
 It is clear, gentlemen, from an academic point of view, that 
 . to an Indian student of political institutions, those 
 t^rest^^S Ger- ^^ Germany and Austria will be most interest- 
 man and Au3- ing, because they give us in some features of their 
 institutFons'^'To internal administration an insight into the probable 
 the Indian stu- future of the development of administrative institu- 
 ^^^^- tions in this Empire. I apply this only to our 
 
 administration, and even then with many limitations. I do not 
 draw the parallel between German Sovereigns and 
 academlcA^^o^ Native Chiefs, for which Burke is taken to task by 
 Indian of our Sir Alfred Lyall, the most academic Anglo-Indian 
 ^^^^^' of our times, in the 8th chapter of his Asiatic Studies. 
 
 All students of politics will eschew such parallels, and Statesmen 
 will also be extremely cautious in checking the historical evolu- 
 tion of national institutions by transplantations. The hereditary 
 
18B9,^Lord Eeay. 217 
 
 patel is from the stn dent's point of view the most interesting 
 institution we have. No parallel could be drawn of that inter- 
 esting personage, and I should be very sorry to see him trans- 
 formed into a French Maire, either elected or nominated. I 
 regret extremely that I cannot enter into further details, but I 
 trust I have said enough to indicate that much inquiry and the 
 comparative study of institutions is required before we venture 
 on remarks which too often only betray the absolute ignorance 
 of speakers who have not grasped the difference between autonomy 
 and self-government, and who fancy that the delegation of 
 administrative duties implies the exercise of legislative powers, 
 
 Philistinism is the frame of mind which purposely ignores 
 the magnitude of a problem, and does not attempt 
 • T^faF^^iSt ®^®^ ^^ understand its outlines, but develops a 
 crf°Law. ^ crude judgement and ready-made theories. The 
 great object of a Faculty of Law is to teach those 
 who aspire to take part in public life jurisprudence, not as the 
 art of jurisdiction, but in its connection with moral and social 
 sciences, in its philosophical and historical aspect. In this rela- 
 tion, besides a Chair of PubHc Law, Chairs of Philosophy of Law, 
 of Political Economy, of Commercial and of International Law, 
 are necessary. They presuppose, of course, that the student has 
 in the Faculty of Arts been well trained in the method of historical 
 inquiry from a sociological point of view, and has had a sound 
 general education. As a school for barristers or solicitors, the 
 Faculty of Law will have to provide a Chair of Roman Law, of 
 Civil Law, of Criminal Law, of Civil and Criminal Procedure, of 
 Medical Jurisprudence, of Hindu and of Mahomedan Law, leav- 
 ing it to their discretion to attend the lectures in the other divi- 
 sion of the Faculty of Law, which would naturally be attended 
 by the sons of Chiefs and by those aspiring to serve the State in a 
 bureaucratic character, as well as by those who might con- 
 sider it their special vocation to take a share in public affairs. 
 In both divisions of the Law Faculty the chief object should 
 be to train the men in the method of Juridical argument, so 
 that future legal studies should be guided and facilitated by 
 this previous training. The omission in the University curricu- 
 lum in England of a Faculty of Politics is indefen- 
 Facidty of sible, and as institutions become more democratic 
 the necessity of political training becomes greater. 
 It is a remarkable fact that in the reign of Henry VIII. it was 
 intended to make use of the confiscated property of the monas- 
 teries to lay the foundation of a College for training public ser- 
 vants, who we re to be taught general history, modem languages 
 28 
 
218 Univeraity of Bombay. 
 
 aud the history of diplomacy. The king unfortunately diverted 
 the funds to his favourites. My friends Mr. Bryce and Mr. Oscar 
 Browning have taken up the subject at their respective Univer- 
 sities, and Professor Lorimer has not ceased to insist on its con- 
 sideration in Scotch University Reform. I should have given 
 prominence to it in the London Teaching University movement 
 with which I was closely connected in its initial stages, and 
 which has made considerable progress, mainly due to the untiring 
 efforts on behalf of that cause of my friend Sir George Young. 
 The last development of political education in England which 
 has been brought to my notice is that of starting precocious young 
 orators on platforms, to while away the time until the guest of the 
 evening arrives. If we substitute " parler '' for " penser^' in the 
 following sentence, we may apply Sainte Beuve's harsh criticism 
 of de T^ocqueville, as a mild criticism of such oratorical efforts : 
 '^ il a commence a parler avant d' avoir iren appris : ce qui fait 
 qu'il a quelquefois parl6 creux.'' I cannot conceive a worse 
 political school than the platform for immature politicians. Rather 
 let us exact from them an essay on the causes of instability of 
 government in France as a test, not a competitive examination. 
 On the other hand, I fully admit that the platform as a means of 
 downward filtration of the ideas of those who have mature expe- . 
 rience is indispensable. I have been a cordial supporter of the 
 movement organised by my right hon'ble friend the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer for extension of University lectures. There 
 is some risk that Universities, when they start such movements, 
 lose sight of their proper duties, but the risk is counterbalanced 
 by the good results of such lectures and their sobering influence. 
 In countries where a practical turn of mind prevails and suspicion 
 of academic thought is widespread, it behoves those who repre- 
 sent academic ideas to deal gently with Philistinism. Matthew 
 Arnold, whose untimely death all University men deeply regret, 
 has left us a precious legacy in his writings on this subject. In 
 India, as in Germany and in Italy, this danger is not very great. 
 India has always had in the Brahmin element of its society an 
 essentially academic element, which only needs development in 
 the right direction to raise the standard of higher education. In 
 the development of these Universities the educated classes of 
 India will find a much more congenial and useful sphere than in 
 other pursuits. It is through the Universities that they can obtain 
 their highest reward and become directly associated with their 
 fellow-workers of th^ Universities in Europe. Indian and English 
 Universities can assise t^ach other in various ways, and their rela- 
 tions will be closer according to the measure in which they both 
 raise the academic standard and extend their influence. The 
 
1889.— Xorci Beay. 219 
 
 surest test of a nation's status among civilised nations is the 
 esteem in which Universities are held. 
 
 I need not say much about other faculties. In the Faculty 
 of Arts greater attention must be paid to the study 
 Other Facul- of history and to the study of the Vernaculars. A 
 University which neglects the lessons which history 
 has to teach neglects one of its first duties. History provides 
 the data which are necessary to illustrate the development of 
 other studies. No study of politics is possible without knowledge 
 of history ; nor of political economy, finance, legislation, art. 
 I shall not enter into the controversy about the Vernaculars. 
 To say that higher education has no concern with the spoken 
 languages of the country, that they have nothing from which a 
 student can derive advantage is a proposition which seems to be 
 essentially unacademic, neither can it be regarded favourably 
 from the utilitarian point of view. Colonel Lees' proposal, ac- 
 cepted by Sir Alfred Lyall, of an Oriental Faculty as well as an 
 English Faculty of Arts, giving freedom to graduates in either, 
 is one which I believe to be practicable and desirable. Last year 
 we were able to cement our friendly relation with the French 
 Orientalist school by conferring a fellowship on Mr. James 
 Darmestetter, and this year we are again fortunate in having 
 recruited a distinguished Arabic scholar in M. Gasselin, the 
 French Consul. The Faculty of Arts has this advantage over 
 other faculties that the institutions aifiliated to it are more nu- 
 merous. This will make it easy by a proper distribution of Work 
 and a concerted programme to secure better results and to pro- 
 vide for a greater number of Chairs, each College taking up some 
 special subject. The system of inter-collegiate lecturers is quite 
 applicable to our wants. By it we can obviate the evils which^ 
 result from the absence of a central control of our higher teach- 
 ing Institutions. Where the State has absolute control of the 
 Universities a systematic arrangement follows. Whatever may 
 be the advantages derived from State control, in India we should 
 lose enormously by such centralisation. Great benefits haveaccru- 
 ed to higher education from the disinterested activity of private 
 bodies, and any interference with that activity would deprive 
 India of moral as well as of intellectual forces, which are of the 
 greatest value. In selecting as the Vice-Chancellor a distin- 
 guished Principal of one of the aided Colleges — the successor of 
 Dr. Wilson — Grovernment have placed on record that they are 
 fully alive to the merits of Institutions which contribute in such 
 marked de^ee to our University life. Guizot's opinion : '^ de 
 tous les monopoles le pire ist celui de Tenseignemenf is 
 
220 University of Bombay^ 
 
 certainly applicable to India. Of science I need only say that 
 the question must arise whether it should not have a faculty of 
 its own, combined with that of Civil Engineering. Science has 
 of late attained such a distinctive character, embraces so many 
 subjects, that it may well have a separate faculty all to itself 
 and not only separate degrees. In the College of Science at 
 Poena, this is virtually the case, and as science is sure to enlarge 
 its sphere it will become impossible to consider it any longer as a 
 division of the Arts Faculty. A special degree in agriculture 
 should, I think, be given. In India the higher study of agricul- 
 ture should be encouraged, and its distinctive character recog- 
 nised by a special degree, although both Agriculture and Civil 
 Engineering may very well be combined with Science in the same 
 faculty, as they are combined at the College of Science in Poena, 
 for the equipment of which Government accept the responsibility 
 —a responsibility which is much lightened by the admirable 
 manner in which the Principal of the College, Dr. Cooke, dis- 
 charges his very heavy duties, and knows how to meet fresh 
 demands for extension, the latest of which relates^ to Botany. 
 
 Indian Universities have a very complex part to play. A 
 A complex ^^^^ wide field of operations inclusive of every 
 function of In- intellectual aspiration of the various classes of 
 ^ Universi- their countrymen has to be occupied. The de- 
 mands of Western as well as the time-honoured 
 demands of Eastern civilisation must be met. For the latter 
 your own resources suflBce — ^for the former you rely on our 
 assistance. It is our duty to give it ungrudgingly. Our illus- 
 trious predecessors have admitted the justice of your claim. 
 England must give to India a due proportion of its best men, 
 and I am not aware that for a British subject there is a more 
 honourable profession than that of holding an appointment in 
 the department of higher education in India. To fill it worthily 
 he must give to it his full powers unreservedly. You have 
 known such men, and they live in your grateful recollection. 
 Unless Indian Universities receive the best representatives of 
 English learning they must fail, and failure in this instance 
 entails positive and not merely negative results. A University 
 which ceases to impart higher knowledge, to encourage sobriety 
 of thought, which has no hold over the hearts as well as over 
 the minds of its students, becomes a destructive agency. It 
 fosters the unwholesome growth of flippant tendencies. Instead 
 of turning out well-disciplined scholars, it sends forth young 
 men who are self-satisfied and unaware that they are barely 
 beginning to realise the magnitude of problems which have 
 
1889.— lord Beay. 2Si 
 
 been unveiled, and with which thoy deal with the arrogance 
 which always waits on ignorance. Because they mistake the 
 distance which separates them from those who have not tasted 
 the fruits of higher education, they forget that the distance by 
 which they are separated from the men who are really educated 
 is much greater, and that they are not even on the threshold of 
 the regions where the highest culture reigns supreme. No man 
 is highly educated who does not approach with awe and rever- 
 euce any subject with which he must deal authoritatively. 
 There is a French expression which better than any other stig- 
 matises this unwarrantable precocious self-confidence : " II ne 
 se doute de rien '^ which may be translated, ' he has not fathom- 
 ed the depths of his own ignorance.' Higher education leads 
 to the exactly opposite result. Indifferent teaching must inevita- 
 bly lead to self-conceit in those who receive it, and self-conceit 
 is the certain road to decay of individuals and of nations. All 
 history is there to prove it. Democracies are especially prone 
 to it. They are impatient of rebuke and of restraint. Higher 
 education is largely made up of rebukes and of restraints. It is 
 merciless on all preconceived theories, on all unsound doctrines, 
 on all that is unreal, and it rejects all that is unfinished and 
 superficial. It condemns to exile those who are not continually 
 grappling with their own ignorance. It laughs at those who, 
 not having begun the ascent, think they enjoy the view which is 
 only visible from the summit. If Indian Universities do not pro- 
 duce such results then they are only Universities in name. The 
 ' sooner we recognise the fact the better. The remedy is not far 
 to seek. You must be hypercritical in the selection of the men 
 to whom you confide this enormous trust. We must recruit for 
 our Indian Universities in England, in India, if necessary on the 
 Continent of Europe men who, fully alive themselves to the exi- 
 gencies of higher education, will refuse to be satisfied with any 
 thing less than the reality. In Indian Universities we can build 
 up a stronghold in which a high tone will prevail capable of resist- 
 ing the adverse and vulgarising influences which are ever at 
 work endeavouring to poison even the most intelligent strata of 
 society. But we can only hope to do so if the garrison of those 
 strongholds is composed of the elite of both nations. It is only 
 by the combined efforts of the wisest men in England, of the 
 wisest men in India, that we can hope to establish in this old 
 home of learning real Universities which will give a fresh impulse 
 to learning, to research, to criticism, which will inspire rever- 
 ence and impart strength and self-reliance to future generations of 
 our and of your countrymen. The sooner we recognise our 
 weakness on the academic side the better. Intellectual wealth 
 
22^ JJmversUy of Bombay, 
 
 is to be found in nations which are not rich in other respects ; we 
 have only to mention Germany and Italy and Scotland to show 
 that a country need not be wealthy to indulge in academic luxu- 
 ries. We have lately witnessed a strong protest against the 
 system of competitive examinations as opposed to the develop- 
 ment of man^s faculties. In many of the arguments which have 
 been urged against multiplication of examinations we have a 
 just criticism, especially of the evil influence of that system on 
 University teaching which is constantly opening up new courses 
 of study, and which in the same degree must restrict its examina- 
 tions to an absolute minimum. Universities are, in the first place, 
 called to train the few who will in their turn open up new 
 avenues of learning, and who for that purpose devote their 
 lives to literary, scientific, or critical studies. The history of all 
 great Universities is the history of men who have thrown a new 
 light on the subject which they had made their own particular 
 field of research, or of men who have brought to light errors 
 of past times, or of men who have exposed fallacies which 
 obtained during their lives, whether they were recognised as 
 fallacies by their own or by a subsequent generation. 
 
 The best organised University is the University which 
 leaves to its professors the maximum of time for 
 verei^*^^^^ ' original research, for independent criticism, for 
 culture in all its ramifications. The duty of Uni- 
 versities is to keep intact the highest traditions of a people by 
 constantly raising the standard of its intellectual life by an 
 unflinching opposition to degrading and demoralising tendencies 
 which weaken the fibre of nations. You must enthrone on the 
 high seats of learning all that is noble, all that is brilliant, all 
 that is superior in the nations. You must give to rising genera- 
 tions the benefit of the afflatus of the genius of a preceding 
 generation and also — ^if it exists — of their own. It is the nature 
 of the environment which in most cases decides the future of 
 clever young men and of the future of nations. It is impossible 
 to overrate the influence exercised by men who know how to 
 appeal to the best instincts of the rising generation — who kindle 
 in them enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. 
 For such men, for such students, examinations are unnecessary, 
 because they are constantly examining themselves. Study has 
 no other meaning than perpetual self-examination. No real 
 student ever ceases to examine his results. Periodical University 
 examinations are from this point of view mainly a necessary evil, 
 because they presuppose that previous studies have not answered 
 their object, and inasmuch as they lead to subsequent cessation of 
 
1889.— Lord Reay. 223 
 
 inquiry are destructive of study as a continuous process of exami- 
 nation. Universities are intended for higher studies, for new 
 departures in every branch of learning, for those who wish to live 
 the higher life in perfect independence of the errors which beguile 
 the outside world. The nation, which cements that higher life, 
 which tries to ascend to the higher level, is the nation which 
 must occupy a foremost place. The nation which neglects such 
 aspirations, which disregards such influences, which thereby 
 degrades University life must inevitably fall back in the intel- 
 lectual race. The leaders of Universities should constantly be 
 on the watch against every attempt made to decoy them into 
 byways, astray from the ascent to higher latitudes. 
 
 The protest to which I have alluded is an opportune protest 
 . against such an attempt. Examinations instituted 
 
 Bxamina ions. |^^ those who teach in order to see whether their 
 teaching is assimilated and is rightly understood and is bearing 
 fruit, are necessary and useful, especially if they lead to the 
 immediate exclusion of those undergraduates who are unfit to 
 grasp the meaning" of the lessons they receive, a process 
 which should be adhered to sternly. But examinations which 
 have no connection with the higher teaching and are principally 
 instituted to assist employers of labour in the selection of their 
 servants, whether the employer is the State or a Company, have 
 no relation whatever to the main object for which Universities are 
 instituted. The object of the men who enter for such examinations 
 is very creditable, but it is not the pursuit of knowledge chiefly. 
 Many of those men will adorn literature, science, criticism, but 
 this will be an incident of their career, not its main purpose. 
 If it were otherwise, there is a real danger that they would not 
 devote themselves as they ought to the service of their employers, 
 and I hardly know a more exacting employer than the Government 
 in India. Universities cannot but welcome the advent of those 
 who are preparing for such tests, but Universities must make it 
 quite plain that they are not and cannot consider it part of their 
 duty to ensure success at examinations which aim at sifting men 
 fit for practical duties from men who are unfit for them. It is 
 an altogether different question whether the State and other 
 employers of labour should avail themselves of the results of 
 University training by accepting University standards, by employ- 
 ing those whose University career points to future usefulness 
 in the practical domain. I have seen excellent results from this 
 system. I only know of one objection to it, that professors — 
 perhaps more than other men — ^indulge in the very pardonable 
 luxury of having fayourites^ but then the difficulty is not 
 
224 Umversity of Bombay. 
 
 insuperable because the favourite of one Professor is generally 
 not the favourite of his colleagues, and the result is that on 
 application to the joint body of Professors you get a very fair 
 supply. I am compelled to admit that the result of the competitive 
 system as tested by my experience of the distinguished body of 
 gentlemen who form the administration of this Presidency is far 
 from unsatisfactory, but the admission does not invalidate the 
 distinction which I have drawn. The time spent in outside 
 examinations by men whose duty it is to teach as well as to 
 advance knowledge, is time wasted. The profession of a Civil 
 Service examiner and the profession of a University teacher must 
 remain distinct professions. University examinations have a 
 direct relation to the subject-matter which is taught, and Uni- 
 versity teaching has a higher aim than mere acquisition of 
 useful knowledge, such as is required for practical purposes. 
 
 I have drawn a high ideal of a University. I am aware 
 that it has not been reached. This University has 
 Teacherr^ ^^ ^^^7 ^^ ^ limited extent its own destinies in its 
 hands. It practically settles the programmes in 
 the various faculties. But when that function has been per- 
 formed there remains another more responsible, more diflScult : 
 to select the men, who are to be the teachers, on whose ability, 
 on whose character must depend how those programmes are to 
 be carried out. That function is now performed by Govern- 
 ment and by private bodies. There is no function which 
 I consider of greater importance. No appointment has been 
 to me a cause of deeper anxiety than the appointment to 
 fill the vacant place of Dr. Vandyke Carter. The appoint- 
 ment has been made on purely academic lines, and I shall 
 watch with the greatest solicitude Dr. Meyer's scientific career. 
 The Law Faculty may be congratulated on having received 
 . a great accession of strength in the person of 
 
 ® *°^' -^j,^ Telang, a born professor himself, a constant 
 student, and therefore — what every professor should be — ^the 
 guide and the friend of his students. This University should 
 impress on those who in Europe select the men to be sent 
 out, the enormous responsibility which rests on them. Unless 
 the men who undertake a mission which I do not hesitate 
 to call sacred are imbued with the magnitude of the work 
 they are undertaking, higher education, instead of being the 
 greatest blessing England has conferred on India, will be its 
 greatest curse. Higher education is not a manufacture in 
 which mechanical skill is sufficient, it is architecture, and as it 
 given only to very few men to be good architects, so it requires 
 
1889.— iord Reay. 225 
 
 the highest constructive talent to build up this great struc- 
 ture in India. Every ignoble feature must be excluded, and only 
 such architects as command a pure and noble style can be entrust- 
 ed with the design. We have only laid the bare foundations, and in 
 many respects they are weak. I am not quite sure that the archi- 
 tects themselves have a very clear idea of even the mere outlines of 
 the building. Some of the architects however are aware that the 
 materials with which they have to work are extremely brittle. 
 But in Mr. Wordsworth we have had a brilliant instance of real 
 academic influence. He did not find it an impossible task to guide 
 the aspirations of the educated youth of India to a higher plane. 
 
 I may perhaps be permitted to address a few words of en- 
 couragement to the undergraduates and the young 
 Obligations of graduates. If their University career is to answer 
 its object, they must also be deeply penetrated with 
 the obligations it entails. It is to them the starting point of a new 
 life. It is not complete in itself, it is a mere beginning. The 
 seed sown at a University can only fructify in a receptive soil — a 
 soil which has been carefully prepared. Whether it will produce 
 a rich harvest or tares depends on a combination of circumstances. 
 Here I need only point out that assimilation is the principal desi- 
 deratum. In the quickness of perception of Indians we have a 
 formidable antagonism to depth and breadth of conception, and 
 to originality. The educated youth of India, as well as of all other 
 countries, must dive deep into the inner recesses of the scienoe 
 with which they are dealing if they wish to master it authorita- 
 tively. That is what I ventured to call assimilation, and it is only 
 thus that they can hope to contribute to the building their mite of 
 co-operation. There is no short cut in this domain ; there is only 
 one royal road. The new discoveries can only be made by those 
 who ascend carefully and cautiously. A real student does not 
 wander into the bypaths of self-sufficiency in which he is met 
 by no obstacles. It is only by constant research and inquiry 
 that he can lead himself and others. He will shun contact with 
 the fanciful catch- words which are fashionable and welcome to 
 the uneducated. In this case supply should always be of a 
 higher quality than demand. The student must be in advance 
 of his generation, in order to earn a title to its gratitude, To 
 be a University man is a distinction only if the University man 
 is a man of high character and of intellectual independence. 
 
 I deplore that among our undergraduates and graduates we 
 
 have so few sons of Native Chiefs. Whatever may 
 
 Adjnce to In- j^q \\^q cause, it is a matter which I deeply regret. 
 
 My relations with all the Chiefs with whom I have 
 
 29 
 
226 University of Bombay, 
 
 official dealings are so cordial that they will understand that I 
 appeal to them as a friend, when I urge them to give the best 
 education in their power to their sons and daughters. Some of 
 them are setting a bright example. The highest representatives 
 of Indian nobility should not rely on the privileges of birth alone. 
 First among their countrymen they should also be first among 
 them in the pursuit of knowledge. Their duties are manifold, 
 and they cannot be discharged properly unless they themselves 
 rise to the highest level- To my friend H. H. the Thakore 
 Saheb of Bhavnagar, g.c.s.i., great credit is due for the found- 
 ation of the Samaldas College. Other Chiefs have sent or are 
 intending to send their sons to England, and if the higher 
 education of their sons is the main object, and is steadily kept in 
 view, the risks they run from many causes during their sojourn 
 in Europe may be overcome. But in too many cases the 
 education at the English Universities is out of their reach, 
 and then the Chiefs should utilise the opportunities which are 
 near at hand. If a separate College with a full University 
 course is needed for the aristocracy they should take steps 
 to start one. I confess that I am partial to the Scottish 
 system, which does not admit of dividing lines in Educa- 
 tional institutions which are not the natural result of brain 
 power, and I think that all aristocracies are the better for a com- 
 mon struggle with those whose studies must be taken up in 
 good earnest. In India the peculiar condition of society may 
 require separation, but nothing can possibly be said in favour 
 of an uneducated class of rulers. 
 
 Indian Universities have not only to keep up a high in- 
 tellectual ideal, they have also to give to the country men of 
 character, men with backbone, who are incapable of deviating 
 from the paths of rectitude. The final aim of all Universities is 
 to get as near the truth as they can. Access to truth is only 
 open to those who are themselves absolutely truthful, impartial, 
 and fearless of consequences. Eational in thought, they are 
 rational in speech. Universities aim above all things at sobriety 
 of thought and speech. 
 
 With Bpictetus Universities teach, 
 
 " From righteous acts let nought thy mind dissuade, 
 Of vulgar censures be thou ne'er afraid ; 
 Pursue the task which justice doth decree ; 
 E'en tho' the crowd think different from thee." 
 
 The highest compliment ever paid in a language which is 
 happily chary of compliments is : ^'^Tou are a gentleman." And 
 
1890.-- iJei;. D. Mackichan. 227 
 
 it means that a mau can be implicitly trusted. Indian Univer- 
 sities should take as their motto " altiora peto/' and I should 
 translate it : Indian Universities train Indian gentlemen. 
 
 TWENTY-NINTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Rev. D. Mackichan, M.A., D.D.) 
 
 Mr. Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — The academic 
 year of which this Convocation marks the close has been one of 
 exceptional activity. This is apparent not merely from the 
 number of University meetings which have been held during 
 the past year, as stated in the annual report to which you have 
 listened, but still more from the nature of the subjects which 
 have engaged the deliberations of the Senate. A generation 
 has passed since this University was called into existence. It 
 has seen more than thirty years of continuous development, and 
 it is natural that now, in the manhood of its growing life, it 
 should address itself to those important problems which this 
 development has called forth and with which this growing 
 strength has made it in some measure fit to grapple. The 
 University has sought to review its position in relation to 
 almost every department of the varied learning over which it 
 presides : it has been occupied with the recasting of the old and 
 in some measure also with the devising of the new. It is 
 therefore a matter of special regret to us all that on this im- 
 portant occasion we miss from the chair at this stage of our 
 proceedings our academic Chancellor, whose address from this 
 place at our last Convocation on the University ideal did so 
 much to enlarge the horizon of our intellectual aims and whose 
 further counsels would now have a special value for the sustain- 
 ing and direction of the impulse which he has awakened. 
 The accumulating work of the closing days of his high office 
 deprives us of this privilege ; but neither his absence from this 
 University nor his absence from India will deprive us of our 
 share in that influence which has made itself so deeply felt in 
 every part of the educational life of this Presidency. Under 
 circumstances so disadvantageous it devolves upon me to 
 address you. The task which I shall now attempt is the 
 humbler one of endeavouring to place before you, gentlemen of 
 the Senate, some views regarding our present position and some 
 suggestions with reference to our future development which 
 come not from without but from within the system which 
 we are now called upon to review. I shall speak to you 
 simply as one who has been in contact^ more or less intimate, 
 
228 tPniversity of Bomhay. 
 
 throughoufc a number of years with the work which is done 
 under the shadow of this University and with the youth who 
 are proud to call it their alma mater. But before I proceed to 
 this my special task there are two duties which it falls to me to 
 discharge. 
 
 One of these is to call your attention to the wide gaps that 
 death has made in our ranks since we last assem- 
 TJnivSy! ^^^^ in Convocation. The K^o S^heb Vishvanath 
 
 Narayan Mandlik who was so long one of the 
 chief ornaments of the Senate, has passed away amid the 
 regrets of the whole community. We miss to-day the intellectual 
 presence which has often lent dignity to these assemblages 
 and strength and character to our academic debates. Himself 
 a man of learning and a patron of learning, he has left to the 
 students of this University the example of a life devoted 
 to the pursuit of higher aims than mere worldly success, 
 of high intellectual gifts consecrated to the advancement of 
 true learning. And this example was rendered all the more 
 valuable by the simple life in which it was embodied, and 
 the independence of character which sustained it. Straight- 
 forwardness and simplicity, honesty and energy of purpose, 
 always manifest even to those who differed most widely 
 from him — these were some of the outstanding features of the 
 life to which as a University we this day pay tribute. And 
 we miss not less the genial form of the late Mr. Justice 
 Nanabhai Haridas. His life moved along very different lines 
 from that of the distinguished Rao Saheb, and the example 
 which it offers to the youth of our University presents different 
 features. It is an outstanding illustration of the results of 
 persevering devotion to duty. Without external advantages 
 our honoured friend rose through force of character and 
 faithfulness of work step by step to one of the highest posi- 
 tions in the service of his country ; and to many a young 
 man in this hall, starting with high hope upon a similar 
 career and face to face with like difficulties, his example cannot 
 fail to be inspiring. Mr. Justice Nanabhai was latterly a pro- 
 minent figure in your debates, and while most of us stood upon 
 opposite ground none could but admire the unfailing good 
 nature with which he maintained the unequal conflict ; while 
 the quiet humour which played beneath excluded every element 
 of bitterness from the keenest opposition. In the death of 
 Mr. Mahadeva Moreshvar Kunte we have lost one of the first 
 graduates of this University. His residence during the last 
 years of his life in another city prevented him from taking that 
 
1890.— liev. D, Maclcichan. 22^ 
 
 prominent part in the business of the University for which his 
 educational experience so well fitted him, but all of us who knew 
 him will remember the keen, almost restless, intellectual activity 
 by which he was distinguished, and which made him eminent 
 amongst the eminent graduates sent forth by this University 
 during the first years of its existence. The name of Archbishop 
 Porter, so recently removed from among us, is another which will 
 at once occur to you when you think of the losses which this 
 University has sustained. Although the period of his association 
 with you was so brief, by his frequent attendance at your 
 meetings and the active interest which he manifested in the 
 academical questions which occupied the Senate, he gave proof 
 of that unwearied devotion to public duty by which he was dis- 
 tinguished, and of his desire to contribute to this University the 
 matured fruits of an educational experience won during a life- 
 long acquaintance with academic work in. other lands. 
 
 We turn now to notice the new benefactions which the year 
 has brought, and to express our gratitude to the 
 New Benefac- generous donors who have placed the University 
 under new obligations. We cannot expect that 
 every year will be able to rival the year 1888, which in 
 respect of large and numerous gifts was, indeed, an anniis 
 mirahilis in our history. The gifts announced at last Convoca- 
 tion, some of which were, however, offered to the University in 
 previous years, amounted to more than a Mkh of rupees. The 
 new endowments to which it falls to me now to acknowledge 
 amount to Rs. 50,000. With two exceptions they have for 
 their object the promotion of medical education amongst women 
 of India. Foremost amongst these stands the gift of Mr. 
 P. H. Cama, the munificent founder of the Women^s Hospital 
 which bears his name. Mr. Cama has placed at the disposal 
 of the University the sum of Rs. 25,000, for the purpose of 
 assisting native ladies, especially those of his own community, 
 to a medical education in connection with the University. The 
 scholarship which the University has been asked to found is a 
 most appropriate sequel to Mr. Cama^s gift of a hospital to the 
 city. In expressing our acknowledgments to him we recognise 
 not only the munificence which has prompted so liberal a gift, 
 but also the wisdom which has been shown in the choice of so 
 excellent an object. To provide the means of raising a succession 
 of trained lady-physicians from among the women of his country, 
 and thus to diffuse the tender ministries of healing amidst them, 
 is an act of far-reaching benevolence, — a fit companion to that 
 other with which his name will ever remain honourably asso- 
 
230 University of Bombay, 
 
 ciated. TheBai ShirinbaiEatanshaParakh Scholarship is another 
 endowment of the same class, and intended to further the same 
 object. Mr. Katansha Ardeshir Parakh_, by his gift of Rs. 6,000, 
 has furnished another proof of the hold which the cause of 
 medical education for women has taken of the sympathies of the 
 liberal-hearted inen of India, and has rendered most substantial 
 help to the object which he has so much at heart. From these 
 donations we may learn that the career which they are intended 
 to open up to the ladies of the Parsi community is one which is 
 held in highest honour by their people, and indications are not 
 wanting to encourage the hope that these ladies will be as ready 
 to avail themselves of their great opportunity as the large- 
 hearted leaders of their community have been to furnish the 
 means for providing it. The name of Sir Dinsha Manekji Petit 
 comes before us again in the offer of the secretaries of the enter- 
 tainment fund raised in his honour to add to the above endow- 
 ments for female medical education another of the value of 
 Rs. 6,500. In thus associating Sir Dinsha Manekji Petit with the 
 University and with this department of its work, they have added 
 new honour to a name already identified with schemes of large 
 benevolence intended for the relief of suffering and the advance- 
 ment of medical science. These are illustrations of the manner 
 in which the great national movement headed by the Countess 
 of Dufferin in India and by Lady Reay in our own Western Pre- 
 sidency, has touched the hearts of the people, and nowhere more 
 deeply than here, where the foundations were so early laid, and 
 where the work has been so efficiently performed. The Lady 
 Reay Gold Medal and Scholarship founded by Mr. Harkissondas 
 Narotamdas is a most appropriate memorial of the wise and de- 
 voted labours of the lady, who is so soon to leave our shores, in a 
 cause which owes so much of its success to her energetic and 
 unceasing effort ; and it has been a source of very special grati- 
 fication to us all that we have seen the presentation of the first 
 Lady Reay Gold Medal to Miss Walke, the first lady medical 
 graduate of this University. Another giffc which we have to 
 acknowledge on this occasion is that of a sum of about Rs. 2,000, 
 presented by the Fawcett Memorial Committee for the purchase 
 of books dealing with political science. The name of Fawcett is 
 fitly held in highest veneration by multitudes in this country and 
 by none is it more sincerely honoured than by the students of 
 our Indian Universities. We may feel assured that the Fawcett 
 Collection will be prized and used by many of our students and 
 graduates whom Fawcett^s writings have introduced to the study 
 of a favourite science. There is another announcement which I 
 have to make in connection with this list of gifts, and I make it 
 
1890.— Ret;. D. MacJcichan. 281 
 
 by reading a letter which has just reached us and which runs as 
 follows :-—' Satdra High School, 23rd January 1890.— To the 
 Registrar of the University of Bombay. Sir, — I beg to offer to 
 the University the sum of Rs. 1 0,000 for the encouragement of 
 advanced studies and original research in Practical and Industrial 
 Chemistry. The interest that may annually accrue on the sum 
 is to be used for the purpose indicated. The encouragement 
 may be in the form of a scholarship tenable for one or more years 
 or that of honorarium. Only M.A.'s and B.Sc/s should be eligible. 
 If the Syndicate decide to accept my offer I shall communicate 
 to you a few more details not inconsistent with the particulars 
 stated above and make arrangements to place the sum in your 
 hands. — Yours truly, Mahadeva V. Kane, acting headmaster.' 
 I need scarcely say that this offer coming from one of our own 
 graduates and intended to encourage original research in an im- 
 portant branch of scientific investigation, is one of the most 
 gratifying which I have had the pleasure of announcing. The 
 gift of Rs. 10,000 for the endowment of a lectureship in connec- 
 tion with the Grant Medical College cannot be classed amongst the 
 befaefactions to this University ; but its object is so closely related 
 to the work of the University, and the name of the donor, Dr. 
 Vandyke Carter, is held in such high honour among us, that it is 
 most fitting that our appreciation of this generous gift to the cause 
 of science by one of whose reputation Bombay is justly proud, 
 should be publicly acknowledged on this occasion. The bene- 
 factions which from year to year continue to enrich our Univer- 
 sity are all designed to reward and encourage the deserving 
 student. It is to be hoped that this stream of benevolence will 
 continue to flow on in ever-increasing volume. 
 
 There is still room for scholarships of every kind. As a 
 guide, not only to students, but also to intending 
 ofClm?re1nLaw* benefactors, a conspectus of these prizes stands in 
 the Calendar of the University. But the need of 
 another form of endowment is beginning to be felt, and I think it 
 my duty to point out to the liberal friends of University education 
 the almost entire absence of lectureships or special means of 
 instruction in connection with the University. I think I am 
 interpreting the mind, not only of a large body of our students, 
 but also of the leading representatives of one of our most impor- 
 tant Faculties, when I place before you the endowrnent of Chairs 
 in law as a University object to which such private liberality 
 may most fitly be directed. I take the opportunity to refer to 
 this now, because the subject of the revision of the law curriculum 
 is one which has engaged much of our attention during the past 
 
232 University of Bomhay. 
 
 year. The old system was too mucli a tacit recognition of the 
 idea that while for a course in Arts^ Engineering or Medicine, 
 regular and systematic teaching was necessary, for the attainment 
 of proficiency in Law the mere keeping of terms, supplemented 
 mainly by private reading, was a sufficient discipline. The new 
 curriculum which has passed the Senate has sought to repudiate 
 this idea, and to make the work of the Law School a reality by 
 placing under the instruction of its Professors a body of young 
 men who shall be bond fide students of legal science. But it has 
 become obvious to all who have given attention to the subject 
 that the reconstruction of the means of teaching is as necessary 
 as the turning of nominal into real students. For this purpose 
 a Professoriate which shall have time to devote to the training 
 of these students is indispensable, a Law College which shall be 
 a centre of academic life to the body of its students, as the Col- 
 leges in the other faculties are to theirs. One can understand, 
 perhaps, why any apparent extension of the average period of 
 study is regarded in some quarters with apprehension, if it is 
 looked upon as only introducing a time-qualification, but if the 
 re-arrangement of the studies of our students of law means their 
 introduction to a course of instruction under Professors who will 
 be in a position to discharge towards them the duties of a full 
 Professoriate, I should expect to find the change hailed with 
 enthusiasm by all who are worthy of the name of students, and 
 who have any ambition to attain to scientific knowledge in their 
 chosen study. It is not my special function, as it was that of 
 my distinguished predecessor in this office, to speak as the 
 representative of the learned profession, but I should fail of my 
 duty to the University and its students if I did not place in the 
 forefront of our academic wants the need of which I have spoken. 
 We are justly proud of the eminent lawyers who have been reared 
 in this University. As a University we welcome to the high 
 position to which he has been raised the Honourable Mr. Justice 
 Telang, a brilliant example of what our Indian countrymen are 
 able to achieve in the field of law, and recognising the special 
 aptitudes which have been displayed by the students and gradu- 
 ates of this University in this department of academic study, we 
 may well predict a time of high achievement for those who will be 
 privileged to enjoy the fuller opportunities which I trust a not 
 distant future has in store for them. 
 
 The year that now closes has witnessed some new beginnings 
 
 to which I desire to call your attention, gentlemen, 
 
 Some new because they will require your watchful and foster- 
 
 eginmngs. ^^^ care. The University School Final Examina- 
 
1890.— 7?ej;. V. MacJdchan, 233 
 
 tiou is in its infancy, and while it is impossible to predict the 
 course of its future growth it is interesting to note such indica- 
 tions as it has already given of its fitness to accomplish the end 
 contemplated in its institution. Already 145 candidates out of 
 more than 500 have passed this examination, and the number of 
 candidates for Matriculation has shown a corresponding diminu- 
 tion. I have made inquiries regarding the attainments of those 
 who have selected this course, and find that it has attracted from 
 the older examination not the weak and hopeless, but many of 
 marked ability. The standard of examination has not been 
 lowered. On the contrary, by our selection of experienced 
 examiners and by the standard which we have fixed, we have made 
 it clear that this is not to be regarded as an inferior examination, 
 but one in which a high attainment is to be demanded. It has so 
 far answered our first expectations that it has supplied a proper 
 terminus to the scholastic course of a number of our youths, 
 whose circumstances might have rendered the further career to 
 which the Matriculation Examination might have allured them 
 one of perhaps hopeless struggle with overpowering difiiculty. 
 Far be it from me to ward off from a career of self-denying study 
 those who feel within them an impulse which stirs them to such 
 noble effort. The Universities of my own country are a perpetual 
 witness to the existence of this impulse in many of the noble 
 poor ; but it behoves us to see that we do not by influences, 
 which are independent of the existence of any such impulse, 
 produce a state of things which may prove injurious to the com- 
 munity as a whole, and detrimental to the interests of that 
 higher education of which we are the custodians. The danger to 
 which I allude has been felt in other lands, and in more ancient 
 seats of learning, notably in Germany, where the problem of 
 adjusting the position of the Realschulen with reference to the 
 Gymnasien arose in great measure from a consciousness of the 
 same difficulty which we have sought to meet by these tentative 
 reforms which have already, in some limited degree at least, ful- 
 filled their promise. And now we must look for the fulfilment of 
 another expectation. The change referred to was undertaken in 
 the interests not only of those who had another than an academical 
 future before them, but also of those who were destined for a 
 University career. The conviction has been growing that a 
 University education cannot be turned to advantage by all who 
 arrive at that standard of education, which was wont to be de- 
 termined by the Matriculation Examination, and that if the door 
 of exit from the school was also the door of admission to the Uni- 
 versity, many might be misled into patlis which they could never 
 follow with advantage or success. It has also been accepted 
 30 
 
234 University of Bombay. 
 
 as a true principle in education that culture is more advanced 
 when a smaller number are furnished with the highest means of 
 training, than when it is shared by an excessive number, who 
 necessarily lower the level of collective achievement, because the 
 highest training cannot be placed within the reach of all. This 
 University and its Colleges have never prided themselves on 
 numbers, but they have been rightly jealous of the quality 
 of their results. And now that a generation has passed we may 
 well ask whether this has resulted in any advance in the standard 
 of attainment ? It is not uncommon to hear it said in some 
 quarters that there has been little advance, perhaps rather a 
 retrogression. Now I for one have very little sympathy with 
 the vague complaints of the laudator temiooris acti in relation to 
 the development of our higher education. It is easy to point to 
 those distinguished men who were the first alumni of our Univer- 
 sity, and placing beside them the average results of our own day 
 to deduce the conclusion that our progress has been incon- 
 siderable. But it is forgotten by those who make the comparison 
 that the time of which they speak was the beginning of an 
 intellectual awakening which attracted only the choicer spirits, 
 while the impulse which moved them has now a wider sweep and 
 acts upon a larger mass. If we would institute a just comparison 
 we should compare the elite of the many who now crowd the class 
 rooms of our Colleges with those who were the pioneers of the 
 new movement. If the comparison be thus fairly made, I believe 
 we may justly claim that the standard of attainment possible in 
 this University has risen with the general progress, and that a 
 deeper and broader culture is now offered to the alumni of our 
 University, deeper and broader because it rests upon the achieve- 
 ments of their predecessors in the same high pursuit. Still there 
 can be little doubt that the student of a byegone day enjoyed 
 advantages which are less common now. He was more in con- 
 tact with men who formed the characters and moulded the lives 
 of their pupils. His acquaintance with the life and thought of 
 the West was in some respects also more direct and immediate. 
 His mind, too, was more open to the influences which played upon 
 it, more receptive of the new spirit which was being breathed 
 into it. Perhaps we have suffered in this loss of the students' 
 receptivity, and it may be possible for a greater number to pass 
 through the regular paths of a University education without 
 coming into contact with its higher spirit. If there has been a 
 loss in this respect, it is a loss most real, for it touches that 
 which is most vital in intellectual influence. What has made the 
 influences of Universities so potent ? It is not that they sepa- 
 rate so many chosen minds from the meaner influences of the 
 
1890.—iJev. D. Mackichan. 235 
 
 world, that they may infuse into them the higher life of which 
 they are the living channels. Does not every true student recall 
 to mind that lofty abandon which placed him in contact with the 
 genius loci — the spirit of his alma mater, and, how with mind sur- 
 rendered to its higher influences, he was raised by it to a new 
 and loftier plane. It matters little what a University may gain 
 if it loses this higher power. It is easier to possess it and to 
 >Tield it amid the awakening impulse of a new epoch, and it can 
 be continuously maintained when these movements have grown 
 into the every-day conditions only by a continuous elevation of 
 the intellectual ideal. I believe that the time has now fully 
 come for carrying into effect what may now reasonably be expect- 
 ed as the fruit of a thirty years' development. Now that the 
 claims of general education have so far been met, the University 
 should feel itself free to work out within its own peculiar sphere 
 its own higher ideal. This conviction working strongly and 
 independency in many minds has brought us face to face with one 
 of the most important of those University problems which have 
 engaged our attention during the past year. I refer to the readjust- 
 ment of the curriculum in Arts. This is a subject on which I 
 feel the deepest interest, and I ask your indulgence, gentlemen, 
 while I urge the importance of worthily completing the pro- 
 gramme of reform upon which you have entered. I am one oE 
 those who cordially welcome the resolution to extend the period 
 of study. I know that this resolution does not commend itself to 
 those who regard it as only placing a new obstacle in the path of 
 those who are struggling to attain the University degree, but the 
 grounds on which this complaint is based are in most cases 
 utterly unacademic, and cannot claim a hearing within these walls. 
 It is not the main function of a University to facilitate the attain- 
 ment of a degree, but to uphold the standard of intellectual cul- 
 ture and to improve the methods by which that standard may be 
 reached. Now the change which has so strongly recommended 
 itself to the Senate has sprung from a conviction that both 
 the standard and the method of study called for revision. On 
 the one hand the constitution of the curriculum in respect of the 
 general distribution of the subjects of study and the position 
 occupied by certain of them, and on the other, the time allowed 
 for study, demanded re-consideration. The life of a student with 
 the shadow of an annual examination overhanging it invited our 
 sympathy, and it was felt that if we would raise the tone of Uni- 
 versity education by redeeming it from the charge of being 
 simply a pursuit of examinations and making it in reality a scho- 
 larly pursuit of knowledge, the time allowed for the study of the 
 higher and more important subjects must be extended so that 
 
236 University of Bombay, 
 
 not in the stifling atmosphere of preparation for examination^ 
 but in the cooler, calmer air of academic contemplation, our stu- 
 dents should pursue a higher aim. 
 
 Youth should be awed, religiously possessed 
 
 With a conviction of the power that waits 
 
 On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized 
 
 For its own sake : on glory and on praise 
 
 If but by labour won, and fit to endure 
 
 The passing day. 
 
 Another evil inherent in any such system of study is the de- 
 struction of independent original thinking. In an overcrowded 
 curriculum the aim of the student is apt to be reduced simply to the 
 mastering of a given number of ideas and opinions in the most con- 
 venient manner and the briefest possible time. What teacher of 
 our youth has not felt this, has not seen it in the apathy which 
 suddenly falls upon a class when he is led to enter into what may 
 often be the most interesting and most fruitful parts of a subject, 
 the secret of which is only revealed when he learns that tradition 
 has settled that such lines of inquiry do not lie within the area of 
 profitable study ? I look forward hopefully to the relief which is 
 now promised from some of these depressing influences, and I anti- 
 cipate among its results a higher mode of study, the awakening of 
 truer aims, and the deepening of the intellectual culture which is 
 associated with this University. For what are we to understand 
 by the general culture which it is the aim of the University to 
 impart ? It does not mean that a student should go forth merely 
 with a set of opinions or ideas, quickly accumulated, upon a 
 large variety of questions. He cannot hope to master all the 
 problems of human knowledge in a three years^ course, nor in 
 one of four ; but this at least we are entitled to expect that he 
 shall have learned what many of those problems are, that he 
 shall have learned to look at them from many sides, and shall 
 have some grasp of the principles which must be applied for 
 their solution as they present themselves amid the varied ex- 
 periences of after-life. The University has simply introduced 
 him to fields of study which it will be his life-work to cultivate- 
 In the principles which it has inculcated and in the habit of 
 mind which it has engendered it has placed in his hands the 
 instruments, but the work in great part lies before him. If he 
 goes forth simply with a set of ideas rapidly and imperfectly 
 assimilated his after-life will be unfruitful ; but if he enters life 
 with a mind trained to think, to examine, to realize the mutual 
 bearings of the many objects of his thinking, then the founda- 
 tions of a University culture have been well and truly laid. To 
 use the words of one who was himself so thoroughly imbued 
 with the University spirit : — " A habit of mind is formed which 
 
1890.— iJev. D. Mackichan. 23? 
 
 lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitable- 
 ness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom.^' It must be admitted 
 that fehe habits which a system of rapid acquirement of ideas for 
 the ends of an examination engenders are very different from 
 these. The philosophical habit of mind is entirely absent — one- 
 sided judgments, crude opinions make up the iutellectual furni- 
 ture of such undisciplined minds, and all the worst features of a 
 superficial and unsubstantial education are certain sooner or 
 later to develop themselves. It is no part of the aim of Univer- 
 sity culture as thus conceived to stimulate any particular study 
 at the expense of others equally important in the general scheme. 
 Specializing is a feature of our time in all departments of life, 
 but it seems to me that in education there is much danger in its 
 Danger of premature introduction. To a certain extent the 
 premature spe- special Capacities of different minds must be recog- 
 ciahzation. nised in any completed system, but it has been 
 
 found possible to introduce specialization of study with real 
 success only in Universities which have seen a high develop- 
 ment, and which rest upon the anciently laid foundations of 
 a wide culture in the life of the nation. "A single study 
 is apt to tinge the spirit with a single colour ; whilst ex- 
 pansive knowledge irradiates it from many studies with the 
 many-coloured hues of thought till they kindle by their assem- 
 blage, and blend and melt into the white light of inspiration."'^ 
 These are words spoken by one of our poets who was also a Uni- 
 versity reformer ; they express well the true academic idea. The 
 peculiarity in the mental acquisition of the true student is that he 
 has learnt to regard the realm of truth as one, and refuses to know 
 anything in its isolation from other branches of knowledge. From 
 this has come the philosophic breadth of men of true University 
 culture, who have enjoj^ed the benefits of that illumination which 
 has reached them in reflection from the many-sided body of truth. 
 It has saved them from a narrowness, one-sidedness of thought 
 from which their contemporaries of equal or greater distinc- 
 tion have not been free. There is only one department in which 
 attempts at reform have apparently failed, and to these I shall 
 only refer in order to point out that the failure is apparent only. 
 I refer to the Medical curriculum and the Medical degree. It 
 ought to be regarded as a token of the high position which medi- 
 cal science has attained in the College of this Presidency, — a 
 result so largely due to the scientific abilities of those who have 
 guided that education, and of whom frequent mention has been 
 made in this place, — that it has awakened a desire in the minds 
 of its graduates to see the Medical degree placed on a better 
 footing and brought more into line with that of the older Univer- 
 
238 University of Bombay. 
 
 sitiesv With these aspirations I most thoroughly sympathise, 
 but I would remind those who put forward the claim to a new 
 designation that their proposal will gain a readier assent if it in- 
 clude also the demand for a higher scientific culture in those who 
 shall obtain the higher denomination. At a time when the 
 means of scientific instruction in the Medical College have been 
 improved to so high a degree of efficiency (we welcome with 
 satisfaction to the membership of the Senate to-night some of the 
 Professors on its staff, gentlemen of high academic distinction) 
 any proposal that does not contemplate some elevation of the 
 standard of scientific requirement must be regarded as out of 
 harmony with the progressive spirit of the time. There is 
 perhaps no profession in which the same designation is sus- 
 ceptible of a greater variety of meaning, and in expressing my 
 hearty sympathy with the aims of the medical graduates of the 
 University, I venture to hope that the meaning which they will 
 seek to attach to the degree which they desire the University to 
 institute will be worthy of the high position of their College as 
 one of the foremost medical schools in India, and of the progres- 
 sive character of the science which they represent. I cannot 
 close this review of the past academical year without alluding to 
 the new departure that has been made in the recently instituted 
 diploma in Agriculture. In the comprehensive scheme which 
 our learned Chancellor placed before you a year ago, the institu- 
 tion of a Degree in Agriculture was included in the enumeration 
 of our needs. The diploma which has recently been instituted 
 may be regarded as the first instalment of the fulfilment of that 
 programme. The discussion of this question, gentlemen, is fresh 
 in the recollection of most of you, and I shall not traverse ground 
 that has been so recently gone over. With much that was said 
 with reference to the aims of University education by those who 
 opposed this addition to the recognised studies I must thoroughly 
 concur, and I would remind them that the scheme now sanctioned 
 leaves that doctrine intact. No degree in Agriculture has yet 
 been instituted, and it is not likely that any proposal to institute 
 a degree will come before us that does not satisfy the high 
 requirements which they have rightly insisted upon. The form 
 in which the recognition has been granted has been purposely 
 selected to prevent any such result. I think I am not misinterpret- 
 ing the general feeling of the Senate when I say that until Agri- 
 culture is prepared to take its place in the science curriculum of 
 the University, and to satisfy its full requirements it cannot 
 expect the recognition to which it will naturally aspire. Its future 
 as a department of University study will depend on the develop- 
 ment of scientific agricultural instruction to a position in which 
 
1890.— Rev. D. MacMchan. 239 
 
 it can fitly rank with the other sciences to which this Univer- 
 sity has given its complete recognition. Having thus made 
 clear the nature and extent of the Senate's action, I would ask 
 you to allow me to add a brief word on the general question. 
 If the condition which I have above stated be insisted upon, it 
 appears to me that such an extension of the scope of our Uni- 
 versity studies is both natural and desirable. The question is 
 
 not to be settled by any arbitrary definition of the 
 Definition of term University, and a corresponding limitation of 
 
 its sphere. Fortunately the best authorities are 
 not agreed as to the origin of the term, and it has been left 
 to history to settle the definition from age to age. The term 
 University has been defining itself, and the definition has 
 taken its colour from the intellectual surroundings of each age, 
 and, I might add, of each nation. The mediaeval conception 
 of the University held sway for a period of unexpected duration. 
 But the spirit of the age proved too powerful for this con- 
 ception, and one after another the most conservative Univer- 
 sities have been compelled to surrender it. In Germany the 
 liberalising influence has been long at work, and the German 
 Universities owe their present power to the degree in which 
 they have been able to adapt themselves to changing conditions. 
 Local influences, too, have been at work, and subjects of 
 academic study find a place in one University denied to them in 
 another, because the life of which they are the intellectual 
 development does not everywhere present the same features. 
 And who is prepared to maintain that the Universities of India 
 should not develop along lines that may, in some measure, be 
 peculiar to themselves ? If the life of the nation requires it, so 
 long as Universities are in touch with that life they will be 
 bound to respond to this demand. A recent writer has well 
 said : '^ The University may be described as the higher know- 
 ledge of the nation, concentrated and organized for the purposes 
 of extension and communication with a view to the perfecting of 
 the truth and the better formation of men. So considered it 
 must be a living and ever-augmenting body — growth in the 
 sciences taught and in the faculties teaching them is necessary 
 to its very idea. The moment that a University circumscribes 
 the field of knowledge, and says the circle is complete, and no new 
 science can be added or old displaced, it has ceased to be a Univer- 
 sity and become a mere mill, grinding out arid conventionalisms 
 and barren forumlae good for no human spirit.'^ The develop- 
 ment of scientific instruction in our University is a subject to 
 which increased attention will have to be devoted. About ten 
 years ago a sudden starts almost a revolution, was achieved. 
 
240 University of Bombay. 
 
 But our subsequent progress in the new direction lias not been 
 commensurate with our plans and expectations. Whether it be due 
 to a want of the means of instruction or to the national preference 
 for a literary curriculum, the degree in science still fails to attract 
 a large proportion of our students. It is a matter for regret that 
 this department of our University studies is not more enthusi- 
 astically cultivated. I am one of those who thought, and still 
 think, that scientific culture is destined to exert a healthful 
 influence upon the mind of India. It was a favourite idea of 
 Lord Bacon and of his time, that particular studies were fitted 
 to strengthen and correct different minds, according to their 
 special habits and peculiarities. I believe that there is an im- 
 portant truth in this old conception, and that the inherited ten- 
 dencies of the Indian mind will find their complement and 
 corrective in the sciences of observation and experiment. In the 
 analysis of thought, in the contemplation of ideas in themselves, 
 and in relation to other ideas, the Indian mind has attained a 
 high development ; but this idealizing tendency has led it farther 
 and farther away from the sphere of the actual and the real. Its 
 grasp of objective truth has been weakened, and those elements 
 of intellectual character which are conditioned by it are less pro- 
 minent. Experiment and observation, contact with facts and 
 laws independent of our subjectivity, and marked by all 
 the features of a commanding reality, are calculated to cor- 
 rect this one-sidedness, to awaken deeper convictions with 
 regard to the absoluteness of truth and with this strength- 
 ened love of truth and reverence for truth to help forward 
 the development of the moral and higher side of man's intellectual 
 life. The manifold activities of the past year have led me to 
 speak in detail, and, I fear, at too great length, upon the various 
 departments of our academic life. 
 
 And now, looking upon them as a whole, I would ask your 
 further indulgence while I allude briefly to one 
 
 ^ * aspect of our University life in which I think we 
 
 are all deeply conscious of our failure. I have already emphasised 
 what I consider to be the specific character of University educa- 
 tion, namely, the comprehensive view of knowledge which it 
 places before its true followers, its antipathy to all one-sidedness 
 and incompleteness, its constant effort to gather the vast variety 
 of human knowledge into a unity born of that higher spirit which 
 it is its great mission to inspire. But the conditions under which 
 University education is pursued among us are most unfavourable 
 to the realization of this idea. The student in Arts moves on 
 his separate way, having little communion with his brother- 
 
1890.— Rev. D. Mackichan, 241 
 
 student in Medicine, and still less perhaps with his fellow-under- 
 graduates in Engineering. In each department knowledge is 
 pursued as if the others had no existence, and thus one of the 
 great liberalizing influences of University life is absent. It is 
 this which should distinguish University culture from mere pro- 
 fessional training, and this we have not in any true sense as a 
 constant element in the influence of the University. Is there not 
 wanting something in our organization which would help to unite 
 the lives of all our undergraduates by some bond of common 
 responsibility and common interest ? On an occasion like the 
 present we realize for a brief season something of what this fellow- 
 ship means, and the University has for its students something 
 of the influence of a felt reality. Bnt how to make this influence 
 a continuous influence in the life of our graduates and under- 
 graduates, how to develop that sense of responsibility which 
 attaches to membership in such an intellectual communion, is a 
 problem to which as a University we have yet to address ourselves. 
 I do not believe that we shall ever be able to reap the best fruits 
 of a University culture until this consciousness of organic union 
 has been established, and all are made to feel that they have an 
 interest wider than that of their individual College, wider than 
 that of the Faculty under which they are enrolled. I need not 
 tell you how potent for good is the working of a sympathy thus 
 widened and elevated, and how especially important in this land, 
 unhappily too familiar with separation, is everything which 
 tends to unite and harmonize. Without propounding any 
 plan I place this subject before you in the hope that the con- 
 sciousness of our need once truly awakened may lead to some 
 earnest effort to supply it ; nor with a rising culture, with well 
 chosen and well-sifted materials to work upon, is it too much to 
 expect that this hope will be in some measure realized. But the 
 realization of the hope and of all the hopes which have been 
 breached on your behalf from this chair will depend on the 
 degree in which you, the graduates and undergraduates of this 
 University, realize the responsiblities of the favoured position in 
 which you stand. To some of you this occasion re-awakens the 
 memory of the intellectual struggles of a bygone day ; others we 
 have just welcomed to their well- won honours, while yet others 
 of you as you look forward along the course on which you have 
 entered, feel your aspiration quickened by their example and 
 achievement. On all of you, as representing the educated men 
 and women of Western liidia, let me press the thought which 
 is uppermost in my own heart to-day, of the high tasks, the 
 solemn responsibilities which are laid upon you. The new birth of 
 a nation cannot be accomplished without sacrifice and suffering, 
 31 
 
242 JJniversUy of Bombay. 
 
 and you who ought to be in the van of your people's life 
 will be called, if you are found worthy, to suifer and to sacrifice 
 niost. The conflicts of those who have been the heralds of a new 
 illumination in every age have been many, even when their lot 
 has been cast amongst those in whose minds the same light has 
 been secretly diffusing itself ; much greater may you expect them 
 to be when the light in which you profesfe to walk is that which 
 has reached you through your contact with the life and culture 
 of another nation, while as yet the great masses of your country- 
 men are untouched by it. Of the antagonisms of thought and 
 life which must spring from these conditions many of yon have 
 had experience. Some of you have sought to become the inter- 
 preters of these higher ideas to your countrymen, and are striving 
 in the spirit of true enlightenment to remove by example and 
 influence that which is repugnant to your highest convictions of 
 truth and duty. But to how many does the presence of these 
 special trials prove a temptation, a ground for standing aloof from 
 all earnest effort to grapple with existing evils ? As intellectual 
 culture in its truest forms is the most broadening of influences, 
 so in its spurious forms it has often proved most narrowing. The 
 man of intellect may live within a world of his own furnishing ; 
 his intellectual resources may build up a barrier between him 
 and the outlying suffering world, instead of a wide channel for 
 the outflowing of a rich and varied sympathy. And so you may 
 use the culture which you here acquire. You may think of it 
 selfishly as it increases the field of your enjoyments, as it opens 
 up to you the prospect of personal success, or you may think of 
 it as of all your material and spiritual possessions, as a sacred 
 trust bestowed upon you for the good of your people and country. 
 If you thus regard it you will not fear the temptation which lies 
 so near, to isolate yourselves in selfish satisfaction from the 
 ignorance and darkness which surrounds you ; rather will you 
 feel that your education has placed at your disposal the know- 
 ledge by which this ignorance may be helped, the light which 
 may lessen this darkness. And surely there is no lack of high 
 enterprise to tempt the nobler spirits among you. If the condi- 
 tion of your country presents to the enlightened men among you 
 a path strewn with so many difficulties and trials, it is on this 
 account all the richer in noble opportunity. You do not need to 
 travel beyond your own homes, or beyond the circle of your 
 daily social life, to find a vocation worthy of the high position to 
 which your education has raised you. Do not stand aloof from 
 tasks so sacred and so holy, however much the doing of them may 
 bring you of the scorn and contempt of the selfish and uneducated 
 among you and around you. Examples are not wanting among 
 
\S90.— Lord Reay. 24i 
 
 you of those who have felt the power of this supreme obligation. 
 Ask them and they will tell you with one voice that in this the 
 highest use of the education which they have gained as students 
 of the University, they have reaped its richest fruit and its besfc 
 reward. The performance ot tasks such as these will be the best ful- 
 filment of the charge which has been delivered to you as you stood 
 here to receive your degrees, ''that ever in your life and conver- 
 sation you show yourselves worthy of the same." It is a divine 
 law which has attached these high obligations to the privileges 
 which it is the function of this University to bestow. Go forth, 
 then, upon your life's career, resolved to obey it and thus to grow 
 
 Not alone in power 
 And knowledge, but by year and hour, 
 In reverence and in charity. 
 
 The Chancellor then addressed the Senate as follows : — 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor, Ladies and Gentlemen, — I wish to 
 plead not guilty to the indictment which the Yice-Chancellor 
 has at the beginning of his suggestive and admirable address 
 preferred against me. The Yice-Chancellor has accused me of 
 shirking my duty on this occasion in not addressing you. Now, 
 what really did happen was this, that I discounted my speech, 
 and delivered it elsewhere, so that this year you have had an 
 address from the Chancellor and one from the Yice-Chancellor. 
 And you need not fear that you are going to have a second 
 address from the Chancellor. I delivered an account of my 
 educational stewardship at Poona, which I might have delivered 
 here, but the reason why I did not deliver it here was that I 
 thought I could show my respect for this great institution in a 
 greater measure by listening to the record of events from the 
 lips of one who himself had had an active share in proposing 
 and carrying the reforms which have been during the last year 
 adopted by the Senate. My expectations have been fully realised. 
 The Yice-Chancellor has not, however, alluded to one fact in 
 your past history, to which it will be my duty to allude now — I 
 mean the Bill which the distinguished late Yice-Chancellor 
 drafted in that capacity for the University. Unfortunately he 
 forgot the ceremony of adoption when the natural father deserted 
 the child — and the result was that this Bill arrived in the Senate 
 without a father or even a godfather. In the changed relation 
 between father and child the former had as a member of Govern- 
 ment to look upon it in a different light. As Yice-Chancellor, with 
 the authority which attaches to everything that falls from him in 
 legal and educational matters, he would have undoubtedly justi- 
 fied the conditions under which it was introduced in the Senate. 
 But Government — and I lay great stress on this fact — fully 
 
244 University of Bombay. 
 
 respect tlie autonomy and the independence of this University 
 and I can give you no tetter proof of it than this : that when it 
 became clear to Government that the Bill did not meet in the 
 Senate with that approval which Government expected it would 
 have received, we decided, on my honourable friend's suggestion, 
 not to promote a measure which, perhaps, was rather in advance 
 of the times, and we are prepared to wait quietly until the 
 University itself appeals to Government in very decisive tones to 
 proceed with the measure. There is one subject to which the 
 yice-Chancellor has alluded, which, I know, to the greater part 
 of this audience is one of the greatest importance — I mean the 
 matter of examinations. I might, perhaps, before we part sug- 
 gest that to maintain in your examinations that continuity of 
 standards, which is so desirable, it may be deemed advisable by 
 The institu- J^^ ^'^ institute a Board of Studies to which all 
 tion of a Board examination papers should be referred before they 
 of Studies. g^j,Q issued to the students. Thereby we shall attain 
 
 that fixity of standard which is required in testing educational 
 results, and at the same time, where necessary, that diversity 
 in standards which science forces upon our educational methods. 
 Now with regard to the Faculty of Science, which sooner or 
 later this University is sure to have, your standards will 
 obviously be of a very mobile character. You cannot keep 
 science in a ring fence when discoveries in all quarters of 
 the world are tearing down the fence, and therefore with 
 regard to science you will have to alter your standards as well as 
 your instruction in accordance with the progress of science. To 
 the Medical Faculty the same truth applies. You have a con- 
 stant and marvellous progress all along the line, and the Univer- 
 sity of Bombay cannot decline to keep pace. With regard to 
 the Faculty of Arts, you may rest content in the placid study of 
 those noble old monuments of ancient classical models, which 
 remain unsurpassed and from which alone you can derive simpli- 
 city of expression and pureness of style. With reference to the 
 Faculty of Law, your standards must vary as modern develop- 
 ments make it necessary to change your laws, and it is imperative 
 upon you to take care that the students who pass through that 
 examination should be well versed in the philosophy of law, so 
 that in the interpretation of the letter of the law there should 
 never arise that divorce between law and common sense, which 
 since the days of Justinian it has been the aim of all great jurists 
 to avoid. Now, I have only to bid you a hearty and very cordial 
 farewell. My connection with this University is severed, but my 
 interest in it will remain permanent. I shall watch with great 
 interest the proceedings at these your festive occasiong, and I 
 
1890.— Mr. justice Birct/wood, 245 
 
 shall watch with special interest to see whether the figures of 
 endowments are changed from thousands to lakhs. I shall hope 
 to read one of these days that you are trying to emulate those 
 miners in the quarry at Penrhyn^ who though their hours of 
 work were reduced, though they were working only four days 
 a week, still managed to contribute to a college at Bangor 
 in North Wales £1,330. The contributions of those two thousand 
 men were spread over five years, and it was by such means that 
 the College of North Wales obtained an endowment of £30,000. 
 These miners, though not able to be educated at this institution, 
 were convinced of the great benefits which it would indirectly 
 confer upon them. I also shall watch in these proceedings with 
 great interest the results of those reforms which, though officially 
 I was not allowed to take any part in them, I have so often dis- 
 cassed with both the late and present Vice- Chancellors. And I 
 trust also to hear that the graduates and undergraduates of this 
 great institution are more and more realising the very great 
 respousiblity which the education they have received here imposes 
 on them. I hope to hear that they are always going along the 
 straight line, that in having before them the virtues — and I am 
 sorry to say the vices — of two civilisations. Western and Eastern, 
 they reject the vices of both and blend the virtues of both. Then 
 and then alone can they lead happy and pure lives. I hope to 
 hear that they are doing all in their power to advance both intel- 
 lectual culture and moral enlightenment among their own country- 
 men. The prayer of this University might well be the motto of 
 one of the European Universities, Sol juatidee ilUhstra nos. 
 
 THE SECOND SPECIAL CONVOCATION. 
 
 A Special Convocation of the University of Bombay was 
 held in the University Hall on the 18th December 1890, for the 
 purpose of conferring upon Mr. W. Wordsworth, B.A., ci.e.. 
 Principal of Elphinstone College and Vice-Chancellor of the 
 University, the Degree of Doctor of Laws. 
 
 The Honorable Mr. Justice Bird wood said ; — 
 
 Mr. Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — Early in the 
 year 1884, the Government of India passed an Act which con- 
 ferred on the Universities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay the 
 power of granting the degree of Doctor in the Faculty of Law to 
 certain persons, without requiring them first to pass a qualifying 
 examination. An honorary degree may be conferred on the 
 recommendation of the Syndicate, if supported by a vote of the 
 majority of the Senate, and confirmed by the Chancellor, on any 
 person on the ground of his eminent position and attainments. 
 
24:6 University of iomiay. 
 
 Sucli a degree, if it is to possess any value, will necessarily be 
 bestowed only on rare occasions. Accordingly we find that 
 during the period of nearly seven years that the Act has 
 been in force, this is the second occasion only on which this 
 University has thought it fit to exercise its powers under the 
 Act. It is just six years ago to-day — it was on the 18th Decem- 
 ber 1884 — that an eminent statesman, the Marquis of Ripon, on 
 retiring from the Viceroyalty of India, became associated with 
 us, as a member of the University, by admission to a degree 
 under the Act. To-day it is on one who is already 
 Services o€ g, member of this University, who indeed for more 
 ^^ro^ssor ons- ^.j^g^^ ^ quarter of a century has done work of 
 a very high order for this University, and for 
 tlie most important of the Government colleges affiliated to 
 it, and who this day holds office as our Vice-Ohancellor, that 
 we seek to confer this honor. We seek it for one who, though 
 he has never sought publicity or personal advancement, has 
 yet, by force of character and great merit, attained to that 
 eminence which the Act recognizes as a proper ground for the 
 bestowal of an honorary degree. The name of William Words- 
 worth is so familiar in Our ears, and is so honoured and 
 esteemed in this Presidency, that any elaborate attempt to justify 
 to ourselves within these walls, or to the public outside, the 
 step we are now taking, would indeed be an idle and super- 
 fluous proceeding. Still, it is only right that, on this occasion, 
 we should take notice of the fact that the recommendation of 
 the Syndicate on behalf of Mr. Wordsworth was adopted, by 
 acclamation at a very full meeting of the Senate, and that 
 the Senate which, with such unanimity and such enthusiH.sm, 
 desires to honour him is a body composed, not of men of ^ one 
 class or of one way of thinking, but of representatives of miany 
 races, creeds, and callings — of men separated from each other 
 by the daily occupations of their lives, by the associations amtidst 
 which they have grown up, and by their most cherished trtadi- 
 tions and sentiments, who yet, as members of this University!, are 
 united by a common bond, by their single-minded interest in^ the 
 advancement of learning. It is a society representing m\any 
 classes, therefore, and not a mere clique or section of our va-Hed 
 community that now asks your Excellency to confirm and raUify 
 its vote. And then, again, I think it will be as well if we try to 
 realize to ourselves, for a moment, some of the grounds of the 
 very general approval with which our action to-day is certai 
 regarded. We shall do well to remember that, during 
 period that Mr. Wordsworth has been connected with the E; 
 cational Department of the Bombay Government, a very gi. 
 
1890.— 3fr. Justice Birdwood. H7 
 
 change has come over the public service — a change with which 
 his own position in the department has distinctly associated him. 
 The ranks of the service are now filled largely by men who have 
 received a liberal education in the Government colleges and in 
 private colleges. Its whole tone has thus been raised. It is 
 not yet a perfect service. But speaking for that branch of it in 
 which I am myself especially interested, I am proud to bear 
 testimony to the wonderful improvement which has taken place 
 in the judicial administration of this Presidency during the last 
 twenty years. That improvement is, no doubt, partly and 
 greatly due to the wise forethought which led the Government, 
 at the commencement of the era of reform, to raise the scale of 
 salaries of judicial officers ; but it is, in my opinion, largely due 
 also to the wholesome influences brought to bear on many can- 
 didates for the public service, during the most impressionable 
 years of their lives, when they were prosecuting their studies at 
 school and college. We have now scattered throughout the 
 Presidency, in large towns and remote villages, men who owe 
 their position in the public service to the excellent training they 
 received at school and college. A large proportion of these men 
 were educated at the Deccan and Elphinstone Colleges, with 
 both of which institutions Mr. Wordsworth has been connected 
 during the greater part of his Indian career. These men know 
 well what they owe to him ; they know the value of the tuition 
 which it was a part of his official duty to impart. They know 
 and appreciate still more the kind sympathy and zeal for 
 their welfare which led him to give up much of his leisure 
 time for their benefit — precious hours, when they sought and 
 received from him friendly counsel and guidance. Most of all 
 have they profited by the example ever set before them of 
 plain living and high thinking. It is not to be wondered at if 
 these students, now that they have grown to men's estate and 
 occupy positions of trust and influence in all parts of the country, 
 should carry with them, and communicate to others, the feelings 
 of admiration for their teacher and friend by which they are 
 animated. But there are others beyond the circle of Mr. 
 Wordsworth's friends, members of our society at large, who, 
 though they have never been brought under his immediate per- 
 sonal influence, still know him as a man of genius and a man of 
 letters, a thoughtful and philosophic writer, not merely of frag- 
 ments of matchless verse, but of weighty comments also on great 
 events which have stirred the hearts of men in the history of 
 V^f'he past 25 years. Though they have not always agreed with 
 i^SMim in his views, they have always appreciated his expression 
 \i^M: them. And so it is that, though Mr. Wordsworth has always 
 
248 University of Bombay, 
 
 worked so unobtrusively, though the only life which has had 
 any charm for him has been the quiet life, yet he has now, by 
 common consent, attained to that position of emineiice which 
 clearly marks him as worthy of the honor which we, as a 
 University, are empowered by the Legislature to confer. It 
 is now my duty, Mr. Chancellor, on behalf of the Senate, to 
 present Mr. William Wordsworth to your Excellency, and to 
 ask you, in the presence of this assembly, to meet our wishes by 
 conferring on him the degree of Doctor in the Faculty of Law, 
 on account of his great and distinguished merit. 
 
 His Excellency Lord Harris said: — • 
 
 Mr. Yice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — It is a 
 coincidence that on this day of the month six years ago, on the 
 18th December 1884, the first and the latest special Convocation 
 for conferring the honorary degree of LL.D. was held, and 
 on that occasion my hon'ble and distinguished colleague, and 
 for three separate periods your Vice-Chancel lor. Sir Ra.ymoud 
 West, in the course of a most eloquent and graceful tribute 
 to the character and carieer of the Marquis of Ripon, remarked 
 that the Syndicate of this University is bound to establish 
 well in the light of day, and in the face of the public, the 
 right of every recipient to such a distinction — that the recipi- 
 ent ought to stand forth as a representative either of learning 
 which will give illustration to this institution, or else as one 
 distinguished for eminent public services which make us proud 
 of him who receiving our humble honour thus associates himself 
 with us. How jealous this University has been of the honour 
 which lies in its power to confer, how distinguished it has 
 made that honour by its trustful guard of it, requires no de- 
 scriptions from me ; the mere fact that six years have elapsed 
 since the first and the latest honorary degree was conferred is 
 in it-self sufficiently significant. It must be a gratification to 
 you, Mr. Vice- Chancellor, that in selecting you for this degree 
 there was in the end complete unanimity not only amongst 
 those who have the power to confer this degree, but also as 
 regards the fitness of the selection in the public voice, which by 
 its numerous expressions of regard and esteem for yourself and 
 gratitude for the services you have rendered to India has per- 
 haps brought a contentment and pleasure to your breast, which 
 no honorary distinction could arouse. I have used the expression 
 *' that in the end there was complete unanimity '' advisedly ; 
 for at first there was one voice that did not readily join the 
 swelling chorus; and those who know you best will readily 
 understand, Dr. Wordsworth, that the consent which was neces- 
 
1890.— Lord Harris. 249 
 
 sary, but for a time wanting, was your own in your official capa- 
 city. I, as Chancellor, liave gocfd reason to be grateful that in 
 the end the retiring modesty, which lias won you the love 
 of all who have known you, was eventually overborne by a 
 unanimity of feeling from both outside and inside this University 
 which you could not resist, for nothing short of an amending 
 Act could have met the resistance of a yice-Chancellor to an 
 honorary degree being conferred on himself. Dr. Wordsworth, 
 your career here and a period which I think is strikingly marked 
 by a notable advance in education in Western India, are so 
 nearly synchronous that it is difficult to look back on the one 
 without finding the other included in the same field. This Uni- 
 versity, although incorporated four years before you arrived in 
 Bombay, did not receive its full liberty until 1860, and as a 
 matter of fact, its first Fellows were not appointed until after 
 you had taken post as Head-master of the High School, and I 
 believe that you, as Principal of the Deccan College, were 
 ex-officio one of them. This occasion is not unsuitable for a rapid 
 
 retrospect of the changes you have seen; and 
 tc^v^t^ ^* fi^s^ ^^ regards institutions. In 1862 there were 
 
 two Grovernment Arts Colleges, one Aided Arts 
 College (now Wilson College), one Government Law School, 
 and one Medical College ; total five. There are now nine Arts 
 Colleges, besides the College of Science, two Law Schools, and 
 the Medical College ; total thirteen. In 1862-63, twelve High 
 Schools sent up for Matriculation 147 candidates, of whom 
 56 passed. In 1888-89, 89 High Schools sent up for Matricula- 
 tion 1,559 candidates, of whom 620 passed. You have seen 
 the after-life of the youths who come up year by year ; you see 
 now your pupils occupying posts of eminence in the High Court, 
 as Ministers in several native states, and as Professors in the 
 Educational Department, but for whom indeed the expansion of 
 aided enterprise would have been scarcely possible ; they are to 
 be found in every grade of judicial offices and they almost 
 monopolise the executive appointments subordinate to the Deputy 
 Collector's grade I or if I were to take another test that of fees 
 which is indicativo> but:being complicated does not form a con- 
 clusive basis for argument, you have seen the total fee receipts 
 advanced from Rs. 1,06,000 in 1865 to Rs. 12,16,000 in 1888-89, 
 or, taking numbers of scholars, there were in public colleges and 
 schools in 1865, 60,000. There are now 524,000. You have 
 seen the institution and the increase of independent colleges, 
 you recognized their value, but you did not tear their rivalry 
 with Government institutions, and that your confidence was 
 justified is proved by the Elphinstone College attracting twice 
 32 
 
250 University of Bombay, 
 
 as many students for tlie University M.A., as all the other 
 colleges of the Presidency. Y©u have seen the Deccan College 
 blossom into the important institution it now is, and take over 
 the handsome and spacious building it now occupies and you 
 have seen the old building of the Elphinstone College taken over 
 by a school of industry, and the college itself take up quarters, 
 thanks to generous benefactors, nearer to the University. You 
 have seen the demand for education diverted into other channels 
 than the art course, through the media of the College of Science, 
 the School of Art, the Victoria Jubilee Institute, and Industrial 
 Schools ; and above all you have seen this University recogniz- 
 ing its position of trust, taking the lead in directing education 
 and advancing from time to time its standards to meet the pro- 
 gressive demands of the public service. Dr. Wordsworth, it is 
 my misfortune not my fault, that our acquaintance, our friend- 
 ship if I may so term it, dates from so recent a period that I am 
 unable of my own knowledge to recapitulate the services you 
 have rendered to the cause of Education in India; but. Sir, could 
 I have done so, that portraiture would have been but the photo- 
 graph of outlines, telling nothing of the traits of character, of 
 the facility and luxuriance of exposition, of the force of example, 
 of the kindliness of disposition, of '^ That best portion of a good 
 man's life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness 
 and of love,'' which, if undetailed in a record of services, never- 
 theless meet with ready recognition amongst your friends at a 
 
 moment like this. Dr. Wordsworth, the reward 
 f "^^ ^her^*^^ ^^ ^^ instructor of youth lies far less in public 
 
 honors, and the recognition of ability and virtue 
 than in the characters and careers of those whom he has instruct- 
 ed, and if the honor which this University has conferred on 
 you had been withheld, if expressions of public and private 
 regard had been grudged you, you could have still retired 
 after an honourable career, knowing that you had deserved 
 well of the State in training for it men who by the honourable 
 positions they are attaining to are bringing honour to you, their 
 preceptor, and who by the uprightness of their conduct, bear 
 generous witness to the bright example you have set them. Dr. 
 Wordsworth, we may hope that as we can look back with grati- 
 tude to your all but thirty years of life here, so you can look 
 back with conscious satisfaction that they have been well spent, 
 and a feeling that they have been happy ones. I should suppose 
 that there must have been moments of disappointment at being 
 misunderstood. You have distinguished yourself amongst your 
 fellows and there is no man who has reached high eminence but 
 must have now and again found himself opposed in feeling 
 
1890.— iord Harris, 25 
 
 either to the smootli but steady current of official authority, o 
 to the agitated wave of public caprice. No man of character am 
 position, but must have had to face such moments. But if yoi 
 have to look back on such you can now permit them to be effaces 
 by the assurance that it is recognized on all sides that you havi 
 pursued an upright and undeviating course from that which yoi 
 thought right, and that having the power to train the minds, t< 
 bend the inclination of your pupils which way you willed^ it i; 
 now, when the effect of your training is made ap))arent, acknow 
 ledged that your tuition has been fruitful in raising up loya 
 citizens for the service of the State. But, Sir, if authority hai 
 good reason to be grateful to you, not less so must those be who 
 coming to you to be shown how to live and how to learn, hav< 
 found a master living a moral and a virtuous life, a studem 
 loving his books :— • 
 
 " And books we know 
 " Are a substantial world, both pnre and good 
 " Ronnd these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood 
 ** Our pastime and our happiness will grow." 
 
 Loving his books, not to strain and distort their meaning for pur- 
 poses of argument, but for the power they give him of making mort 
 interesting, more fruitful of illustration, more easy of recollec- 
 tion, the tuition which was his profession, not only the master 
 not only the student, but above all a friend. Sir, I venture tc 
 say that the unanimity which the public has indicated in approv- 
 ing of the conferment of this degree on you to-day has been 
 won by the large-hearted and open sympathy, not given to the 
 insular reserve of all your countrymen to display, but which you 
 have bestowed in overflowing measure on the resident national- 
 ities of this country. Dr. Wordsworth, if amongst those whc 
 have effected the reforms I have outlined, you of your modesty 
 would not say ' quorum pars magna fui,' nevertheless youi 
 friends must feel that ia the Councils that have initiated them 
 yours was indeed a weighty opinion ; and gauging them fairly; 
 and bearing in mind the influence you have had in Council, in 
 literary education, and in training up public servants, I think 
 I am justified in saying that you are a worthy recipient of the 
 honours of this degree, not only as a representative of learn- 
 ing, but also as one who has given eminent public services tc 
 the State. Dr. Wordsworth, you are about to leave us, we trusi 
 for your good and your greater comfort, but we hope that the 
 separation is not to be complete, and that now and again whis- 
 pers may reach us over the resounding sea, expressions of the 
 thoughts aroused by the contemplation of the mountains anc 
 lakes of that northern country so inseparably connected with th( 
 
252 tfniversity of iomhay. 
 
 name you bear, or the classic scenes which an " Excursion in 
 Italy *' may disclose to you. Be that how it may^ there is memory 
 still, and that must bind you in thought to the land that has 
 seen your life's service. Be certain that Bombay will not cease 
 to remember you, to be grateful to you, and that she assures 
 you as her last farewell that to the last day of your life there 
 may remain to you 
 
 "A consciousness that you have left 
 Deposited upon the silent sliore 
 Of memory, images and precious thoughts 
 That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.*' 
 
 THIRTIETH CONVOCATION. 
 
 {By The Hon. Mr. Justice Biruwood, C.S., M.A., LL.D.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — We have now brought to a close 
 the practical part of the business of the thirtieth Annual Convo- 
 cation of this University by conferring 178 degrees on the 
 candidates who have satisfied the examiners in the prescribed 
 subjects of examination in the several Faculties. And it will 
 
 perhaps help us to form as rough estimate of the 
 
 way in which the business of this University has 
 increased if we compare the results of this evening with those 
 of some former Convocations. In the first Convocation, which 
 was held in 1862, only 8 degrees were conferred. Eight years 
 afterwards, that is to say at the Convocation of 1870, the num- 
 ber rose to 33. In 1880 it was 98; and in 1890, 182; so 
 that in the current year, which shows a slight jidvance on the 
 figures of 1890, we are conferring nearly twice as many degrees 
 as we did eleven years ago. It is as well, I think, that we 
 should take note of these figures before we pass on, in ac- 
 cordance with the practice on these occasions, to review our 
 present position and to forecast the future so far as that may 
 be possible. The past year has been eminently one of change. 
 
 There have been notable changes in the staff of 
 
 Changesinthe office-bearers and important changes also have 
 
 beareiS. ° *'*' heen in process of development in connection with 
 
 the courses of study for the degrees in Arts and 
 Law. Some changes have been proposed also in the course 
 of study for the degree of Bachelor of Science and grave de- 
 fects have been brought to notice in regard to the Matricula- 
 tion Examination, which must be cured if that examination is 
 any longer to be conducted by the University. To some of 
 these matters I will, with your permission, refer, and I will do so 
 very briefly. Our Act of Incorporation shows very clearly the 
 
iS9i.— -The Sonorahle Mr. Justice Birdwood. 253 
 
 intention of the Government to identify itself very closely with 
 our interests. The Indian Universities are not indeed depart- 
 ments of Government. The Act never intended that they should 
 be so. In the discharge of their special functions under bye-laws 
 sanctioned by the Government they are practically independent. 
 They have, however, depended largely in the past on substantial 
 aid from Government in the form of annual subsidies. Without 
 such aid it would have been impossible for us to undertake the 
 duties contemplated in the Act. And it was necessary also^ at 
 the outset, that the members of the Senate should be nominees 
 of the Government. The yice-Chancellor is also appointed by 
 the Government ; but what is more, the highest office in the 
 University, that of Chancellor, must by law be held by the head 
 of the local Government. And so it is that whenever the 
 Governor's tenure of office expires^ we have the misfortune also to 
 lose our Chancellor at the same time. It was thus that during 
 the past year Lord Reay ceased to be our Chancellor. In him 
 we lost a Chancellor who had already, before he came to India, 
 acquired a wide reputation as an educationist. You will all 
 remember the eloquent tribute paid a year ago by our Yice-Chan- 
 cellor, Dr. Mackichan, in this place, to his zealous efforts in 
 the cause of education in this Presidency during his five years' 
 tenure of office. Lord Reay has been succeeded by Lord Harris. 
 And I know that you all share in my regret at His Excel- 
 lency's absence from our midst this evening. With the recol- 
 lection fresh in our minds of the appreciative and sym- 
 pathetic address delivered by Lord Harris to the Senate a few 
 weeks ago, it is impossible for us not to be sensible of our 
 loss. But we may be sure of this, — that it is not from any lack 
 of interest in the University or the important functions it 
 discharges that Lord Harris is not present this evening. He 
 values every opportunity which presents itself of meeting the 
 Senate. His absence is due only, if I may be allowed to explain 
 it, to a kind and generous desire that the privilege of presiding 
 on this occasion should be enjoyed by the newly appointed 
 Vice-Chancellor. Again, under the operation of the provision 
 of law which makes the office of Yice-Chancellor a biennial 
 one, we were deprived during the past year of the services of 
 Dr. Mackichan, who brought to the discharge of his duties a 
 thorough knowledge of the practical working of our educational 
 system, great capacity for business and burning zeal for the 
 honour of the University. It must be the earnest desire of us 
 all that his retirement from office may be for a time only. He 
 was succeeded by the eminent Principal of Elphinstone College, 
 in whose honour we were so lately assembled within these walls 
 
^54 Vniversiiy of Bombay > 
 
 to testify to our sense of his great merit, and to pay to him 
 a parting tribute of respect. Of Dr. Wordsworth we may truly 
 say that, though he was so many years in our midst, yet, at the 
 Jast, he left before his time. We can never be unmindful of his 
 influence and example. Other changes there have been, too, 
 among the Deans of Faculties and members of the Syndicate ; 
 but perhaps it is not necessary that I should refer to these in 
 detail. We have lost, too, some members of our Senate who 
 were not office-bearers ; some have left India for their own 
 native laud, among whom are Dr. Burgess, Mr. Scorgie, and 
 Majop-General White; and some have been taken from us by 
 the hand of death. Among these we have to mourn the 
 loss of the late Sir Mungaldas Nathoobhoy, who was one of 
 the oldest of our benefactors ; of the late Presidency Magistrate, 
 Mr. P. Ryan ; and of Mr. Makund Ramchandra, under whose 
 superintendence so many of the public buildings in Bombay 
 were erected, including, I believe, the University Hall and 
 Library. We have lost also the late Mr. Mancherji Banaji, 
 and within the last few days Mr. Steel, Principal of the 
 Veterinary College and Hospital, whom we shall always remember 
 as one possessing in a remarkable degree the gift of presenting 
 in most attractive form the results of his researches in that 
 branch of the science to which he had devoted his life. He 
 prosecuted those researches laboriously and conscientiously, and 
 his early death will be deplored by men of science and by all lovers 
 of dumb animals in this Presidency. No less than fifteen vacan- 
 cies have been caused in the Senate by casualties, — that is, by 
 the retirement and death of members, — during the past year. 
 The Government Gazette which has just been published, shows 
 that the Senate has this year been strengthened by the appoint- 
 ment of twenty-one new Fellows. That Gazette is a remarkable 
 one and must always be so regarded on account 
 A Lady Mem- of the new departure which it inaugurates. For 
 ate.^ ^ ^^ t^i6 fi^s^ time in the history of this or any other 
 University, so far as I am aware, a lady has been 
 appointed to be a member of the Senate. We know that, for 
 more than six centuries, ladies have held office, from time to 
 time, as professors of law or medicine or philosophy or mathe- 
 matics in the ancient University of Bologna, and when we have 
 professors of our own, I trust we may be worthy to follow that 
 example. But never, so far as I know, have ladies been admit- 
 ted to share in the responsibility of the administration of a great 
 University. The Senate will certainly recognize the appoint- 
 ment of Mrs. Pechey Phipson as in every way a right and proper 
 one, and will, with all cordiality, hold out the right hand of 
 
1891. — The Honorable Mr. Justice Birdwood, 255 
 
 fellowship to one who, in the days when a degree was denied her 
 by her own University on the ground that she was a woman, 
 bravely fought the woman's cause, which is the man's cause 
 also, in the face of much opposition and obloquy. By her whole 
 subsequent career she has vindicated the right of women to 
 minister to women in sickness and proved that the possession and 
 exercise of the gifts of healing are not the prerogative of one 
 sex only. 
 
 I will now refer to the changes in progress in the conrses 
 of study pursued by our students in Arts and Law. 
 Curriculum. *^^ "^^^^ these courses have, as you are aware, been 
 the subject of very anxious enquiry by Committees 
 in their report a little more than two years ago, Their report 
 was considered in t]|e Faculty of Arts and by the Syndicate, 
 and, with certain modifications, was adopted by the Senate 
 in April 1890. The principal feature of the scheme is the 
 extension of the B.A. Course of study from three years to four 
 years, the object being to afford opportunities for a somewhat 
 wider culture than is enforced at present, which will give, 
 in the words of the Committee, more time for digesting and 
 assimilating the positive knowledge acquired at college, and 
 keep our undergraduates twelve months longer under the influ- 
 ence of academical associations and surroundings. Though the 
 University does not itself enter upon the practical work of edu- 
 cation — thougb it has no professors or teachers, yet, by pre- 
 scribing the subjects for examination for degrees, it necessarily 
 controls all liberal education in the Presidency. By thoroughly 
 recasting the scheme for the B.A. Examination, it has instituted 
 a radical change in the course of studies pursued in the Arts 
 Colleges by candidates for that degree. Hereafter, the B.A. 
 degree will be one certifying to its possessor's general culture 
 and not his special progress in special subjects. It will be 
 strictly an intermediate degree. It will be the common basis 
 for the special development of culture which are tested by the 
 M.A. Examination. I will not enter into the details of the new 
 scheme ; but only remind you that one of its principal features 
 is the removal of History and Political Economy from the list of 
 optional to that of compulsory subjects, and a slight reduction in 
 the amount of compulsory mathematics, and that the Committee 
 which proposed these changes saw ground to hope that the adop- 
 tion of the new scheme would have the result of teaching our 
 students to think with clearness and accuracy, to appreciate 
 evidence, to apply general principles to practical affairs ; a hope 
 of which we must all cordially desire the realization. Well, 
 
256 University of Bombay, 
 
 though, the general scheme was adopted so long ago as in April 
 1890, still some details had to be worked out before it could be 
 brought into operation. These were referred again to a Com- 
 mittee, which has during the past year settled the details so far as 
 the Previous Examination is concerned. The detailed scheme 
 for the Previous Examination has been approved by the Govern- 
 ment and is now in force ; so that the first Previous Examination 
 according to the new scheme will be held in the current year, 
 and the students preparing for it will have the full advantage of 
 the new four years' course of study — a result on which the Univer- 
 $ity and the affiliated colleges and all interested in the progress 
 of the country may rightly be congratulated. 
 
 The new scheme for the Law Course was also devised in 
 1888 by a most competent CJ|>mmittee appointed 
 CouMef ^^ ^y *^® Faculty of Law, and was finally adopted 
 by the Senate in 1889. It came into practical 
 operation from November last. Its main feature is that it 
 insists on a properly graduated course of study extending over 
 three years, two of which are to be undergone after the law 
 student has taken the intermediate degree or B.A. or B.Sc. 
 His progress is to be tested by two examinations, and provision 
 is also made for an examination in Honours. Closely connect- 
 ed with the reform of the Law Course is the reform of 
 the Law School. Indeed, the Committee which proposed the 
 new scheme for the Law Course made proposals also for put- 
 ting the Government Law School on a proper footing. Effect 
 has not yet been given to these proposals, and we are not inform- 
 ed as to the cause of the delay. As the Government receives 
 fees from the scholars who attend the lectures of the law pro- 
 fessors, and as the maintenance of the professorships cannot, 
 therefore, impose any serious burden on the taxpayer, a cir- 
 cumstance which was made very clear in the Committee's 
 report, it is greatly to be desired that this question may be dealt 
 with soon by the Government. A satisfactory solution of the 
 question might perhaps be arrived at by the transfer of the 
 management of the school to the University. The matter is one 
 which affects not merely the education of our law students, but 
 the interest of the people of the whole Presidency. It is from 
 the ranks of our successful law students that the ranks of our 
 Judicial Service are largely recruited. I had occasion lately, in 
 this place, when speaking of the influence exercised by Dr. 
 Wordsworth on pupils who afterwards rose to positions of trust 
 and influence in remote towns and districts, to bear testimony 
 to the wonderful improvement which was noticeable in the whole 
 
1891.— T/ie Honorable Mr. Justice Birdwood, 257 
 
 tone of the Judicial administration during the past twenty years. 
 We are still, however, far from perfection; and we must now 
 rely to a great extent on the improved legal training of candi- 
 dates for the Judicial service for a part of the improvement 
 which is desired. 
 
 Besides the changes in progress in connection with the 
 Matriculation administration of this University, there are other 
 a gigantic fail- changes also in prospect which concern us deeply. 
 ^^- We are all deeply interested in the Matriculation 
 
 Examination, which looms so largely in the view of every school- 
 boy, whether he intends to enter a college and to read for 
 a degree, or whether he wishes only to qualify for employment 
 in the Government service. Well there can be no question 
 that this examination which every year assumes larger propor- 
 tions, and every year presents increasing difficulties for those 
 of us who have to carry it out is, in the judgment of many 
 who are well able to form a sound opinion on the point, a gigan- 
 tic failure. Schoolboys who have passed the Matriculation in 
 order to enter a college not infrequently find themselves unable 
 to understand the lectures which they attend. The Matricula- 
 tion Examination, in short, furnishes a very insufficient test 
 of a knowledge of English, and again the examination hall is 
 crowded with many candidates who come up for examination 
 long before they are properly prepared, and who thus add to the 
 perplexities of examiners. These results are, of course, most 
 unsatisfactory. The examination, as at present conducted, ful- 
 fils most imperfectly the one function for which it exists. I am 
 not expressing my own opinion merely, but that of experienced 
 professors and principals of colleges, who are much better able to 
 advise the Senate in such a matter than I can ever hope to do. 
 And it has been seriously proposed by men of the highest author- 
 ity that we should abolish the Matriculation Examination as an 
 institution of this University, and leave it to the Colleges them- 
 selves, as is done in Oxford and Cambridge, to hold their own 
 Matriculations. I will not now attempt to enter upon a discus- 
 sion of the merits of the controversy which has thus been raised. 
 I refer to the question only as one which concerns us all, and I 
 ought to inform you that, as weighty representations have been 
 addressed to the Syndicate on the subject, the whole question 
 was referred only last week to a Committee. 
 
 I should now like to refer to a matter of still greater impor- 
 
 The reconsti- ^ance, if possible, and that is the Bill for the 
 
 tution of the reconstitution of the University, which occupied so 
 
 University. ^^^^ ^f ^^^ attention in the reigns of 1888. That 
 
 33 
 
258 * University of Bombay- 
 
 Bill, as we all know, was tlie outcome of discussions suggested 
 by a former Yice- Chancellor, who, since the day when he first 
 became associated with us, has never ceased to take the keenest 
 interest in the growth and expansion of this University. The 
 University can never forget what it owes to Sir Raymond West ; 
 but it will, I think, always reckon amoug his chief gifts the 
 measure of self-government which it is the object of the Bill 
 to secure. The Bill, as it was finally agreed to by the Senate 
 and sent to the Government, was not such a Bill as to command 
 his entire assent. But such as it was, it has come back to us with 
 the candid criticisms of the Bombay Government and the 
 Government of India, and we are now asked by the Govern- 
 ment of India to reconsider its terms in consultation with the 
 Bombay Government. The Committee appointed by the Senate 
 is prepared to suggest a few modifications, which, it is hoped, 
 will be assented to by both the Government and the Senate. 
 If that desirable end is attained, we may hope that the Bill 
 will become law before the end of the year. 
 
 In conclusion, gentlemen, I would wish to say a very few 
 words about our benefactions. Those which have 
 Benefactions, -j^gg^ accepted during the past year amount to 
 Rs. 26,895 j those which have been offered for our acceptance 
 and are still under consideration amount to Rs. 23,500 ; and 
 I have this day had the pleasure to receive a letter from Mr. 
 M. M. Bhownuggree in which he communicates the offer by 
 Mr. Lallubhai Samaldas of Rs. 5,000 for the benefit of female 
 medical students. Our benefactions mostly take the form of 
 scholarships endowed in the names of individuals. I would, 
 however, myself wish to see the stream of benevolence diverted 
 into fresh channels. There are objects besides 
 ^ The wanta^ of the provision of scholarships for deserving students 
 the XJmvewi y. ^jj^gj^ q^^q worthy the attention of philanthropists. 
 We want, for instance, fellowships on the English principle, like 
 the Manguldas Nathoobhoy Fellowship, to enable students to pro- 
 secute their studies after they have taken their degrees. Again 
 we want money to make our library a good working library, 
 where every member of the University may find the book he 
 seekSj and receive that aid from books which the present library 
 does not afford. Again, we want professorships; but, most 
 of all, we want a University chest for the general purposes 
 of the University, we want to be lifted out of a position of 
 financial dependence and to become a self-supporting institution. 
 At this very moment we have no funds of our own to pay for 
 the lighting of the clock in our beautiful Rajaba Tower, we 
 
1892. — The Tlonorahle Mr. Justice Birdwood, 259 
 
 have no proper railings to protect our garden, and we depend 
 on the Government entirely for the maintenance of the garden. 
 The end in view can be attained partly by fresh benefactions 
 devoted to such special purposes, and partly perhaps by a revision 
 of fees for examinations. However unpopular any project for 
 raising fees may be, it must be faced, if we are to compete with 
 the Universities of Calcutta and Madras, which are both self-sup- 
 porting institutions. In this western capital we cannot afford to 
 lag behind in such a race. 
 
 THIRTY-FIRST CONVOCATION. 
 
 (Bt The Hon. Mr. Justice Birdwood, M.A., LL.D., C.S.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate, — You will all share in my regret 
 that it has not been possible for His Excellency the Governor to 
 preside, in his capacity as Chancellor of the University, at this 
 Convocation for conferring degrees. We all know that it would 
 have given Lord Harris sincere satisfaction to perform the duty. 
 At the same time we can readily understand that there have 
 been difficulties in the way, at a period of grave public anxiety, 
 when it has been necessary, as it has been within the last few 
 weeks, for Lord Harris to visit in person the districts in the 
 southern part of this Presidency which are threatened with famine 
 and when, since his return to the Presidency town, the demands 
 on his tims, in connection with the varied duties of his high 
 office, have been urgent and perpetual — so as to leave him no 
 opportunity for such leisurely consideration of the affairs of the 
 University as he would desire before meeting the Senate on such 
 an occasion. Gentlemen, when I had the honour of addressing f 
 you, in Convocation, a year ago, I drew your attention to certain 
 figures which enabled us to form a rough estimate of the way , 
 in which the business of the University had increased since ' 
 the year 1862, when the first Convocation for conferring v 
 degrees was held. With your permission, I will revert to the 
 
 subject again this evening, as it is one that we 
 amhStions'!^"'" ^hall do well to bear in mind: for there can be 
 
 no question that, if our annual reports show a 
 steady increase from year to year in the number of candidates 
 who present themselves at the sevefal examinations, and an 
 increase also in the number who pass those examinations, then 
 such a fact is not only satisfactory evidence of the growing use- 
 fulness of the University, but a good indication also of the spread 
 of the higher education in the Presidency. The figures that 
 I will now lay before you are those showing the number of 
 
260 University of Bombay. 
 
 candidates for Matriculation and the number of successful 
 candidates, and also the number of degrees conferred at the 
 commencement of each of the three decades which we have 
 passed through since 1862, and also the corresponding figures 
 for the current year 1891-92, which is the first year of a new 
 decade. Now in 1862, there were 86 candidates for Matriculation, 
 of whom 39, or 45 per cent, of the total number of candidates, 
 passed the examination. In 1872, the corresponding figures 
 were 840 and 227, the percentage of passed candidates thus being 
 27. Ten years later the figures rose to 1,374 and 388, the per- 
 centage of passed candidates being 28 ; and in the current year 
 there have been 3,030 candidates, of whom 916, or 30 per cent., 
 have satisfied the examiners. We see then that the number of 
 students who have annually qualified themselves for admission 
 to colleges affiliated to the University has risen from 39 in 1 862 
 to 916 in 1891-92. That is to say, in 31 years, the number has 
 increased more than 23 times ; while in the current year, for 
 every candidate for Matriculation who has satisfied the examiners, 
 there are at least two others who have prepared themselves for 
 the examination and have therefore received such advantage as is 
 implied by such preparation in the upper forms of a high school. 
 It is more important, however, to consider how far the students of 
 our affiliated colleges have been able to satisfy the several tests 
 prescribed by the University for degrees. We find then that, 
 whereas, in 1862, t the University conferred only 8 degrees, 
 the number has trebled in 10 years ; for in 1872, it rose to 24. 
 In the next 10 years it has more than trebled, for, in 1882, it 
 rose to 76. In the past ten years, the rate of increase has not 
 been so high, but the actual advance is very great, for the 
 number of candidates who have actually qualified themselves 
 for admission to degrees to-day, the greater part of whom 
 have probably just presented themselves for admission, is 208. 
 This number includes one candidate who qualified for the 
 B.A. degree some years ago and wishes to be admitted to it 
 to-day in absentia. It shows an advance of 1 32 on the corre- 
 sponding number for 1882 and an advance of 19 on the results 
 of 1891, when 184 candidates qualified themselves for degrees, 
 of whom 178 were admitted. Of the candidates who have 
 qualified themselves for admission to degrees to-day, 130 are 
 Bachelors of Arts, 6 are Masters of Arts, and one is a Bachelor 
 of Science, 34 are Bachelors of Laws, 22 are Licentiates of 
 Medicine and Surgery, one is a Doctor of Medicine, and 2 are 
 Licentiates of Engineering. To sum up, 137 candidates have 
 qualified themselves for degrees in Arts, 34 in Law,'" 23 in 
 Medicine, and one in Engineering. These figures show that 
 
1892.— T/ie Hofiorahle Mr, Justice iirdwood. 26l 
 
 the afiiliated colleges and institutions are annually sending out 
 into the world, in increasing numbers, a body of men who have 
 been making full use of the opportunities they have had for 
 preparing themselves for the public service and the liberal 
 professions. Such a process cannot be without its effect on 
 the community at large. It means, or it ought to mean, a 
 steady and progressive improvement in the conduct of all kinds 
 of public and private business for which educated men are 
 wanted. I say it ought to mean this, because this University has 
 never been content that its degrees should imply only that the 
 holders of them have reached a certain standard of intollectual 
 fitness and nothing more. It is not in the power of this or any 
 other University to guarantee that its graduates, on whatever 
 careers they may enter, shall be good citizens from whom steady 
 and faithful work may be expected. But as far as it lies in us, we 
 have always endeavoured, while discharging the duties imposed 
 on us as a Board of Examiners, to perform also some of the 
 higher functions of a University by refusing our degrees to any 
 candidates, however intellectually qualified they may be, who 
 have not been subject, for regulated periods, to the wholesome 
 influences of college life. We have hoped that, in this way, by 
 coming into intimate association, in their daily walk, with men 
 of Jearning and of character, they would grow in knowledge 
 and in wisdom also. Considerations of this kind certainly 
 had weight with us when we lately extended the course of 
 study for the B.A. Degree from 3 years to 4 years. It was 
 thought to be a distinct advantage, to be set against any 
 additional expense that might fall on undergraduates or any 
 other possible inconvenience, that they should remain for the 
 lengthened period of 4 years under the influence of academical 
 associations and surroundings. So far as in us lies, therefore, 
 we endeavour to minimize any possible defects of our system, 
 and to fit our graduates as efficiently as may be for the work 
 that may be before them. Such being our resolute endeavour, 
 the " charge '^ which is addressed from this 
 The parting chair to every graduate on whom a degree is 
 University. conferred, that he should in his life and con- 
 
 versation show himself worthy of the same, is 
 no idle, meaningless formula. It is an earnest, anxious exhor- 
 tation, delivered under a sense of the solemnity of the occasion. 
 It is the parting word of the University to the youth who 
 has equipped himself for the battle of life under her guidance. 
 It tells him to be a "hero in the strife," and never, by idle 
 word or corrupt conduct, to bring dishonour on himself and 
 his country. If we wish to set forth the teaching of this 
 
262 University of Bomhay. 
 
 charge more fully, we might well borrow the language, used 
 1800 years ago by one of the greatest teachers of mankind, 
 and say to our graduates : — ''Whatsoever things are true, 
 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- 
 soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good report, if there be any virtue or any praise 
 think of those things." The graduate who bravely and in all 
 ImmiKty responds to such an exhortation is not likely in his life 
 and conversation to show himself unworthy of his degree. 
 
 Taking this view then of the importance of 
 Curricuiuiru ^^^° ^^^ degrees, we may congratulate ourselves that 
 
 in the past year we were able to give final 
 effect to our deliberations regarding the course of study for 
 the B,A.. Degree by adopting formal regulations for the inter- 
 mediate Examination and the Final Examination for that 
 degree. These regulations have now received the sanction of 
 Government ; and it remains for us now to watch and super- 
 vise the working of them. I, for my part, have no doubt that 
 our action in this matter will be shown by the results to have 
 been wise. We may hope for a similar justification also of our 
 new scheme for the Law Course, which is now in full opera- 
 tion. . As soon as we became conscious of the defects in the 
 system which has been superseded, we took measures for cor- 
 recting them. We determined to give the LL.B. Degree, which 
 is a qualification for admission to the Judicial service, only to 
 students who had undergone a properly graduated course of 
 study, extending over 3 years, two of which are to be undergone 
 after they have taken the Degree of B.A. or B,Sc. By such 
 improved legal training, carried out under the supervision of 
 capable teachers, we may reasonably hope that our graduates in 
 Law will be, not good lawyers only, but educated gentlemen as 
 well. During the past year, we have altered the Regulations 
 for the diploma in Agriculture so far as they relate to the 
 examination in Veterinary Science. Perhaps it is sufficient to 
 remark with reference to this alteration, which has not yet been 
 sanctioned by the Grovernment, that it was considered necessary 
 by a Committee of experts, and was recommended by so high an 
 authority as the late Mr, Steel, Principal of the Veterinary 
 College and Hospital. Though we may find solid ground of 
 satisfaction in respect of such measures as I have now adverted 
 to, we must not in our retrospect overlook such events as have 
 •brought us disappointment in the past year. There are at least 
 Revised scheme ^^^ ^^^^ evenifi. Perhaps the failure of the Syn- 
 for the Matricu. dicate to indooe the Senate to adopt a revised 
 ^^^^' scheme for tha Matriculation Examination may 
 
1892.— TAe EonorahleMr, Juitice Birdwood. 263 
 
 have caused little distress to the Senate ; but it was certainly 
 a disappointment to the Syndicate, for the scheme was the result 
 of the deliberations of a very strong Committee of Education- 
 ists whose proposals it was impossible for the Syndicate to dis- 
 regard. The Committee contained 4 representatives of the 
 Syndicate : — Mr. Justice Telang, the Rev. F. Drecknian, Brigade- 
 Surgeon Wellington Gray, and Mr. Starling. Two of these 
 gentlemen represented also the colleges, which were further 
 represented by the Rev. Dr. Mackichan and Mr. Oxenham. 
 The High Schools were represented by Mr. Modak and Mr, D. 
 N. Wadia. Now I am not going to refer at all to the merits 
 of the scheme proposed by the Committee. This is not the 
 right time for me to do so. The whole question excited unusual 
 interest^ and was very vigorously discussed both in the Senate 
 and in the public journals. The final discussion took place at 
 the meeting of the Senate, held in December last. That meeting 
 was, by a vote of the Senate, dissolved and the subject, therefore, 
 in the language of our Bye-laws, was "dropped^'; and we are 
 still watching over its prostrate form, in the full consciousness 
 that the existing scheme of the Matriculation Examination is 
 considered to be defective, not only by the Educationists whom I 
 have just named, but was pronounced by our late Vice-Chancellor, 
 Dr. Wordsworth, to be an examination which ^' fulfils, by general 
 consent, most imperfectly the one function for which it exists.'^ I 
 can only myself express the fervent hope that the question of re- 
 modelling it will again be brought before the University by the 
 heads of colleges, to whom it must be a matter of vital importance 
 that their undergraduates should come to them with such train- 
 ing as fits them to understand and to derive benefit from college 
 lectures. There can be no question that the decision of the 
 
 Grovernment of India, with reference to the Uni- 
 sitv^ill ^^^^' ▼^rsity Bill, has caused very general and profound 
 
 disappointment to the members of the Senate, 
 A year ago, we were very hopeful as to the effect of a unanimous 
 representation of our views in regard to the Bill ; and we have, 
 at all events, been so far fortunate that we have now secured 
 the substantial adherence of the Bombay Government to our 
 views. But the Government of India has unmistakeably told 
 us that it is not yet prepared to legislate in the sense desired by 
 us. It does not appear that any further representation we could 
 make would be of any avail, for all the reasons why we desire the 
 Bill are already before the Government of India. As those rea- 
 sons are strong and weighty, we must hope that in time they will 
 prevail; perhaps also, after a time, we may ourselves see our 
 way to moving again in this matter. But till then we can at least 
 
264 University of Bombay. 
 
 take advantage of tlie offer of tlie Government to give tlie pri- 
 vilege of electing two Fellows annually to a constituency 
 composed of Masters of Arts and tlie holders of equivalent 
 degrees. Sucli a privilege is enjoyed by tlie Calcutta University, 
 and though it falls grievously short of our wishes and hopes, it 
 is not quite without value. In the current year, it will euable 
 
 the new constituency which the Government will 
 lows!* constitute to supplement the recently Gazetted list 
 
 of Fellows, which is a shorter list than was Ga- 
 zetted either in 1889 or 1890, and a much shorter list, unhappily, 
 than that of casualties by death and retirement which we have 
 had to deplore during the past year. About 11 or 12 of our 
 European Fellows have left India, the greater part of them 
 probably with no intention of returning. Among these we 
 find the names of Brigade- Surgeon Lyon, Mr. Justice Scott, 
 and the Rev. R. A. Squires. The list of casualties by death 
 is larger still, and includes the honoured names of Mr, Shan- 
 taram Narayen, who died while holding office as Syndic in Law, 
 Rao Saheb Mahipatram Rupram, Mr. Raghunath Narayen Khote, 
 Mr. Serjeant Atkinson, Mr. J. Flynn, Sir Henry Morland, who 
 died while holding office as a member of the Board of Accounts, 
 Mr. Rehatsek, the Rev. Dr. Narayen Sheshadri, Dr. Temperley 
 Gray, Raja Sir Tan j ore Madhavrao, the Rev. F. X. Fibus, Rao 
 Bahadur Mahadev Wasudev Brave, and Mr. Ganesh Ramacban- 
 dra Birloskar, who became a member of the Senate only two 
 years ago. The mere recital of these names reminds us most 
 sorrowfully of the services rendered to the University in the past, 
 and in some cases up to within a few weeks ago, by friends who 
 have now passed away, to our abiding loss. Before I bring this 
 The finances ^ddress to a close I should like to refer, and I will 
 of the Univer- do SO Very briefly, to a matter which is becoming 
 ^^^y- daily of increasing importance. It is the subject of 
 
 the finances of the University. You are well aware that we have 
 never yet been able to carry on the work of the University with- 
 out the aid of a subsidy from the Government. The fees which 
 we take from candidates at the several examinations do not suffice 
 for the adequate remuneration of the examiners and our other 
 expenses. We are at present receiving from the Government an 
 annual grant of Rs. 15,000, for our general expenses, and a spe- 
 cial grant, in the Public Works Department, of Rs. 2,000, for the 
 maintenance of the Garden. Now I am sure that it is your earnest 
 desire that this Univerity should be a self-supporting institution, 
 just as the Universities at Calcutta and Madras are self-support- 
 ing. The most obvious way of securing that end is to revise the 
 scale of examination fees and to levy a small annual tax on mem- 
 
1892. — The Honorable Mr, Justice Birdwood. 265 
 
 bers of the Senate. Both these methods of increasing our income 
 have indeed been proposed by a special Committee appointed by 
 the Syndicate, during the past year. The Committee has presented 
 a report which deals thoroughly and in detail with the subject. 
 But the Syndicate has not yet made any recommendations to the 
 Senate, as the subject is one of those in respect of which pro- 
 posals may be expected from Mr. Phirozesha Mehta's Committee, 
 which was appointed some time ago for the purpose of dealing 
 with the present system of appointing examiners and conducting 
 examinations, and it was thought advisable by the Syndicate to 
 await the proposals of that Committee before submitting any 
 recommendations of its own. The question is one which must be 
 dealt with in the current year, for we have no assurance that the 
 Government grant will be continued to us much longer. We 
 ought, without much more delay, to devise ways and means for 
 placing the general fee fund of the University, established under 
 the Act of Incorporation, on a proper footing. The task before 
 us will be lightened if men of wealth, who wish to help the cause 
 of education in this Presidency, will only remember that at the 
 present moment an Endowment Fund, for meeting the general 
 expenses of the University, is likely to be more useful than 
 any addition to the endowment list of scholarships and prizes. 
 
 THIRD SPECIAL CONVOCATION. 
 
 On the evening of 24th March 1892, when the members of 
 the University assembled to show their appreciation of the long 
 and distinguished public services of the Hon. Sir Raymond 
 West, C.S., M.A,, LL.D.,*i'.R.A.a.s., K.C.I.E., by conferring on him the 
 Honorary Degree of Doctor in the Faculty of Law, 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Justice Birdwood said : — 
 
 My Lord Chancellor and Grentlemen of the Senate, — The 
 duty imposed upon me this evening is one which gives me much 
 satisfaction to discharge. We are met together to give effect to 
 the recommendation of the Syndicate, which has been supported 
 by the unanimous vote of the Senate, and confirmed by your 
 Excellency, that the Honorary Degree of Doctor in the Faculty 
 of Law be conferred by the University on Sir Raymond West — 
 on the ground that he is by reason of his eminent position and 
 attainments a fit and proper person to receive such a degree. 
 The power to confer honorary degrees given us by Act I of 
 1884 has only twice been exercised by us. In December 1884, 
 an eminent Statesman, the Marquis of Ripon, became associated 
 with us by admission to this degree on his retirement from the 
 34 
 
266 ~ University of Bombay. 
 
 Viceroy alty of India. After an interval of six years we confer- 
 red it on Dr. William Wordsworth — who though he had never 
 sought great things for himself, and never attained to high official 
 honours, had yet by force of character and conspicuous merits as 
 a scholar and educationist, attained, by universal consent, to that 
 eminence of position which is contemplated by the Legislature 
 as one of the grounds which may justify the dfegree. To-day ■ 
 we wish to bestow this degree, to which we attach such rare 
 value on one who holds high office as a member of the Bombay 
 Government. But it is not on that account that we wish to honor 
 him. His official rank is but an accident of his real position. 
 In a few weeks it will pass away ; but when it is gone, he will 
 still retain that eminence which entitles him to recognition by 
 the University as a fit recipient of the honorary degree ; for it is 
 an eminence which he has reached by a life-time's devotion to 
 public duty, in the interests of the people of this Presidency and 
 especially of the cause of education as represented by the work 
 of the University. As your Excellency will presently address the 
 Senate, it is not necessary that I should take up your time with 
 any elaborate attempt to set forth the history of Sir Raymond 
 West's public services. Still I should wish, on such an occasion, 
 to refer to some of the considerations which weighed with the 
 Syndicate when it brought before the Senate the recommendation 
 which has met with such early approval. In the 
 The disjm- £rgt place then, it was impossible for the Syndicate 
 ^Sir e! West, o^ ^OT the Senate or indeed for the people of this 
 City and of the Presidency, to be insensible to the 
 powerful and pervading influence which was exercised by Sir Ray- 
 mond West throughout the long period of fifteen years during 
 which he occupied the position of a Judge o*f the High Court. It 
 was felt by all classes of the community that he was not merely a 
 strong and sagacious Judge who brought a profound knowledge of 
 legal principles and a cultured mind to the disposal of the judicial 
 business of the country — he was more than that. He was a true 
 friend of the people who sought their welfare and their advance- 
 ment ; and lost no opportunity of improving by all possible means, 
 the general administration of justice throughout the Presidency, 
 whether by careful supervision of the procedure of all Subordi- 
 nate Courts, or by devising effective methods for securing a due 
 supply of competent Judges of all grades for the Mof ussil Bench, 
 or by raising the status of the learned body of Pleaders through- 
 out the country, without whose aid, honestly and efficiently 
 rendered, the administration of justice must always be grievously 
 hindered. His efforts in these directions will bear fruit long 
 after he has left these shores; while lasting evidence of his 
 
1892. — The Honorable Mr. Justice Birdwood, 26? 
 
 judicial capacity will be found in the volumes, extending over a 
 long- series of years which contain the reports of many learned 
 judgments delivered by him with authority from the Bench. 
 But while his time was so occupied with the duties more closely 
 connected with his judicial office, he was able to undertake a 
 work of great magnitude in collaboration with Dr. George 
 Buhler, which will always establish his claim to rank as one 
 of the highest authorities in this land or anywhere on Hindoo 
 Law. The merits of that work have been borne ample testi- 
 mony to by eminent scholars and lawyers. It was the result 
 of years of patient labour and investigation ; and if ever the 
 time comes for codifying the Hindoo Law, as it now exists, the 
 digest of Sir Eaymond West and Dr. Buhler will certainly form 
 the most important basis for such codification. But it is in con- 
 nection with our own University that we shall most readily 
 appreciate the advantages which have accrued from the resi- 
 dence of Sir Raymond West in our midst, and we can never 
 forget the years when he was identified intimately with us in all 
 our undertakings ; whether as an examiner at the higher exami- 
 nations or as a Syndic in Arts or Law for six years or as a Dean 
 in the Faculty of Arts or as Yice-Chancellor for seven years. 
 During all this lengthened period he was no idle holder of office. 
 He was a living power inspiring and guiding our deliberations 
 and always lending aid when needed in the development of our 
 plans. He imparted strength to our institutions and strove with 
 all his might, to raise this University to a position of independ- 
 ence, and to make it something more than a mere board of 
 examiners. He wished to make it a living, growing organism 
 in vital union with its affiliated colleges and exercising a whole- 
 some influence on the life and conduct of all its members. 
 Though we know that he failed to secure the acceptance by the 
 Senate of all his views, as embodied in the University Bill, which 
 we owe to him — but which is, unhappily at this moment, in a 
 state of suspended animation — still we can never be unmindful 
 of the great love he bore to this University, and of his able, 
 conscientious, and long continued service on her behalf. In now 
 conferring an honorary degree on Sir Raymond, we are recog- 
 nising merit which has been recognised in a similar way already 
 by two older institutions than our own, and I would confidently 
 express the hope that the honour we are conferring will not be 
 less highly valued by him than the degrees he has received 
 from th-e University of Edinburgh and the Queen's University in 
 Ireland. It is now my duty, my Lord Chancellor, on behalf of 
 the Senate, to present Sir Raymond West to your Excellency, 
 and to ask you in the presence of this assembly, to meet our 
 
268 University of Bombay. 
 
 wishes by conferring on him the Degree of Doctor in the Faculty 
 of Law on account of his great and distinguished merit. 
 
 His Excellency Lord Harris then addressed the Senate 
 in the following terms : — 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — We are 
 assembled for the third time to confer this honorary degree 
 on one of Indians most distinguished public servants, and curi- 
 ously enough for the third time in your career. Sir Raymond 
 West, you receive the honorary degree of LL.D., and I 
 venture to say that what the University of Edinburgh and 
 the Queen's University of Ireland have thought themselves 
 honored in doing to one who, however connected with those 
 great institutions, has been far more closely connected with 
 Bombay, this University need have no reluctance in repeating. 
 I would that this chair had held some one who from 
 Sir Kaymond long personal or official acquaintance with you could 
 West's Indian have now in addressing this assembly, put in those 
 light touches of events and characteristic traits 
 which brighten up any picture of a life well-spent. None could 
 enter upon the pleasurable task more readily than I ; but neces- 
 sarily I must depend on records rather than personal experience. 
 Looking back over the thirty-five years that have elapsed since 
 the day when Ireland supplied to the service of India another of 
 the many brilliant servants of John Company Bahadur whom she 
 has sent, it must seem strange to you to compare the baptism of 
 blood and tumult which so soon followed your entry into the ser- 
 vice with the peace and order which you leave behind on your 
 retirement. Although the terrible experience of other parts of 
 India were happily not extended to the Southern Mahratta country 
 there must nevertheless have been need for the utmost care and 
 watchfulness on those — yourself amongst the number — on whom 
 rested the conduct of affairs : and I doubt not that you, much as you 
 may value the Mutiny Medal which you hold, value not less highly 
 the experience which you gained in the confidential work entrust- 
 ed to you by Mr. Seton Karr, and in the charge of the North 
 Belgaum district which you held. You found India racked with 
 those pains which internal disorder must bring, trade distraught, 
 and the employment of labour paralysed, and you leave Bombay 
 studding the horizon with factory chimneys, sure signs of a 
 long period of rest from intrigue, of confidence in trade, of the 
 investment of capital and of the full employment of labour. 
 But if at first the sword was placed in your hand it was 
 not long before the toga, whether from inclination or the needs 
 of the judicial branch, displaced it, and this change must 
 
1892.— jfcor<2 Harris. 2<t9 
 
 have been largely assisted by the intimate acquaintance you 
 acquired, by assiduous study, and by availing yourself of the 
 opportunities you had, with the Canarese language. It was no 
 doubt through your knowledge of it, and consequently from 
 being able to communicate freely with witnesses in Court, and 
 with the people out of Court that you won the high regard in 
 the Southern Division, which is such a compliment to your- 
 self, and that you were able to effect the complete and bene- 
 ficial reorganization of the judicial system there, which sub- 
 sequently was adopted as a model for the Bombay judicial 
 establishments. Before that task was accomplished, however, 
 you had been paving the way for the assumption of greater 
 responsibilities with the knowledge of affairs gained by work 
 in the offices of Under-Secretary to Government and of the 
 Registrar of the High Court ; and it was, I believe, during this 
 latter period that you edited the Bombay Code of Regulations 
 and Acts ; and with the aid of Professor Buhler brought out at 
 intervals the Digests of the Hindoo Law of Inheritance, of Parti- 
 tion, and of Adoption now accepted as a standard authority on 
 the several subjects. But the Presidency proper was not alone 
 to benefit by your aid. Your service in Sind enabled you to 
 simplify and place on a comprehensive footing the judicial orders 
 that had been issued at various times. Whilst at Simla as a 
 member of the Indian Law Commission you were mainly re- 
 sponsible for the report which heralded the introduction of the 
 Transfer of Property Act, the Trust Act, Easement Act, and the 
 Negotiable Instruments Act. Neither have the benefits of your 
 wise counsel been confined to the field of jurisprudence ; for your 
 home in England cau show material proof of the gratitude of the 
 contributors to the Civil Service Fund for your labours in their 
 behalf. Neither have your services been confined to India and the 
 British Empire, for in 1885, at actual pecuniary loss to yourself, 
 you accepted the deputation to Egypt as Procureur General. It 
 is no bad compliment to yourself to say that if your proposals 
 then for a reform of criminal law were in advance of the concep- 
 tions of those responsible for the administration of Egypt, it has 
 not taken long for official opinion there to catch up yours ; for 
 I understand that another distinguished Bombay Judge is gener- 
 ally following in the lines you laid down. It is hardly for me to 
 pass an opinion on your work as one of H. M.'s Judges of the 
 High Court : ample testimony to the firmness, impartiality, legal 
 knowledge, and uprightness which you displayed there is to be 
 found in the public records of the time in question, and in the 
 fact of your selection as a Member of Council. It is not unlikely 
 that of all your literary work, that which you lay most store by 
 
2?0 University of Bombay. 
 
 are those volumes of the Bombay High Court Reports : and the 
 Bombay series of the Indian Law Reports, which, whilst they 
 have added so much to your renown^ have been of such immense 
 use to all judicial officers. Sir Raymond West, behind that 
 mysterious curtain, which is supposed to, but does so slightly, 
 veil the confidential proceedings of Grovernment, it would not be 
 proper to intrude : but the public would be sure, without one 
 word from those who have served with you, from their knowledge 
 of your public career, that you have proved a loyal and reliable 
 colleague, one on whose calm and judicial impartiality your 
 colleagues could rely for sound advice at any moment. You have 
 probably found, as most Statesmen do find when they enter a 
 position of less freedom and great responsibility, that every 
 reform advocated previously was not feasible in the exact form 
 you would have preferred ; that the views of the individual 
 before office is held must necessarily undergo some modification 
 when a more diffused light is thrown on the subject ; and also 
 that in a Grovernment other than an autocracy, opinions, however 
 determined, have not infrequently to accommodate themselves to 
 other views in some measure. But such is the experience of 
 every man who enters on the arduous task of Executive Govern- 
 ment, and happy are those who can say, as we can say, I think, 
 that we shall always look back with pleasure to the time when 
 our official position induced and established sentiments of friend- 
 ship. But, Sir, this brief resume of your thirty-five years' labours 
 has not touched on your efforts for the advancement of education, 
 which, so far as execution are concerned, are better known to 
 your colleagues than the public ; but I am committing no indis- 
 cretion when I say that whilst keeping almost careful guard 
 over the proper appropriation of the tax payers^ money you have 
 never failed to press for the largest possible sums that could 
 he spared ; and it must be a satisfaction to you to feel that 
 in your last days here additional funds have been made avail- 
 able to carry out those promises made to Local Boards in 
 more prosperous times; and that there is nothing now to 
 prevent that improvement in legal tuition which you have 
 always advocated except the sanction , of the higher authority. 
 Finally, Sir, amongst the numerous crowd which is grate- 
 ful to you for private and public advice and assistance last, 
 but by no means least, comes this University in the councils 
 of whose administration you for so many years took an active 
 and interested share. It has been your object to extend to 
 it a wide measure of freedom and it is due to no hesitation 
 on your part that that measure will only be introduced by 
 gradual and cautious steps. That this University is grateful for 
 
1892.— iord Harris. 271 
 
 what you have done for law and literature and in general 
 advancement in your private councils and your public address is 
 proved by its conferring the highest honour in its gift on you 
 to-day and amongst all those distinctions which you have received 
 from the hands of Her Majesty and from other learned institu- 
 tions, I doubt not you will in your own appreciation give a pro- 
 minent place to this last, which comes from the University with 
 which you have been so long connected. The unfortunate lot 
 has fallen to myself alone of all Governors of Bombay to deliver 
 as Chancellor two of those valedictory addresses. Unfortunate 
 in that during my tenure of office the State has lost the services 
 of two men of such distinguished attainments and public careers 
 80 eminent that this University has accorded them the highest 
 honour it is in its power to give ; and my regret is by no means 
 selfish, for whilst I feel personally these breaks in friendships, 
 of no long existence truly but still not the less sincere, I deplore 
 still more that this Presidency of Bombay loses at such a short 
 interval public servants who have set such high examples as 
 have Professor Wordsworth and Sir Raymond West. But if we 
 have reason to deplore your departure we have much to 
 congratulate ourselves upon. It is impossible for a public 
 .servant to live five- and- thirty years in this country passing 
 through the various grades of the service to the highest position, 
 and through all that time keeping an unswerving gaze on the 
 path of probity, virtue, assiduity and impartiality — without 
 good effects resulting from such a career. There are times in 
 the history of peoples when it is well that the careers of public 
 servants should illustrate for their instruction the homely adage 
 that honesty is the best policy. Sir Francis Bacon prefaced 
 his maxims of the Law with these noble words : " I hold every 
 man a debtor to his profession : from which as men of course do 
 seek to receive countenance and profit ; so ought they of duty 
 to endeavour by way of amends to be a help and ornament 
 thereunto." You can leave us. Sir Raymond West, convinced 
 that the universal feeling is that, even where you have not 
 secured agreement with your views, you aimed at this or that 
 object of policy, not because it suited your ambition, but, main- 
 taining an attitude of pure single-mindedness because in your 
 opinion it was the right. By following that undeviating course 
 you have been a help and an ornament to the service you are 
 about to leave. I can conceive no higher aim than yours has been ; 
 I can imagine no prouder epitaph on the career of public servant. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 Page. 
 
 Administration, different systems of ... ..« ... ... ... 315 
 
 Adverse tendencies ... ... ... ... ... ... 115 
 
 Advice to disappointed candidates ..* ... ... ... .. 194 
 
 Indian Noblemen ... ... ... ... ... ... 225 
 
 the Senate ... ••• ... ... ... ... 125 
 
 Students ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 112 
 
 the wealthy ... ... ... ... ... ... 66 
 
 Agricaltural Chemistry ... ... ... ... ... .. 92 
 
 Alexander Grant, Bart — Services of ... ... ... ... ... 45 
 
 Amsterdam, University of ... ... ... ... ... ... 212 
 
 Anglo-Indian, the most academic of oTir times ... ... ... ... 216 
 
 Arnonld, Sir Joseph ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Attain perfection in some one subject ... ... ... ... ... 81 
 
 Avoid extremes ... ,'„ ... ,„ „, ... ,„ 118 
 
 Bachelors of Law ... ... ,„ ... ... .,, ,., 27 
 
 Benefactions ... ... ... .., ... ... ... 258 
 
 to the TJHiversity ... ,„ ... ... ... 207 
 
 New ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 229 
 
 Benefactors ... ... ^ ... „. ... ,. 37 
 
 Mnnificent ... ,., ,„ ... ... .,.' 15 
 
 of the University ... ... ,., ,., ... ... 42 
 
 Be outspoken and frank ... „, ... ,., ... „, 117 
 
 Board of Studies, institution of ... ... ... ... ... 244 
 
 Bombay University, progress of ... ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 . ^ superiority of the... ... ... ... ... 40 
 
 the modern Alexandria ... „, ... ... ... 184 
 
 Bombay's stream of generosity... ,„ ,., ... ... ... 133 
 
 Britons, duty of ... ,. .„ ... ... ... ^. 55 
 
 Chancellor, the liberal sentiments of the ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Chancellor's Medal ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 Spe«ch ... .,. ... ... M. ... ... 160 
 
 Changes in the CitrricHtem ... ,„ ,., ... ,., 255,202 
 
 Clerk, Sir George ... ... ... ,„ ... ... ... 1 
 
 Contentment with first success ... ... „. ... ... 61 
 
 Covenanted Civil Service, the .. ... ... ... ... 124 
 
 Cowasjee Jehangeer ... ... „, „. .,, ... ... 8 
 
 , liberality of ... .•• ... ... ... 70 
 
 Currioulum of studies ... .. ... ... „. ... 51 
 
 Danger of premature specialization ... ... ..« *.« ... 237 
 
 Darraesteter, James, and other French savants ... ... ... ... 180 
 
 Desist from unworthy habits... ... ... ... ... ... 170 
 
 Duke of Edinburgh, welcome to the ... ... ... ... ..• 47 
 
Index. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Edacational System, the ... ... ... ... ..« ... 1 
 
 Educated Indians, their usefulness ... ... ... ..« ... 3G 
 
 — classes, distrust of ... ... ... ... ... ... 210 
 
 Education, Higher vs. Primary ... .. ... ... ... 26 
 
 , spread of ... ... ... ... ... ... 164 
 
 and Loyalty ... ... ... .. ... ..« 118 
 
 Employment of Indians and Englishmen ... ... ... ... 6S 
 
 Endowment of Chairs in Law .. ... ... ... ... 231 
 
 to commemorate valuable services. ., ... -.. ... 195 
 
 Engineering, importance of ... ... ... ... ,., ... 45 
 
 Englishmen in India and at home .. ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 , why they draw higher salaries ... ... ... ... 69 
 
 English Universities, pride and glory of ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 society, most marked characteristic of ... r.. ... ... 21 
 
 rule, merits of ... ... ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 Ethics, instruction in ... ... ... ... ... ... 122 
 
 Ethical instruction, the way to secure ... ... ... ... ... 203 
 
 Examination results (1863) ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 Examinations ... ... ... ••• ... ••• ... 223 
 
 ' ■' , standard o£ ... ••• ••• ••• ••• •*. 14 
 
 F.A. and B.A. Examitiations ... .•• *•• ••• ••• ... 2 
 
 Faculties, other ... ... ... ' ... .. ... ... 219 
 
 Faculty of Law, the great object of ... ... .„ ... ,,, 217 
 
 of Politics ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 217 
 
 Famine of 1876 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 83 
 
 Farewell, a graeefnl .. . «. ... ,.. ... ... ... 37 
 
 Fate, strive to conquer ... ... ... ... ... ... 139 
 
 Features of the report ... ••• ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 Fellows, list of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 264 
 
 ■■ and their qualifications ... ... ... ••. .. 50 
 
 ■ ■■ — , fluctuations in the governing body of ... ... „, 29 
 
 , merits of the newly appointed ... ... ... „. 22 
 
 Forbes, Kinloch, and his love of justice ... ... „ ... 30 
 
 Foreign travel, impox-tance of, and Indian prejudices ... ... ... 18 
 
 Forests, destruction of ... ... ... •„ .^ ••• 92 
 
 General enlightenment, the precursor of ISFational government .•• '•«• 70 
 
 Generous donation, a ... ... ... ... •.. •.. 66 
 
 Government and Higher Education ... ... ... .. ... 186 
 
 , its responsibilities ... ... ... „. ... 211 
 
 Graduates, advice to ... ... ... ••• ••• ... 112 
 
 , decrease in the number of... .« ... ... „. 115 
 
 — , duties of ... ... ... ,„ ... ... 140 
 
 — • , obligations of ... ... ... ... ,,, ... 225 
 
 — , prospects of ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 ., responsibilities of ... ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 — — — — — , their merits and faults ... ... ... ... ... 116 
 
 J what they may do ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 GymnJi/Btic exercise, its iraportanc© ... ... ... ... ... 77 
 
Index. ' n\ 
 
 Page. 
 
 Harkness, Dr. ... ... ... .•• ••• ••. «•• 4 
 
 Higher Education in }3onib.iy, progress of ... .„ ... ... 53 
 
 , results of i... ... ... ... ... ... 54 
 
 and Government Service ... ... ... ... 113 
 
 Hindu gentleman, excellent example of a ... ... ... ... 30 
 
 Honours at the examinations... ... ... ... ... ... 207 
 
 Humility the true stamp of wisdom ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 Ilbert Bill Controversy ... ... ... ... ••• ... 149 
 
 Improvements introduced ... ... ... ... ••• ... 122 
 
 India, to be administered as a trust from God ... ... ... ... 35 
 
 Indian classical languages, their importance ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 inaccuracy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 98 
 
 ■ legal system ... ... ... •.. ••. ••• 16 
 
 Princes and Is"oblemen, excellent advice to •.. ... ... 185 
 
 student, special interest of German and Austrian political institu- 
 tions to the ... ... ... ... ... — 216 
 
 ^Universities, a complex function of ... ... ... ... 220 
 
 .... and their importance ... ... ... ... 159 
 
 Indians' love of their country ... ».» ... ... ... 129 
 
 , Mr. West's advice to ... ••. ... ... ... 189 
 
 Induction ... ... ... ... ••« ..• ••• ... 39 
 
 Isolation, evils of ... ^ .^ ••. ..• ••• ••• 200 
 
 Knowledge, pursuit of ... ... ••• ... ,„ ... 102 
 
 — ■ — strive after for its own sake .«• ... .., ... 62 
 
 Ladies, University culture for ... *•• ... ... ••. 191 
 
 Lady Member of the Senate ... ... ... ... ... ... 254 
 
 Latin vs. Sanskrit ... ..• m* ..• ... ... ... 29 
 
 Law course-.. ... ... .•* ... ... ... ... 256 
 
 , examination in ... m. ... ... ... ... 41 
 
 Learning, lifelong devotion to ... ... ... ... ... 77 
 
 , love it for its own sake ... .•• ... ... ... 13 
 
 not a mere source of pelf ... ... ... ... ... 185 
 
 Liberal education, definition of ... ... ... ... 11,135 
 
 a sine qva non of social and political position ... ... 10 
 
 Liberality of the citizens of Bombay ... ... ... ... ... 143 
 
 Limitation, abolition of a ... ... ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 Lines of further progress ... ... *•• ... .,, ... 59 
 
 Literary training, value of ... ... „« ,„ ,„ ... 138 
 
 Literature, Sanskrit, Persian and Assyrian ... .•> — •*. 28 
 
 Local disturbances ... ... ... ... ^ ««« ••• 73 
 
 Man, practical va. theoretical ... ... m. ••« •*• *•• 136 
 
 Marriott, the Hon'ble John ... ... ••• ••« ••• ••• 147 
 
 Master of Arts, Degree of ... ... ... ••• ••• .•• 2 
 
 Matriculation Examination ... ... ... ..« ... ^*^'t^ 
 
 , causes for large failure in ... ••• ... ••• 75 
 
 , a gigantic failure ... ... ••• ..• ••• 257 
 
 ... ... ... 40 
 
 , candidates for (1868) 
 
 — — , high standard of 
 
iv * Index, 
 
 Page. 
 
 Matriculation, revised scheme foi ... ... ...' ... ... 2G2 
 
 Aratricnlates, number of (1866) ... ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 Medical Faculty, another precedent ... ... ... ... ... 213 
 
 Medicine and Engineering ... ... ... ... ... ... 42 
 
 — , Graduates in ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 
 
 Moral training in Schools ... ... ... ... ... ... 202 
 
 Mungaldoss Nathuboy's travelling fellowship ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Municipalities and Education ... ... ... ... ... ... 182 
 
 and University ... .,, ... ... ... ... 185 
 
 Munificent act, a ... ... „, ... ... ... ... 45 
 
 Mussulman mind, stirring of the ... ... ... •*• ... 192 
 
 Native Members of the Senate 
 
 Press, loyalty of the .., 
 
 Natural and Physical Science 
 New Prizes ... 
 Noble example, a 
 
 Objectors, two classes of ... 
 Observation, faculty of 
 Oflfice-bearers, changes in the staff of 
 
 Parsees ... ... ••4 ... ••• 
 
 paucity of ... .•• ..• ..• 
 
 Parting of the roads ... 
 
 Persian language ... ... ... ••• 
 
 Petit, Sir Dinshaw Manockjee, liberality o* 
 Philosophy, exclusive devotion to ... ... 
 
 , Mental and Moral ... ... 
 
 Physical Science and Natural religion ... ... 
 
 Policy of other governing nations 
 
 Poona College, the ... ... ... ... 
 
 Primary Education ... 
 
 Pi'inciples deserving attention ... ... 
 
 Prizes and Scholarships 
 
 Professional Studies 
 
 Professors of Science, qualifications of... ... 
 
 Proprietary School, Bombay ... ... ... 
 
 Public law, knowledge of 
 
 B 
 
 Ranade, M. G., the first Master of Arts in India... 
 Rapid "retrospect, a ... ... 
 
 Results obtained during Sir H. H. E. Frere's regime 
 of nine years (1871-79) 
 
 — I of Examinations (1865) 
 
 (1864) 
 
 (1870) 
 
 (1883) 
 (1891) 
 
 Review of the past ... 
 
 Ripoti,' Marquis of , his public career 
 
Index. V 
 
 Page. 
 
 Ripon, Marquis of, and the treaty of Washington ... .,. ... 151 
 
 ■ conditlou of India when he lauded ... ... 152 
 
 , the charm of his personal influence ... ... ... lou 
 
 .1 — , his priucipletj ... ... ... ... ... 153 
 
 , a revieAv ol" his Viceroyalty ... ... ... ... 154 
 
 , his Ciiristiau spirit ... ... ... ... ... 158 
 
 — -^. ■ , an explanation of his poUoy ... ... ... ... 163 
 
 Scliolars of Medieval Europe ... ... •«••«•»»• ». 25 
 
 Scholarships ... ... «.. •«• ••• — ... 147 
 
 ScholarsMp, high standard of m« ••• .m .•• ... 32 
 
 Schools vs. Colleges ... ... — ••• m* ... ... 7 
 
 Science, the study of ... .m m» — .•• ... 127 
 
 Scientific culture, advantages of «•• ... ... ... ... 135 
 
 research ... ... —, ... .». ... ... 177 
 
 Secular instruction ... ... «• ... „, „. ... 145 
 
 Senate, the valuable services of ... ... ^ .., „. 34 
 
 , constitution of the ... ... ... .„ ,„ ... 21 
 
 Some new beginnings ... m. ••• ... ... •.. 232 
 
 State education, system of ... ... o. ••• ... ... ^7 
 
 Students, their poor physique... ... ... ,». ... «.. 7^ 
 
 Study, course of ... ... ... ... ... .^ ... 107 
 
 Superfluous wealth, how to dispose of ... „. .^ ... „, 182 
 
 Teachers, rewards of ••• ,- .•• «•• .«• ... 250 
 
 , selection of ... ... ... ••• ... ... 224 
 
 Technical education, importance of .. ... ... ... ... 187 
 
 ■■" — , Government's indifference to ... ... ... 187 
 
 and the University ... .m ... ... 188 
 
 and industrial education ... ... ... ,„ ... 173 
 
 Telang, Kasinath Trimbak, the Hou'ble Mr. Justice ... ... ... 224 
 
 Trust and Forbearance ... ... ... .„ ... ,,, 35 
 
 Universities, bearing of, on the administration ... „. ... 8 
 
 University Rrll ... •.. ... ... ... ... ... 263 
 
 , blessings conferred by ... ... .^ .«. ... 197 
 
 buildings ... ... ... ... ... ... 70 
 
 , definition of ... ... .. ,.* ... ... 239 
 
 degree, the stamp of liberal education ,„ ... ... 9 
 
 —, delicate position of the ... ... .,♦ ... >•. 31 
 
 — education, benefits of ... ... ,„ ... ... 63 
 
 , value of ... ... ... .., ... 38 
 
 — , finances of the ... ... ... ... ... ... 264 
 
 — , first charter of the ... ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 — , first lectureship attached to the ... ... ... ... 79 
 
 , growing influence and importance of ... ... ... 178 
 
 — , improvement in the constitution of ... .»• ... Ill 
 
 , independence of ... ... ... ... ... 34,204 
 
 — , interest in the ... ... ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 — life, its influence and end ... ... ... ... ••• 46 
 
 , losses to the ... ... ... ... ... 207,228 
 
 men, recognitiou of ... ... ... ... 33 
 
Vi Index- 
 
 Page. 
 
 University men, their character ... ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 , mission of the ... ... ... ... * ... ... 32 
 
 , a model ... ... ... ,„ ... ... 222 
 
 , a most valuable auxiliary to Government ... ,.. ... 36 
 
 movements concurrent with and parallel to ... ... ... 199 
 
 , parting word of the ... ... ... ... ... 261 
 
 ■, pillar of people's hope ... ... ... ... ... 195 
 
 , primary object of ... ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 ' J reconstitution of ... ,„ ... ... ... ... 257 
 
 standard, the ... ... ... .„ ... ... 3 
 
 system, advantages of ... ... ... ... ... 133 
 
 J alleged defects in the ... ... ... ... 28 
 
 trutb, a great ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 , wants of the ... ... ... ... ... ... 25S 
 
 , what it has achieved ... ... ... ... ,„ 59 
 
 "Various opportunities for usefulness and distinction 
 Vaslekar, Mr. N. N., departure to Eugland of ... 
 Vernacular vs. Classical languages 
 
 literature, creation of ... ... 
 
 — ■■ , development^of ... 
 
 Want, a ... ... ... ... » 
 
 Weed out dull boys ... 
 
 West, Sir Kaymond — a resume of the career of . . 
 
 , distinguished services of 
 
 Women, admission of, to public examinations .. 
 
 Words of caution and advice... 
 
 Wordsworth, Professor, sorvioes of ,„ „ 
 
CONVOCATION ADDRESSES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 XDlnfversttis of ^abras* 
 
 SECOND CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By E. B. Powell, Esq,, M.A.) 
 
 * My Lord, — ^The Senate of the University having decided 
 that a portion of this day^s proceedings shall consist of the 
 delivery of an Address by one of their body to the newly-admitted 
 graduates, and your Lordship having thought fit to appoint me 
 to discharge this duty, I betake myself to the execution of my 
 task, which would be far from a disagreeable one, were it not for 
 the conviction that its performance will suffer from the feeble- 
 ness of the hands to which it has been entrusted. 
 
 Gentlemen, you who have just received degrees, have you 
 reflected on the signification of your Diplomas and on the obliga- 
 tions which they carry along with them ? Do you regard them 
 as the '^ be all and the end all,'^ or do you view them as an intro- 
 duction, an honorable introduction, to a career of intellectual and 
 moral progress ? It is probable that on these points, and indeed 
 on most others connected with this day's ceremonial, your notions 
 are vague and indefinite. Universities are of long standing in 
 the West, but here they are novelties : and moreover the differ- 
 ences that must necessarily exist between them, — where they have 
 for centuries formed part and parcel of the social and religious 
 framework of a nation, — and where they have been newly intro- 
 duced in what may be called an exotic form, are so great, as to 
 leave all minds more or less in a state of incertitude regarding 
 their character and operation in India. Taking the Universities 
 of Europe, though they always played an important part, and on 
 some occasions a prominent one, still their nature and influence 
 are but slightly brought before the student of general history ; to 
 natives of India their constitution must be almost unknown, and 
 
 * Lord Harris. 
 
University of Madras, 
 
 the terms connected with them can be little more than mere 
 sounds. Such being the case, I think it will not be amiss for 
 me to say a few words upon the origin and progress of European 
 Universities, — keeping in view more especially those of England, 
 — before I proceed to the immediate object of this Address. 
 
 On the overthrow of the Western Empire and the settle- 
 R' e d ro ^^nt of the barbarian conquerors in the different 
 gress of Uni- countries of Europe, Literature and Science, sadly 
 versities in the mutilated, took refuge in the Christian Church, 
 which successfully resisted the convulsion that over- 
 threw almost every other institution of the past. After a certain 
 interval, a new position of equilibrium was found within each 
 nation : retrogression ceased, and progress re-commenced. The 
 first advances were, like the incipient development of a seed, 
 almost imperceptible. We may point to Charlemagne in France, 
 and Alfred in England, as pre-eminent ; but too thick a darkness 
 rests over their times to allow of our measuring the efforts of those 
 great men. Schools or Studia, as they were called, were from 
 time to time established in different places, most frequently in 
 connection with cathedrals and monasteries, and mainly, if not 
 entirely, for the education of the clerical order : combinations of 
 these Studia founded in favorable localities, acquiring eminence 
 from the patronage of monarchs, nobles and bishops, and from 
 the successful teaching of individuals, came at length to be 
 formed into Universities. The 12th century is commonly held 
 to be the period when this development took place, although 
 particular Universities lay claim to a much earlier origin. 
 The University of Paris, while not absolutely the first in time, 
 was undoubtedly the most celebrated; Englishmen, among 
 other foreigners, resorting to it, in preference to their own seats 
 of learning, Oxford and Cambridge. There were then two 
 courses of study, the one rudimentary, the other more advanced : 
 the former bore the name of the " Trivium" or triple road to 
 knowledge, and comprised the elements of Grammar, Logic, and 
 Rhetoric ; the latter was called the '^ Quadrivium," or quadruple 
 road, and included Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and 
 Music, — or, at least, the portions of Science so denominated in 
 those days, There is a notion prevalent that the English Uni- 
 versities in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries retained the same 
 intimate connection with the Church which belonged to them at 
 their foundation. Undoubtedly there still existed within them 
 many traces of their clerical origin. But when we turn to the 
 records of those ages, we find these institutions frequently in- 
 volved in contests with the Carmelites and other orders of 
 
1859.— Ifr. E. B. PoweU. "8 
 
 Monks, who claimed peculiar privileges on the occasion of their 
 being admitted to degrees. The bishops, too, in whose dioceses 
 the Universities stood, were sometimes engaged in disputes 
 with them ; the latter pleading the Bulls of Popes as grounds 
 for exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. These circumstances 
 are interesting, inasmuch as they shew that Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge were even then, to a certain extent, centres of independ- 
 ent thought and action. In France, during the wars carried 
 on by Edward III, Henry Y, and the Regents in the minority 
 of Henry VI, the University of Paris almost constituted a dis- 
 tinct estate of the realm : it is true its interference in politics 
 was often far from beneficial, either in regard to the interests of 
 learning, or to those of religion. It cannot be said that the 
 Universities made any striking progress from the 12th century 
 to the middle of the 15th, so far as the improvement of their 
 curricula is concerned ; at the same time Theology, Metaphy- 
 sics, and Logic were, if not judiciously, at least energetically 
 studied by considerable numbers, and served to sharpen the 
 intellects of the students. National literatures, also, were in the 
 course of formation throughout Europe, to which the alumni of 
 the Universities were naturally almost the sole contributors ; 
 and all things were preparing the way for an accelerated advance. 
 After the fall of Constantinople, the Platonic philosophy invaded 
 the realms, which had previously bowed in profound submission 
 to Aristotle ; and a struggle ensued, that was highly beneficial 
 in evoking and fostering free and discursive thought. The 
 study of the Greek language and Greek literature, which now 
 began to be fashionable, exerted a peculiarly liberalizing influ- 
 ence : and the invention of printing, which, as it has been 
 remarked, seems to have been permitted to take place exactly 
 at the time when it was most required, and when its efficacy 
 would necessarily be the greatest, lent its powerful aid in break- 
 ing the fetters in which ignorance had enthralled the bulk of 
 the populations of Europe. Here it is important to note that 
 the changes in religion, and in the constitutwn of society, which 
 occurred in the 16th century, co-operating with the Printing 
 Press, modified in a very great measure the action of the Uni- 
 versities in England and other countries. In earlier times know- 
 ledge had to be obtained mainly by oral communication, and 
 just as in this country an ardent Hindu scholar, desirous of 
 studying a particular work, would travel far to sit at the feet of 
 some famous Pundit, so, in Europe, thousands resorted from 
 distant regions to a seat of learning, where an eminent Teacher 
 explained a particular science, or commented upon a favorite 
 author. This was now altogether modified ; and while the j^n- 
 
University of Madras. 
 
 course of students became far less numerically, and individual 
 Teachers no longer captivated vast multitudes by their eloquence 
 and other gifts, centres of instruction of a less ambitious char- 
 acter were established in different localities. In England, for 
 example, numerous Grammar schools were set on foot, a course 
 devised by the celebrated Wolsey before the Reformation, but 
 carried out during the progress of that change and after its com- 
 pletion. In later times the two great English Universities have 
 constituted an agency for finishing the education of the higher 
 classes, and more especially of those among them intending to 
 enter some of the learned professions. At this moment they may 
 be regarded as in an unsettled state, many considering that with 
 the progress of the age the constitution and aims of the Univer- 
 sities should undergo some changes, and that a wider range of 
 studies should be embraced in their curricula. It is unneces- 
 sary for me to dwell upon this topic ; and I allude to it only 
 to complete the brief and very superficial sketch of the rise 
 and progress of University education in the West, and more 
 especially in England. You will observe that the time-honored 
 Universities of Europe are places of educational training, as well 
 as institutions for recognizing and proclaiming degrees of profi- 
 ciency in Literature and Science : not so our Indian Universities, 
 which, as now constructed, are intended merely to present a 
 standard of education to the Public, and to stamp with honor all 
 such as prove that they have reached that standard. Perhaps 
 the chief difficulty with us will be to secure the appreciation of 
 Degrees by the Natives of this country : but we are entitled to 
 hope that every year which passes away will see this difficulty 
 rendered less by the general spread of intelligence, until at 
 length we shall find the same feelings excited in the breast of an 
 Indian graduate, that quicken the pulse of an English youth 
 when he secures a place, however humble, among the ranks 
 which in past ages contained Chaucer, Bacon, Milton, Newton, 
 and a host of others, the master minds of their times. 
 
 „ Here I must recur to the question which I put to you at the 
 commencement of this Address. Have you reflected on the nature 
 of your Diplomas, and the obligation which they carry along 
 with them ? You have this day been stamped with honor ; you 
 have by your industry, ability and good conduct, won the right to 
 be presented to your countrymen as persons worthy of respect and 
 fit models for imitation. This is undoubtedly a high, a most grati- 
 fying position; but allow me to remind you it is also a most respon- 
 sible one. We all know the higher the station of an individual, 
 the more incumbent upon him it is to walk circumspectly. But 
 
1859.— ifr. E. B. Powell. 
 
 beside ihis, you are assisting to inaugurate a great change, and 
 if in any way you give cause for reproach, your errors will be 
 quoted as arguments against the propriety of that change. 
 
 Dr. Flynn, in speaking more immediately to you, I re- 
 Qualifications Daeiiiher with pleasure the honorable testimony 
 of a medical that has been borne to your merits by those 
 °^^"' best qualified to be judges. I feel it is almost 
 
 unnecessary to call to your recollection that other qualifica- 
 tions are looked for in a medical man, beside the mere know- 
 ledge of his profession. The situation of a medical adviser 
 is one of the most delicate and confidential in this world. 
 Perfect uprightness, moral courage, kindness of heart and of 
 demeanour, a readiness to sacrifice personal comfort, and 
 other qualities of a similar stamp are all required to be united 
 with knowledge, to constitute a genuine member of your 
 noble profession. But then, what a reward attaches to the 
 discharge of the duties of that profession ! See the medical 
 adviser enter the sick chamber to examine the state of his 
 patient : see that patient's wife watching his every movement, 
 and hanging breathless upon the words that are about to fall 
 from his lips ; see the children, too, partially ignorant perhaps 
 of the condition of their father, but still looking upon the 
 Doctor with silent awe ! Now, after a careful examination, 
 observe the visitor's cheerful eye anticipating his mouth in the 
 announcement of the departure of all danger : and watch the 
 silent, but how expressive gratitude of a whole family ! Surely 
 the power thus to ease the overstrained heart is one of the most 
 delightful possessions that man can have. Dr. Flynn, I will 
 say no more than that I sincerely trust your future career will 
 be as creditable as your past, that your success in your pro- 
 fession will be commensurate to your merits, and that you 
 may often enjoy the heartfelt gratification which I have just 
 endeavoured to describe. 
 
 As for you, gentlemen, who have this day been created 
 Mental and Bachelors of Arts, I have to call your attention 
 moral improve- to the fact that your Degree is, in the phrase- 
 "^®"*' <^logy of the middle ages, an imperfect one. 
 
 Honorable as it is, you must regard it merely as the public 
 acknowledgment of your having entered the outer court of 
 the temple of knowledge, and not that you have penetrated 
 into the inner chambers. At Oxford and Cambridge, and I 
 believe at some other European Universities, Bachelors of 
 Arts occupy a somewhat anomalous position : strictly speaking, 
 they are, as it is termed^ '^ in statu pupillari," i.e., they still 
 
University of Madras. 
 
 hold the rank of pupils. However, as in their examination, 
 those of them who have obtained places in the honor classes, 
 have exhausted the subjects entering into the academic curri- 
 culum, they are subjected to no after-test in Arts for the attain- 
 ment of the higher degree. Such is not the case in our Indian 
 Universities, and in my humble opinion we have reason to 
 rejoice at the circumstance. Each degree with us will represent 
 an intelligible fact, the exhibition of a certain amount of 
 knowledge. But, it is not to this consideration I wish to direct 
 your minds so much as to the conclusion that, if the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts be held an imperfect one in Europe, where it 
 may and often does represent the acquisition of a very wide 
 circle of knowledge, much more must it possess that char- 
 acter here, where it indicates a comparatively contracted 
 circle. Hence it is incumbent upon you to look forward, 
 and with your eyes set on the wide field lying open 
 before you, to put your hand to the plough in an earnest 
 and determined spirit, glancing at the furrows already traced 
 only to gain courage for additional exertions ; thus using 
 the past simply as a stimulus to the future, and not permitting 
 yourselves to subside into indolence, delusively fancying that 
 enough has already been accomplished. That such may be 
 your course, and that some years hence you may again come 
 forward to claim from the University still higher honors than 
 those that have been conferred upon you to-day, is, you may be 
 assured, the earnest desire of the Right Hon^ble the Chancellor, 
 and of all the members of this Senate. That you will have great 
 difficulties to contend against in carrying your studies to the 
 point requisite to secure a higher degree, — is undoubted ; no 
 regular sources of assistance lie open to you, such as are at the 
 command of students in the different countries of Europe ; you 
 will have to rely almost entirely upon your own industry and 
 ability, without possessing the great advantage of pursuing a 
 daily career of study, under teachers specially devoted to the 
 work of smoothing your path, of testing your progress, of shap- 
 ing and correcting your views, and of stimulating you when 
 your efforts flag, now by a word of kindly encouragement, and 
 now by a warning sentence. But if your difiiculties will be 
 great, equally great will be your merit if successful ; even failure 
 under these circumstances may well be honorable : and what a 
 beneficial influence upon your character must manly, self-relying 
 course of study produce ! How many virtues must necessarily 
 be developed by pursuing such a career! Surely, when j^ou 
 reflect, you cannot but feel that the real reward of a true stu- 
 dent's labour is not the admission to a degree, is not the recog- 
 
1859.— Mr. E. B. Powell. 
 
 nition of his success by his countrymen, but is the mental and 
 moral improvement that takes place within him. 
 
 There is one point more on which I wish to say a few words. 
 
 You are perhaps acquainted with the sketch of 
 teSingothew! ^^® ^^®^^ ^* Oxenford in the Prologue to the 
 
 Canterbury I'ales. After a graphic description of 
 the Clerk's personal appearance, and a brief notice of his limited 
 pecuniary success in life, which Chaucer explains by the follow- 
 ing reference to his tastes, — 
 
 For him was lever have at his beddesheed 
 Twenty books, clothed in black and reed, 
 Of Aristotil, and of his philosophie, 
 Than robus riche, or fithul or sawtrie, 
 But although he were a philosophre, 
 Yet hadde he but litul gold in cofre. 
 
 The Father of English Poetry gives his last touch to the por- 
 trait in the line, 
 
 And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. 
 
 That a student should '^ gladly lerne '* is no more than every 
 one would expect : but does a scholar always feel that his charac- 
 ter is defective unless it can be said of him that he is also glad 
 to " teche ?" Irrespective of times and circumstances, it may be 
 asserted that an individual should be ready and even anxious to 
 communicate to others the knowledge which he has himself 
 acquired. But if such, as a general rule, be the duty of every 
 educated man, how much more is it your duty Co assist in spreading 
 enlightenment among the population of the Madras Presidency ' 
 We all feel how odious a character he possesses, who, having his 
 granaries full of corn, looks with an unpitying eye on his starv- 
 ing countrymen. Be assured, he who has imbibed knowledge 
 himself, and feels its powerful influence in the juster appre- 
 ciation of all events which his cultivated intellect bestows upon 
 him, in the more elevated moral standard, that is the natural 
 accompaniment of judicious training, and in the additional sources 
 of happiness which are opened up to him, cannot refrain from 
 endeavouring to impart these blessings to others without com- 
 mitting a gross dereliction of duty, and placing himself on a 
 level with the selfish hoarder of grain, who thinks only of his 
 own necessities. The most direct mode of assisting to dispel the 
 ignorance and the concomitant prejudices which unhappily pre- 
 vail to so great an extent in this country, is to become Teachers. 
 The profession of a schoolmaster is that which has been adopted 
 by the most successful* of this year's Bachelors, and I trust 
 
 * The late Mr. T. Gopal Rau, afterwards a Fellow gi the University. 
 
8 University of Madras. 
 
 others of your number, as well as of those who may follow in 
 your steps year after year,, will embrace the same profession, and 
 distinguish themselves as much in the imparting of knowledge 
 as in its acquisition. Of those however who graduate in Arts, 
 the probability is only a comparatively limited number will seek 
 a livelihood by teaching ; the majority will, it is likely, enter 
 other walks of life. These last must recollect that it may lie 
 within their power to contribute to the improvement of their 
 countrymen quite as much or even more than if they were pro- 
 fessed instructors. In the revenue and judicial branches of the 
 Government service, as pleaders, as medical men, as merchants, 
 as landed proprietors, it may fall to their lot to possess far 
 greater influence than would belong to a mere schoolmaster, and 
 many of the prejudices and evils existing among tlie Native 
 community can be attacked with effect only by distinguished 
 members of that community, acting in their several social circles. 
 Let each educated Native, then, regard himself as a Teacher, 
 either directly or indirectly, of his less fortunate countrymen. 
 As he meets with success in his path of life, and his sphere of 
 influence consequently widens, let him exert himself the more 
 strenuously to secure to others the advantages which have 
 placed him in the position he occupies. And, above all, let him 
 keep guard over his own conduct, that those around him may 
 learn to attach additional weight to the measures he recommends, 
 from seeing how beneficial his education has been in forming an 
 energetic, intelligent, and honorable member of society. 
 
 THIRD CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By J. D. Maynb, Esq., B.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — I feel peculiar pleasure in being chosen to 
 address you on this occasion, since I have been personally 
 acquainted with almost all of you, ever since my arrival in this 
 country. In my capacity as teacher, I have had the opportunity 
 of watching your progress in various branches of study; and as 
 few can be better acquainted with the zeal and energy which 
 you have displayed, so I am sure that none can more sincerely 
 and heartily congratulate you upon the success which you have 
 won. And it is no empty compliment when I speak of this 
 The Degree Degi*ee as a success. In England the mere Degree 
 of Bachelor of of Bachelor of Arts has been so eclipsed by the 
 ■^^^^- Honor Examinations, that it has become little 
 
 more than a matter of form, and as it may be attained with 
 very slight merit, so its attainment carries very little weight. 
 
I860.— Mr, J. D. Mayne. 9 
 
 Here the reverse is the case. It has been wisely considered 
 that an infant University, like that of Madras, which has 
 still got its name to make, should commence by only acknow- 
 ledging realmerit. It has been determined that as far as can 
 be, her stamp should only be impressed upon sterling gold, and 
 not upon tinsel or pinchbeck. And accordingly the Examina- 
 tion for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts has designedly been 
 made very arduous both from the number of subjects, and from 
 the high standard of answering required. It is the unanimous 
 opinion of the Examiners that it is fully as difficult to obtain a 
 first rank among the Bachelors of Arts in Madras, as to obtain a 
 second Honor in England, and those who receive the diploma of 
 this University will go forth into the world, stamped as the 
 possessors of knowledge far more extensive and accurate than 
 would be evinced by the acquisition of a similar diploma at home. 
 
 But, gentlemen, while I congratulate you upon this high 
 Success in distinction, I must still, ungracious as it may 
 school and sue- appear, warn you against assuming that this 
 cess m after-life, guccess will ensure a similar measure of success 
 through life. I know it is common enough to tell those 
 who have gained prizes as students, that the same qualities 
 which placed them before their fellows in early life, will procure 
 them equal prominence in their after-career. This is partly 
 true, but it is not the whole truth. It is partly true, for in- 
 dustry and talent will always bear a market value ; but it is not 
 the whole truth, otherwise we should not see so many instances of 
 clever school boys and brilliant University men who turn out utter 
 failures in after-life. Every one who has watched the career of 
 their own contemporaries, will know how often this happens. I 
 believe the fact to be, that distinguished success in practical life 
 calls for qualities, mental and moral, which you have not been 
 required to display as students, and that it is upon the posses- 
 sion and exertion of these qualities that it depends, whether 
 you will ever emerge from the rank of respectable mediocrity. 
 Not only is this so, but there are habits of mind engendered by 
 a long course of study which are in themselves unfavourable to 
 active exertion in real life. It is only in proportion as you guard 
 against the one and develop the other, that you will maintain your 
 present position in after-years. 
 
 I have seen it remarked, I forget by whom, that reading 
 
 Why some men ^^ often Only a form of indolence, where we study 
 
 of great learn- what others liave thought, in order to save the 
 
 ingtail. trouble of thinking for ourselves. Now this is 
 
 a form of indolence into which successful students are very 
 
10 University of Madras, 
 
 apt to fall. As long as you are learners, reading is the end. 
 When you come to be doers, reading is only the means. Hitherto 
 your success has depended upon the extent to which you 
 could remember what others have written. Henceforward your 
 success will depend upon the extent to which you can apply it. 
 Knowledge is like good food. It is always pleasant, but it will 
 only make you able to work if you digest and assimilate it. Before 
 it can be of any service to you, you must have made it your 
 own, and learnt how to employ it. And this is the reason that men 
 of great learning are often beaten, even in their own pursuits, 
 by others of inferior acquisitions. The man who has only one 
 weapon whicb he can use, will always conquer the man who has a 
 dozen which, lie cannot use. And therefore I would warn you 
 against trying to keep up your knowledge on too diffuse a scale. 
 There have been men, like Pascal, Voltaire, Lord Brougham, and 
 Lord Macaulay, who seemed capable of grasping and using every 
 species of learning. But such, men are rare, and you can hardly 
 expect to be of the number. Select that knowledge which will be 
 of use to you, and make accuracy in that your first object. Take 
 care not to be brilliant smatterers, just sufficiently acquainted with 
 every subject to make mistakes in it.' Hitherto your education has 
 been intended to fit you for every path of life, but you can only 
 travel along one. Make up your minds which, that one is to be, 
 and then sedulously collect every scrap of information which will 
 fit you for it. Do not be content with reading, or even witli 
 remembering what you read, but think it into shape ; so that 
 when an emergency arrives, you may be found with principles of 
 action, and not merely with a chaos of facts at your command. 
 
 But, gentlemen, a mere knowledge of principles is not sufficient 
 Combine ex- witiout that skill in their application which is 
 perience with only to be acquired by experience. The daily 
 knowledge. problem of real life is how to produce some effect. 
 
 For that purpose you require not only an acquaintance with the 
 principle, but also with the subject-matter to which it is to be 
 applied. The former can be obtained from books, the latter only 
 from experience. You can acquire the theory of swimming to 
 perfection, without seeing more water than would fill a basin. 
 But if you were to rely solely upon this, you would be drowned 
 the very first time you ventured out of your depth. And so it is 
 in every profession. A Medical student may be acquainted with 
 the use of every drug in the Pharmacopoeia. He may be perfect 
 in describing the symptoms of every disease ; but the first time he 
 is taken to a sick bed, and told to ascertain from the languid eye, 
 the feeble pulse and incoherent answers of the patient what his 
 
I860.— ifr. J. D. Mayne. 11 
 
 illness is, the chances are a hundred to one that he goes wrong. 
 The point in which the student is excelled by the great master of 
 liis art, consists not in a superior knowledge of anything that may 
 be learnt out of books, but in the intuitive skill with which that 
 knowledge is adapted to new states of facts. This can only be 
 acquired by patient study of the realities of life. And I tell you 
 this not to discourage you, but to show you that you must not con- 
 sider your education complete though you have mastered, every- 
 thing that can be found in books : that you must summon up your 
 energies for new, and at first, very disheartening labours, and must 
 try to evolve mental qualities, of whose very existence you are as 
 yet almost unconscious. Reading can only give one-half of your 
 education. The remainder must be acquired by practice; and 
 it is well that you should know this, as it will serve both to check 
 that excessive confidence, which is always felt at first by a clever 
 youth overflowing with book knowledge and to soften the dis- 
 appointment and sense of failure which he will always experience, 
 when he first comes into competition with the trained intellect 
 of an experienced man. 
 
 But mental qualities alone are not sufiicient without the 
 moral qualities which give them stability and direc- 
 Ciiltivafce the Hqji, All your talent, and learning and industry 
 or. "' will be worthless, unless you can be trusted. And 
 
 therefore I implore you first of all, and above 
 all, to cultivate that principle of honor, without which all your 
 intellectual powers will only be a snare to yourselves, and a 
 source of danger to others. The more eminent you are in other 
 respects, the greater will be your temptation in this, for you 
 will be capable of being of more service to others who may wish 
 to twist you to their own bad ends. Gentlemen, there is nothing 
 so easy to preserve as your honor, as long as it is jealously 
 watched. There is nothing so impossible to regain, if it is once 
 lost or tainted. And therefore I would earnestly entreat you to 
 guard against the first slight deviation from strict integrity, 
 the first prevarication, which will inevitably have to be backed 
 up by a lie — the first dishonest gain, which will be renewed till 
 you become hopelessly corrupt. The dishonest man does a three- 
 fold injury. He injures himself, and he injures the person whom 
 he defrauds, and he injures every other honest man, by weaken- 
 ing that confidence which we are naturally disposed to place in 
 the integrity of others. And while you are strength- 
 llesultof hon- eninsf yourselves in the resolve to be honorable, let 
 
 esty and reason ° "^ • x j. i • i-t j. j.-i'± ■ 
 
 for honesty. me warn you against taking that utilitarian maxim 
 that " Honesty is the best policy," as an accurate 
 
i2 University of Madras. 
 
 compendium of ethics. It is a very true maxim, if you do not 
 confound the result of honesty with the reason for honesty. 
 Honesty is the best policy^ but the man who is honest because 
 it is politic, will be apt to reverse the maxim, and to think that 
 what he fancies to be most politic is honest. The man who does 
 this is lost. He is exchanging a star which is certain to guide 
 him safely, for an ignis fatuus which will lure him to destruc- 
 tion. We are seldom mistaken in what is honest, but we are 
 very apt to be mistaken in what is politic, and we are quite 
 certain to consider that course to be politic, to which our in- 
 clinations lead us at the time. Be honest because it is right, 
 and you will find the policy following, perhaps in a manner which 
 you never looked for. You may not be rewarded by places or 
 rupees, you may even be considered by your associates to have 
 been merely scrupulous fools, but you will reap your reward in 
 that self-respect and contentment, which, always follows upon a 
 consciousness of having done your duty, which places and rupees 
 can never bestow, and the want of which places and rupees 
 can never supply. 
 
 Gentlemen, these are trite truths, and I wish they were so 
 fully recognised and acted upon in this country, as 
 'fh^ ^^jl\^s to render it a waste of time for me to dwell upon 
 of India. them. But unfortunately it is not so. Many and 
 
 brilliant exceptions there have been, but as a 
 general rule, the natives of India have still to earn a charac- 
 ter for integrity and truth. And, however it may suit the 
 policy of those who wish to flatter you, to conceal it, the fact 
 still remains, that it is this failing chiefly which has kept you 
 back, and which, so long as it exists, will keep you back from 
 the place wbich you ought to occupy as a nation. 
 
 I trust that a brighter era is now dawning. The night is 
 now past, and I hope that a glorious day is at hand. 
 
 ties?fS^^et ^^^^ *^^^ ^^y ™^y ^^' mainly depends upon you, 
 and those who are now being educated like you 
 in this country. It is a solemn reflection, that at regular 
 intervals the world is given over into a fresh set of hands. The 
 school-boys of this generation are the masters of the next, and 
 the fathers of that which is to follow — and then they have to 
 answer to futurity for the way in which they have discharged 
 their trust. G-entlemen, your turn comes next. Are you pre- 
 pared to undertake it ? From the position you have won, as 
 possessors of wide attainments in a country where such at- 
 tainments are rare, you will have great advantages, but you 
 will have equally great responsibilities. In your persons, the 
 
' lS6l,—Rev. A. tt. Symonds. 13 
 
 cause of education is on its trial. I have often heard it said, 
 that education in India is a perilous experiment. I believe it to 
 be u either a peril nor an experiment. I believe that it is our 
 duty to spread education as widely as we can, and I believe that 
 whatever is inherently right, must be more certain and more 
 safe than any other course that can be pursued. &it these 
 truths are not established at once, and it depends upon you 
 whether the proof shall be .speedy or slow. You will go into 
 the world as the heralds of a new system. Take care that you 
 do not disgrace it. You will find every one willing to receive 
 you and trust you as something better than those whom they 
 have known. But if they find that you are no better, then they 
 will never trust your race again. I appeal to you, not merely as 
 individuals who have to make }'Our own way in life, but as 
 patriots who are going forth under new banners, to a new fight, 
 to rescue their country from that w^orst of slavery, moral degrada- 
 tion. You have the noblest opportunities before you which I 
 believe were ever offered to the natives of this country. Every- 
 thing is open to you if you will only prove yourselves fit for it. 
 Will you show yourselves worthy of the occasion, or will you not ? 
 In your persons, the mass of your countrymen will be judged. 
 Will you betray them, or will you not ? I am certain that you 
 will not. I am certain that you, as far as in you lies, will strive 
 to keep the hoods which you have this day received, without 
 tarnish or stain. I trust that you will be the foremost of a long 
 race of whom the University of Madras will have cause to be 
 proud, men as remarkable for their integrity as for their learn- 
 ing. I trust that you will prove that virtue knows no distinction 
 of country or colour. That India, as well as Europe, can rear 
 up her own sons to be gentlemen, without fear and without 
 reproach. 
 
 FOURTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Eev. a. E,. Symonds, M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — Under the instructions of His Excellency the 
 Chancellor of this University the duty devolves upon me of 
 addressing you on an occasion which I trust will be memorable, 
 not only as that U2)on which you attained unto a coveted dignity, 
 but as that /rom which you set out upon a career, honorable to 
 yourselves and beneficial to your fellow-men. Gentlemen, in the 
 name of all here present, I offer you my hearty congratulations 
 and best wishes upon the academic distinction which you have this 
 day received ; distinction, intended both to attest the ability and 
 diligence of those who receive it, and to stimulate others to 
 
14 University of Madras. 
 
 pursue a like course of intellectual cultivation. Having been one 
 of the examiners to test your qualifications as candidates, it has 
 been to me a special satisfaction to witness your admission to 
 your respective degrees ; and now, as a member of the Senate 
 appointed to address you as graduates, I call upon you to con- 
 sider well the position which by the virtue of these degrees, you 
 now occupy. That position is to be looked at under a twofold 
 aspect; one, bearing upon yourselves, the other, upon your 
 fellow-men. In respect of the first, the conferring 
 extSe^ce"""'^^ of these degrees pledges you to aim at all intel- 
 lectual and moral excellency ; as to the second, it 
 lays you under obligation to a course of practical usefulness. 
 Rise then, gentlemen, to the true dignity of the position to 
 which you have this day attained and recognise and fulfil the 
 responsibility it imposes. Do you ask me to define more exactly 
 wherein that dignity and responsibility consists ? I refer you 
 to the Questions which just now were proposed to you and to 
 which you severally made response. Those questions were put 
 to you by His Excellency the Chancellor in the name of this 
 University, and they were answered by you, I trust, in all 
 sincerity with a clear appreciation of their import and design. 
 Review those questions for a moment, and ponder over their 
 nature and significance. Those questions, you will observe, are 
 purely of a moral character, and in putting them, before a 
 degree was conferred upon you, the University clearly intimat- 
 ed that ifc looks not for intellectual superiority only, as the con- 
 dition of a Degree, but for moral excellence also. In the 
 ordeal to which you had been previously subjected by its duly 
 appointed examiners, the University had obtained assurance 
 that in point of learning and ability you were worthy of the 
 honour to which you aspired ; yet, before it would confer that 
 honour, it demanded and received from you a pledge of moral 
 rectitude, as men and as citizens. It asked you whether, as 
 candidates for your respective degrees, you would promise, 
 1st, to fashion your daily life and conversation as becomes the 
 members of this University ; 2nd, to support and promote, to 
 the utmost of your opportunity and ability, the cause of 
 morality and sound learning ; 3rd, to uphold and advance, as far 
 as in you lies, social order and the well-being of your fellow-men. 
 Gentlemen, these questions are of a momentous character; 
 they were solemnly put and, I doubt not, seriously 
 promSS^made^ answered. Note then, to what, by your own deliber- 
 ate act and declaration, you this day stand pledged, 
 and therein see what is your true dignity, your proper responsibility 
 as graduates of this University. You are pledged to eschew every- 
 
1861.— i?er. A, B. Symonds, 15 
 
 thing low and mean and unworthy ; you are pledged to aim at all 
 that is high and honorable and befitting ; you are pledged to use 
 your talents, learning, and influence for the repression of ignor- 
 ance and evil and for the diffusion of knowledge and virtue ; you 
 are pledged to maintain and promote the peace of the Realm and 
 obedience to the Powers that be ; and, finally, you are pledged to 
 furtherin every possible way, the best interests of your fellow-men. 
 Gentlemen, if you fully comprehend the tenor of these promises, 
 and if in good faith you have made them, then you understand the 
 dignity and appreciate the responsibility of your position. Now, 
 then, go farth on the career thus marked out before you, actuated 
 by the highest motives and braced up with manly resolution. Call 
 to mind, how of old the candidate for knightly honors, having 
 first trained himself by long continued exercises of skill and 
 strength was invested with the insignia of his Order after solemn 
 vows to defend the right, and to maintain the honour of that 
 Order untarnished. On this day, you, having passed the required 
 ordeal, having been invested with academic insignia, after giving 
 promises of a yet higher import. Grentlemen, stand by your Order 
 and maintain its honour. Regard yourselves as knights-errant 
 sent forth to do battle for the cause of Virtue and liearning. Then 
 quit you like men, be strong ; strong in principle, strong in pur- 
 pose. Fulfil your honourable vocation, and justify by your future 
 conduct the confidence which this University reposes in you by 
 granting you its diploma. Let no blot stain your escutcheon or 
 mar the credit of the body into the membership of .which you 
 have now been enrolled. Remember this, I pray you, that hence- 
 forth you are members of a Body Corporate ; the honour of which 
 is committed to your keeping. If one member suffer all the 
 members suffer with it ; if you obtain honor, it receives honor in 
 your persons ; if you incur disgrace, it sustains discredit also. 
 Bear in mind that the eyes of your fellow-men will be upon 
 you; and that the question will be asked, ^'Are these graduates 
 of the Madras University better men, abler men, more eflScient 
 men than others V Let your conduct and deportment give a 
 practical answer in the affirmative. Aim to be good, aim to be 
 useful, and so not only shall jour Alma Mater be honoured in her 
 sons and be compensated for her travail in bringing them forth, 
 but the men of your generation shall receive benefit through you, 
 and rejoice that such as you were raised up among them. 
 
 To you who have attained the degree of Bachelor o£ Arts, I 
 
 Advice to would Say more particularly that to you we look for 
 
 Bachelors of aid in the furtherance of sound learning. If ever 
 
 ^'■^^' this great Country is to be pervaded with the 
 
16 University of Math 
 
 literature of the West, it must be through the medium of edu- 
 cated Hindoos. All that we can do is to form here and there 
 certain large reserv^oirs of the waters of knowledge; but 
 you, and such as you, must be the channels to convey its 
 fertilizing streams, far and wide, over the dry and thirsty land. 
 What a noble and beneficent course lies then before you. It is 
 quite allowable that you should find gratification in the distinc- 
 tion conferred upon you this day, and that you should regale 
 yourselves in the walks of literature to which you have been 
 introduced -, but you will fall altogether short of the true object 
 of the one and of the happiness of the other, if your aims and 
 your desires terminate in self. Regarding then, your Degree 
 as the starting point of a career of distinction and usefulness yet 
 to be run, go forth upon the errand on which we now send you, 
 and learn by actual experience the luxury of doing good, how 
 much more blessed it is to give than to receive. 
 
 Upon you who have attained the degree of Bachelor of Laws, 
 Advice to "^ would impress the momentous character of the 
 Bachelors of promise specifically made by you. /You have 
 ^^^^- pledged yourselves faithfully and carefully to fulfil 
 
 the duties of your profession, on all occasions to maintain its 
 purity and reputation, and never to deviate from the straight 
 path of its honourable exercise by making your knowledge 
 subservient to unworthy ends. Act out this promise, and the 
 University will have no reason but to rejoice in any success 
 you may attain. It is well known that peculiar tempta- 
 tions assail a Lawyer, and he must be a man of strong moral 
 purpose and principle, who can put those temptations away from 
 him. To advert to one instance only in illustration. The defence 
 of a criminal may devolve upon you ; you may become aware that 
 he is guilty of the offence with which he is charged, you are not 
 bound, therefore, to abandon his defence ; on the contrary it is 
 your duty to afford him the aid which the Law recognises and 
 sanctions ; but you are bound, even though you might thereby 
 save his life, not to employ any false or unworthy artifice, such 
 as asserting your own conviction of his innocence or diverting 
 suspicion to another person. Such artifices have too often been 
 employed. The temptation to use them may be strong, but you 
 must arm yourselves with vigorous and manly principle to resist 
 it. Shun, as injurious to others and degrading to yourself, all 
 unworthy, tricky, pettifogging action, and by the purity and 
 straightforwardness of your own practice, rebuke and discoun- 
 tenance such action in others. We send 3^ou forth into the 
 arena of your profession to be champions of truth and equity 
 
1862.— JKev. E. Halley. 17 
 
 and righteousness ; and, as to the Knight of old, when the 
 Herald handed him his spear, so to you we present your diploma 
 with a charge to be valiant for the truth, — and God defend the 
 right. 
 
 Finally, gentlemen, I venture to say to you one and all, have 
 Acknowledge respect in all your doings to the Great Supreme. I 
 and Respect am aware that, on many important points, most of 
 ^°*^- you hold not the same creed with myself ; but I have 
 
 not had intercourse for so many years with intelligent Hindoos, 
 without knowing that with myself they acknowledge a God, all- 
 wise, all-powerful, all-good, knowing all things, seeing all things. 
 I appeal to you, then, as recognising a Supreme Being, and in His 
 name charge you to eschew evil, to love virtue, and to seek the 
 good of your fellow-men. For this end may strength and wisdom 
 be imparted to you ; may the study of truth lead you into all truth; 
 may the blessing which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow 
 rest abundantly upon you and your occupations. And, as the 
 morning star, having brightly shone in darkness, then disappears 
 not in darkness, but only in the still brighter effulgence of the 
 rising sun, so may you shine as lights in your generation, and at 
 the end of your course be withdrawn into the brightness of the 
 Fountain and Father of Lights, even that adorable and Great 
 Supreme, whom truly to know and faithfully to serve is present 
 peace and everlasting happiness. 
 
 FIFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Kev. R. Halley, M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — By the regulations of our University, at this 
 stage of to-day's procedure, it becomes the duty of a member of the 
 Senate to exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably unto the posi- 
 tion to which by the degree conferred upon you, you have attained. 
 This duty by order of the Vice- Chancellor devolves upon me, and 
 in the name of this University I call upon you at all times so to 
 act, that your good name may add lustre to your degrees ; that in 
 the consistency of your life, the purity of your motives, the 
 exaltation of your aims and the devotedness of your patriotism, 
 it may be seen that the cultivation of sound learning is a spring 
 of lofty action ; and that you may repay the fostering care with 
 which you have yourselves been nurtured, by continuing " to 
 support and promote the cause of morality and sound learning '' 
 in this Presidency. 
 
 3 
 
18 Unwersity of Madras. 
 
 You, as amongst tke earlier graduates of this University, 
 will doubtless have great influence upon your countrymen for good 
 or evil ; they will look to you for tke fruits of Western learning, 
 and by your lives will they judge of its results. Your literary 
 exertions have been rewarded this day by your admission to a 
 University degree, but remember that with this new position 
 you have incurred new responsibilities — not only in the promise 
 and declaration you have made, but in the fact that you have 
 received, as a trust, the setting forth before the world's eye in 
 your own persons the advantages of a liberal education. 
 
 In times gone by the treasures of the East were carried 
 towards the West in so great profusion that 
 vS^offeS.^' Eastern wealth became proverbial ; but as the 
 merchant sends forth his ship from port laden 
 with a rich cargo, in faith that she shall cross the seas and 
 traverse them again and enter once more the port bringing 
 higher freight to repay him for his lengthened waiting, so now 
 the day has come, when, your waiting being ended, your vessel 
 has returned to port, and the treasures of the West are laid at 
 your feet. We offer to you, as we think, a literature unsurpass- 
 ed in the world's history for extent, variety, and elevated thought; 
 science, mental, moral and physical, true, because it is derived 
 from a careful induction of facts and phenomena, subjective 
 and objective, and is not the crude invention of mere theorists ; 
 art, refined and elevated, because it is the truthful expression 
 of conceptions gained from nature, rather than the grotesque 
 fancies of a distorted imagination. This is our merchandise ; 
 your position here to-day bears witness that you have tested 
 its value, and we call upon you still to buy the truth and sell 
 it not. 
 
 I say the truth rather than knowledge, for knowledge is 
 but the instrument, truth is the object to be sought. It is not 
 enough to know the theories of men ; you must carefully test 
 them and examine for yourselves, separating the wheaten grain 
 of truth from the chaff of doubtful speculations. You must 
 try and gain something worth believing and cherishing, some- 
 thing that you can weave into the texture of your own mental 
 being, and something that you can hold by in practice, as a 
 guide in action — a power within you. 
 
 The title you now assume suggests a figure. Borrowed 
 from chivalry, it speaks to you of loyalty and 
 The title— a j^onour. You are the bachelors, you have come 
 to the age of manhood, and, after refined investi- 
 gation, have been deemed worthy, and have been this day 
 
1862.— iiev. jft. Halley. W 
 
 invested with manly arms. You have yet to win in the field 
 the full honours of the Kuight banneret, but now you are 
 no longer squires, as knights you must conduct yourselves. 
 Go forth to the tournament, let knowledge be your spear, 
 but let truth be your mistress — she sits, the Queen of the Fair, 
 to watch the day, and from her hands shall you receive the 
 prize of the valiant. Weai'ing her favours, what a motive to 
 the knightly virtues ! And the first of them is loyalty. Be 
 loyal to her whom you have chosen, for her do battle, whoever 
 may oppose — whatever your object, you cannot deprave the 
 truth. 
 
 Arrayed in the lists are the champions of Error — she pre- 
 Antiquity the sumes to sit in rivalry with Truth — she ! with her 
 champion ' of brazen face, shaking her gaudy ribbons ! And 
 error. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ champions ? There is grey-haired 
 
 Antiquity, who in many lists has unhorsed the champions of 
 Truth; whilst he deals his hardest blows, he will recount for 
 your dismay his victories of old, and if the battle goes hard with 
 him, he will cease his vauntings, and will appeal to your knightly 
 magnanimity, reminding you that he was the friend of your 
 fathers. Spare him if he will leave the lists, but so long as he 
 is in arms for her rival, you must not, you dare not be disloyal 
 to the Truth. He may taunt you as striplings, he may ridicule 
 your mistress, he may laugh at your juvenile enthusiasm ; but the 
 day is yours, if you are stout of heart — before your weapon, 
 knowledge, he cannot stand- 
 
 But side by side with Antiquity, yet strangely contrasted, are 
 champions of Error, your equals in years. They 
 pi(S!s^of ErroT ^^® ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Pride, dubbed knights on the same 
 day with yourselves, they have grown up in your 
 company, and will prove loyal to error, as long as you leave them 
 unslain. Unhorse them to-day, they will utter their defiance to- 
 morrow; with them it must be war to the death. They are Crude 
 Speculation, Juvenile Conceit, Dogmatism and Presumption. 
 They hate the Truth with utter hatred, for they have tested her 
 scorn. They would have sworn themselves hers, but she rejected 
 them with disdain. And now they have taken their place as 
 Error's knights-bachelors. Their sinister countenances are well- 
 concealed, as in full armour they stand, fair to the eye of the 
 inexperienced. With dazzling- brilliance they advance, their 
 plumes are bright, their devices gay, their lances sparkle in the 
 sun; but though stalwart their form and gallant their bearing, 
 make no friendship with them ; they are sons of Pride, and like 
 their father, they hate the truth, they have embittered hearts ; 
 
20 University of Madras. 
 
 slay them outriglit, or they will never cease troubling you; 
 yield to them but a foot and you wound and grieve the Truth. 
 But I cannot describe all the champions of Error, they stand 
 opposed, you can see them well, Custom, Influence, Profit and a 
 host less known, all range themselves on Error's side. 
 
 But Truth calls on you to join her followers and to take up 
 arms in company with Sobriety of Thought, Care- 
 Tmth.^''^''^ ^^ fulness of Investigation, Simplicity, Humility, 
 Docility and Yirtue, to show your loyalty and love 
 for her. She claims your affection, as well as your arms ; she 
 must be mistress of the heart, as well as of the hand. If there 
 be not love towards her in the heart, you but insult her when 
 you take up her colours, and your wages shall be her scorn. 
 
 But if valour and loyalty for the Truth are the first of the 
 knightly virtues, assuredly they are not all. I 
 ®^^' remind you that the next of them is Courtesy. If 
 
 combat must be — if Truth's good name and Truth's wide sway 
 can only be maintained by constant fighting, still towards even 
 your bitterest foe, you must not forget that courtesy is demanded 
 of one of your degree ; you cannot descend into menials' hall 
 and join in the squabbles of the retainers. With dignity and 
 courtesy you must lead your own, choosing only to answer to the 
 challenge of knights ; and though you deal hard blows, you 
 must neither trample on a wounded foe, nor forget the respect 
 which is due to a worthy opponent. But out of the battle-field 
 or of the tournament, to all you must exercise chivalrous courtesy, 
 bearing yourselves as true knights with deference to your 
 elders, with respect to your equals, with good-will and kindness 
 towards the younger. And the courtesy of the true knight 
 called forth his valour not only for his mistress, but to aid any 
 who were in danger. So must it be yours, though Truth be 
 your mistress, to step forward and save from harm, when any of 
 the fair are in danger in your presence. 
 
 You must never shrink from breaking a lance in behalf of 
 Patience, and Temperance and Charity, and Purity, 
 
 tue?.*^' ^"' ^^^ Philanthropy. If these be wounded or injured 
 before your eyes, much more if their trust be from 
 
 yourselves. Truth will be shamed, for you will lack the courtesy 
 
 of her knights. 
 
 But there is also required of the true bachelor, that he 
 
 should show munijiGence. This virtue you are 
 
 oenoe. called upon to exercise. With knowledge as your 
 
 weapon^ you wiil spoil many foes ; yet your gains must not be 
 
1862.—JB(m;. B. Halley, 21 
 
 wholly for yourselves. You must help to scatter, with a 
 profuse hand, the intellectual wealth you have won. You must 
 not take the miser for your pattern, who hoards and never 
 scatters, nor must it be sufficient for you to keep your retainers 
 in comfort and the destitute from starvation ; of your wealth you 
 must scatter to the good and to the evil, denying yourselves 
 that others may abound. 
 
 Last, but not least, of the knightly virtue, was Justice. 
 Without this no knight could be complete, he must 
 hate a wrong, and love the right, and defend 
 only that which was just. There are amongst you those who 
 have armed yourselves with law, as your weapon. You are 
 champions of Truth and must not forget the virtue of Justice; 
 without it you are no true knights. Let the true knight only 
 wield so dangerous a weapon. Rightly are those who take it in 
 their hands, more narrowly watched, and more severely judged 
 than others, if in the smallest degree they forget their honor. A 
 chosen band of knighthood, admitted by a special initiation, 
 their honor is their best possession. One mean device, one 
 coward^s trick, one unfair blow, and the whole brotherhood of 
 these Knights Templars is disgraced. They live to battle with 
 oppression and with wrong. 
 
 Recreant knights will you be ; ten times scorned in the 
 halls of your special brotherhood, if you use your weapon to give 
 triumph to wrong doing; if you wield the sharp edge of the law, to 
 obtain for yourselves, advantages which are not yours of right, — - 
 or if for base gain, as a hireling freebooter, you seek for others, 
 possessions to which they are not entitled. Truth calls to you 
 as her champions, guard your honor unsullied in its purity ; but 
 especially exercise justice. Truth needs your aid. It is yours to 
 cleave the black armour, within which chicanery and perjury 
 and treachery have encased themselves. It is yours to strip them 
 of their false devices and on the dunghill of their lying inven- 
 tions, to strike off the spurs of these false and base born knights. 
 
 Knights Bachelors, you are invested this day, brace your- 
 selves for the conflict, the lists are ready, the champions of Error 
 have sounded the defiance, I call upon you to go forth as true 
 Knights, endowed with valour and loyalty and courtesy, and muni- 
 ficence and justice. Give them a fall on behalf of your mistress, 
 fear not their blows ; onward ! try your new armour ! try the 
 mettle of your weapons ; and as the old enemies of Truth bite 
 the dust, your victory is secured. You shall come again to the 
 spot where you obtained the favours of your mistress, and in 
 the sunshine of her smiles shall you receive the prize of the 
 
22 Unwersity of Madras » 
 
 conqueror. As the din of the martial music is heard through the 
 field, and there is sounded and resounded from the lips of the 
 minstrels — " Honor to the Sons of the Brave ! '' 
 
 SIXTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By J. Br^cb Norton^ Esq., B.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — You have this day finished your general edu- 
 cation. The University to which you belong has stamped you 
 with the seal of her approval, and sends you forth into the world 
 valued and accredited with the honor of her degrees. But you 
 would fall into a grievous error if you should suppose, and into 
 a still greater if you acted upon that supposition, that you have 
 now completed your education, and that henceforth you have 
 only to discharge the duties of such offices as you may chance to 
 occupy. Life is one long school,, and the education of every man 
 only closes with his dying day. 
 
 The objects of your general education have, I trust, been 
 Objects of attained ; that is to say, that you have become the 
 general educa- masters of uo inconsiderable mass of substantive 
 *^o^- information; that you have acquired habits of 
 
 labour, order, and reflexion ; that your minds have become 
 practised instruments for judging accurately and dispassionately 
 on such subjects as may hereafter be submitted to you ; and, 
 above all, that you are imbued with sound principles of honour- 
 able and moral conduct. 
 
 So far from your education being finished, your special edu 
 cation now begins ; and remember that hitherto you have had 
 careful, anxious, painstaking, conscientious masters to watch 
 over, to guide, to instruct, and to correct you ; but that you are 
 henceforth your own teachers, and self-education has become to 
 each of you his sacred task and duty. 
 
 You may, if so disposed, carry your studies, even with 
 reference to this University, to a far higher reach ; fer it is open 
 to you to seek the degrees of Masters in Arts or Laws. The 
 higher honor is not with us a mere form, but marks a very con- 
 siderable progress in, and a much deeper knowledge of, the 
 subject-matters in which you have this day taken your several 
 degrees. 
 
 But it is rather with reference to your self-education, uncon- 
 nected with the University, that I would now 
 Self-educa- address you. And I would pray you to be on your 
 guard against the insidious approaches of vanity. 
 
I 
 
 1863.— 3fr. J. B. Norton. 23 
 
 self-suflBciency, arrogance ; charges of which have, I know, been 
 heretofore freely laid against the young educated Native. I will 
 not say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing ; for all know- 
 ledge is in itself good : but I would ask you to mark carefully 
 the great difference between the pride of knowledge and the 
 humility of wisdom. The more you learn, the more you will 
 discover you have to learn ; the more you will fathom your own 
 ignorance ; the more illimitable you will find the regions of 
 knowledge ; the more you will become diffident and modest ; the 
 greater forbearance and deference you will exercise and pay 
 towards your fellows ; the more you will be conscious of your own 
 insignificance and the vanity of all human affairs ; the more 
 you will marvel at the gTeatness and goodness of that universal 
 Providence which ordereth all things for good, even when to 
 our finite vision events may present the appearance and the 
 semblance of evil. 
 
 Labour, it has often been remarked, makes the difference 
 between man and man : and there is no doubt that 
 lei8^^^°^^ ^°^^ honest regular plodding does almost invariably 
 lead to a certain success in life. But as Lord Bacon 
 says : '^ The most active or busy man that hath been, or can 
 be, hath no question many vacant times of leisure, while he 
 expecteth the tides and the returns of business (except he be 
 either tedious and of no dispatch, or lightly and unworthily 
 ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by 
 others) and then the question is, but how these spaces and 
 times of leisure shall be filled and spent : whether on pleasure or 
 in studies *' : and I believe that ultimate and real success of a 
 nature worth the having, and the formation of a truly great and 
 estimable character depend chiefly upon the way in which those 
 interstices of leisure are employed. Mental relaxation, bodily 
 exercise are necessary to all men ; they are essential to the cheer- 
 ful and efl&cient performance of our daily duties : but let me 
 caution you not to throw away these opportunities of leisure, the 
 only ones you will have left, in idleness or folly, for I will not 
 • stoop to add, vice. It is by inculcating the habit of improving 
 your leisure, that you will promote your self- education : and this 
 is all the more indispensable ; because all special occupations have 
 a tendency to narrow, however they may sharpen, the intellect. 
 If we are ever poring over the same page, the sphere of vision 
 is bounded by the four corners of our book ; if we will never lift 
 our eyes, we may shut out even the glories of Nature and the 
 light of Heaven, until we come insensibly to forget them. It 
 is absolutely necessary therefore for every man immersed in 
 
24 University of Madras, 
 
 business, to keep his mind open and enlarged, if he would escape 
 the reproach of havingsunk into a mere drudge; if hehopestohold 
 his place in cultivated society ; if he aspires to achieve aught for 
 his own fame, for the benefit of his own countrymen, or of man- 
 kind at large. Thus it is, that you will be ever advancing on the 
 path of self-education, making yourselves practi- 
 self-?dueation!* ^^^^J ^°^® useful in your professions, more agree- 
 able members of the society in which you move ; 
 better citizens of the State you serve ; and at the same time be 
 laying up for the autumn and winter of old age, a store of 
 pleasing recollections and associations, which will form one of 
 your best solaces, when the body becomes too enfeebled for 
 further work, and the mind too dull for fresh exercitation and 
 adventure. 
 
 As you will thus educate yourselves, so we expect you to be 
 Further the uiindf ul of your duty in forwarding the education 
 education of of others. You may not be able to do much ; 
 others. some may have it in their power to do more 
 
 than others ; but if you are well satisfied of the pleasures 
 and the profits of knowledge in your own case, you ought to 
 seek to impart the same benefits to your fellows. Every educated 
 man who like you has been stamped by the University, may become 
 the centre of a fresh circle of educational activity and action. 
 The scholar who studies merely for himself, pursues but a selfish 
 aim, scarcely worthy even of praise or of approval : nay, it may 
 be that he is but unconsciously wasting his invaluable, irrevoca- 
 ble time in another form of laborious idleness. He is like a 
 fountain, the waters of which fall back unproductive into the 
 basin of its own reservoir ; while the scholar who labours for 
 his fellow-men is like an abounding river, which gladdens and 
 fertilizes the country through which it runs. The one at best is 
 but as a star upon a cloudy night : it shines, but in privacy ; 
 and so far as this world is concerned, with ineffectual fire ; the 
 other is as the universal Sun, seen and felt through the clear 
 atmosphere at midday, giving out light and warmth to all 
 mankind. 
 
 And now a word to those who have failed in obtaining their 
 degrees. Disappointment is natural and unavoidable ; but there 
 is no reason why any unsuccessful candidate should give way to 
 despondency. The very effort to attain success has necessarily 
 been productive of good to him : and so far from discouraging 
 or blaming those who have failed, we sympathize with them ; 
 and the Examiners will, no doubt, readily admit that the great 
 majority of candidates who have failed, are nevertheless entitled 
 
1863.— Mr. J. B. Norton. 25 
 
 to no mean praise. We bid you press on and repeat the fight ; 
 seek to strengthen the weak places, and to supply the deficiencies 
 which the results of your examination have pointed out, and 
 renew another year, with fresh hope, and more enlarged know- 
 ledge, the struggle for a degree. 
 
 To those who have been unsuccessful candidates for a degree 
 in Law, we admit that the presence at the Mofussil Bar of even 
 such candidates as have failed this year, would effect an improve- 
 ment in the order of Pleaders. We do not under-estimate the 
 great importance of throwing practitioners with more legal 
 acquirements and more general education into the ranks of our 
 Provincial Pleaders ; but as Examiners and members of the 
 Senate, we have felt that even that object ought to be sacrificed 
 to the paramount expediency of not lowering the standard or 
 the value of the degree of Bachelor of Law. 
 
 The Bachelors of Law must remember that they have taken 
 upon themselves heavy responsibilities. The Ad- 
 tie^o^LaS^lra. vocate not only holds himself out as of ability 
 to protect his client^s interests by advice and 
 advocacy, but it is in no small degree to the Advocates who 
 are Bachelors of Laws, that the State and the Profession must 
 look for the elevation of the character of the Native Bar, and 
 that better administration of public justice, which is one of the 
 most important consequences of such an elevation. 
 
 Let every Advocate set his face against, strive with all his 
 might and main against, the hydra-headed crime of perjury. 
 
 I am far from imputing to every individual Native a want 
 of truthfulness in all his ordinary dealings with his fellow-men. 
 We know too little of Native society to justify any so sweeping 
 conclusion ; and indeed, society could not hold together under 
 such conditions. Truth, as Bentham has well remarked, is easier 
 and more natural to man than falsehood. 
 
 I believe that the success that attended perjury before the 
 East India Company^s Courts of Justice has fos- 
 yi^^vo^^"^^ tered its growth, and there is not wanting plenty 
 of high reliable English authority for asserting, 
 that the simplicity and truthfulness of Native character has 
 degenerated in consequence of the introduction of our tribunals 
 and institutions. But whatever the cause, the fact remains, that 
 the records of our Courts of Justice contain little better than 
 one long catalogue of forgery and perjury. 
 
 It is to education that we must look for the final eradication 
 4 
 
26 University of Madras. 
 
 of these criraes : but in the meanwhile much may be done by 
 strengthening the Judicial Bench ; by insisting on its occupants 
 being qualified by previous methodical legal training, to grapple 
 with the enormous difficulties which systematic perjury undoubt- 
 edly throws in their path ; by taking care that the detection of 
 the crime shall be invariably and rapidly followed by adequate 
 punishment ; and last not least, by the resolution of the Provin- 
 cial Bar, never to tolerate in their clients any recourse to such 
 vile acts as forgery, perjury, subornation of perjury, for. obtain- 
 ing a favourable decree. 
 
 Most earnestly we invite and call upon all Bachelors of Law 
 to ponder well upon the duties of an Advocate. 
 Advocate °* ^ Entitled as the Advocate is to a fair remuneration 
 for his services, he should never let the acquisition 
 of wealth be the main end or object of his actions. He should 
 seek to compose and to restrain, not to foment and foster, 
 the evil passions of those who consult him. His first duty 
 to his client is, if possible, to save him from litigation. If that 
 be impossible, then to stand fearlessly and faithfully by him from 
 first to last. In order that he may conscientiously discharge his 
 duty, the Advocate must know what the substantive law is, and 
 what its shifting forms require ; and hence he can never safely 
 relax his course of legal studies. His eagerness for his client's 
 cause must never lead him into any measure that is dishonest or 
 dishonorable : should a client venture to suggest such measures, 
 the Advocate may justly spurn hira from his door. He is never 
 to seek to mislead or to puzzle the Court. He is there to aid, not 
 to embarrass the Judge ; he must never mis-state a fact ; and 
 always base his arguments upon and confine them to the facts as 
 they stand proved by the evidence. The relations between Judge 
 and Counsel in a properly constituted Court, should be those of 
 mutual reliance and esteem. There should neither be arrogance 
 on the one hand, nor subservience on the other. The observation 
 of a due deference to the Bench is perfectly compatible with 
 the vindication of entire freedom of speech by the Bar; and 
 while the Advocate pays all proper respect to the Bench, he 
 should never forget, nor suffer to be forgotten, the respect that 
 is due to himself. He is the champion of political liberty; he 
 may be the martyr of political power ; let him take heed that he 
 never degenerates into the demagogue leader of democratic 
 licence. Remember that he who aspires to the honors of the 
 profession, and advancement by the State, must rest his claims 
 at least as much on the worth of his moral character, as on the 
 brilliancy of his reputation for intellectual achievements. 
 
1864.— if r. E. Thom'pson. 27 
 
 And may you all, of whatsoever degree and in whatsoever 
 Preserve the faculty, never forget this ; that the University 
 honor of the has Committed her honor to the keeping of each 
 Uinversity. ,^^^ overy one of you. No one individual can 
 
 be guilty of a mean or ignoble action without in some measure 
 casting a tarnish on the lustre of his University ; and it 
 may be that hereafter, if ever you should be tempted to swerve 
 from the broad straight path of honor and truth and duty, 
 the recollection of this fact, even if you had no higher or ' better 
 angel to turn to, may save you from peril in the hour of tempta- 
 tion. Temptations you must all have ; that yon may not fail 
 nor quail before them is our earnest hope. The University which 
 has accredited you with her degrees, will affectionately but 
 scrutinously watch over your careers, now that she sends you 
 forth from the calm halls of academic learning into the fierce 
 struggle of the real battle of life. Her interest in you does not 
 now cease ; it has only commenced : for your association with 
 the University dates from this day : she will hear, from time to 
 time, with pride and pleasure of your success ; and she bids you, 
 through me, one and all, ride on in honor and prosperity. 
 
 SEVENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By E. Thompson, Esq., M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — Having been desired by the Chancellor to 
 deliver at this Convocation the customary address to the Gradu- 
 ates, I have to ask your attention for a few minutes while I attempt 
 to discharge the duty which has been assigned to me. I am un- 
 fortunate in having to follow the many able men and eloquent 
 speakers who have represented the Senate on former occasions ; 
 so much has been said and so well said on various subjects more 
 or less connected with University education, that it is difiicult to 
 say any thing new, and I shall therefore confine myself strictly to 
 the duty prescribed by the University, that of exhorting you to 
 conduct yourselves suitably to the position you have attained. 
 
 I have before me Graduates in Arts, in Law, and for the 
 first time in this University, a Graduate in Civil Engineering, 
 and it will, I think, be convenient, before making some remarks 
 common to you all, to say a few words to each of these classes 
 individually. To begin with the Graduates in 
 AdvicetoGra- Law. You have before you a most honourable 
 dilates m Law. career indeed; I can hardly imagine a more 
 important mission than the one to which you are called. 
 
^8 tJniversity of Madras. 
 
 The Native Bar and Bench have hitherto laboured under many- 
 disadvantages, and have been exposed to much unfavourable 
 criticism. Your very presence here to-day, and the signs of 
 academic distinction which you wear, prove that you have made 
 considerable progress in your legal studies, and that you are 
 bringing to the practice of your profession, knowledge and 
 ability rarely possessed by those of your fellow-countrymen who 
 have hitherto taken part in the administration of the law. Add 
 then to the knowledge which you already possess patient study 
 and careful practice, and above all, see that you add to pro- 
 fessional ability, the strictest integrity of conduct, without which 
 your career, however brilliant for the time, cannot fail to be attend- 
 ed with disgrace in the end. Recollect the promise which you 
 have just made to maintain on all occasions the purity and 
 reputation of the profession, and never to deviate from the 
 straight path of its honourable exercise. But to return to the 
 point with which I began. You know better than I can possibly 
 know the defects and shortcomings of Native Judges and Advo- 
 cates ; see that you strive to the very utmost of your power to 
 remedy these defects, to make up for these shortcomings. Recent 
 changes in the rules of the High Court have made the possession 
 of University distinctions a passport to practice in the highest 
 Courts of the country ; I trust that your conduct at the Bar, and, 
 it may be, on the Bench, will be such as to enable the framers of 
 those rules to look back upon their work with unmixed satisfaction. 
 The example of one conspicuous and deeply lamented member 
 of your community, showed how much could be effected even 
 under the old system by consistent industry, modesty, and in- 
 tegrity; the advantages and opportunities you enjoy, far exceed 
 liis j take care that they have not been bestowed upon you in vain. 
 
 The career of the Civil Engineer is not less important than 
 that of the Barrister. His labours have an im- 
 ^M^cetoEn- jj^ej^ge influence upon the happiness of mankind. 
 The want of good communications has been a 
 serious obstacle to the material progress of this country, and 
 well educated honest native officials may do much to remedy 
 this want. You will probably be called upon at no distant, 
 time to hold a responsible position in the Department of Public 
 Works, notoriously this department has suffered greatly from 
 th© gross dishonesty of subordinates and contractors ; we trust 
 that you too will bear in mind the promises you have made 
 to-day ; that you will not only prove superior to all temptation 
 to wrong doing yourself, but resolutely oppose and frustrate the 
 malpractices of others. 
 
1864.--Mr. E. Thompson. 29 
 
 To the Graduates in Arts, of course I have nothing so special 
 Donotbedis- *^ ^^Y ^^ *^ their brethren of the other Faculties, 
 heartened by but I Cannot pass on to my general remarks with- 
 iailure. ^^^ pausing to Congratulate two of their number 
 
 more especially on their present success, and dwelling for a 
 moment on the lesson which it inculcates. I have heard indeed 
 of instances in this University of 3'oung men being so disheart- 
 ened by a single failure, that they have never had the courage to 
 try again; they have felt, it seems, a morbid sense of disgrace, and 
 have not ventured to appear a second time in the Hall of Exami- 
 nation. But how much nobler it is to triumph over this feeling 
 and to resolve to make up for past ill-success by continued industry 
 and perseverance — that this determination may be crowned by 
 success in the end, you have a proof to-day, and I trust that 
 those who were unfortunate enough to fail in the recent exami- 
 nation will be animated by your success, and in their turn come 
 to be numbered among the Graduates of the University. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, addressing you all and congratulat- 
 The secret ^^^ 7^^ upon the distinctions you have attained, 
 of Englishmen's the question naturally arises. What is expected 
 success. from you? The University has tested your abilities, 
 
 has set as it were her seal upon you, and now sends you forth, 
 as sterling coin, fresh from her mint. What then does she expect 
 from you? that you will acquit yourselves like men, that you will 
 do your duty- Some unmerited praise no doubt is attributed to 
 Englishmen by themselves, and some unmerited blame perhaps 
 cast upon them by others, but this much, I think, I can assert 
 without fear of contradiction, that Englishmen are animated above 
 other nations by a pervading sense of duty ; and a glorious result 
 it will be of England's mission in the East, if she succeeds in any 
 degree in impressing upon the minds of the countless millions of 
 this land, over whom she has been called to bear rule, some 
 portion of the feeling which animates her sons. It is this con- 
 sciousness, that in any circumstances he is expected to do his 
 duty, that nerves the Englishman in the hour of trial ; it is this 
 that has so often carried him along the road that leads to victory, 
 it is this that has consoled him as often under the certainty of 
 danger and death. This last sacrifice to duty, it is very impro- 
 bable that you or any of us here to-day will ever be called upon to 
 make ; but you will and must be called upon, over and over again, 
 to make to duty sacrifices of inclination, of pleasure, or of profit. 
 And who will undertake to say that this obligation is an easy one 
 at all times to fulfil ? There are however other ways and other 
 senses in which you are expected to do your duty, and it is to 
 
30 University of Madras. 
 
 these that I wish more particularly to call your attention. 
 For instance, there is a duty which you owe to the 
 StS:e*^ ^ ^^ ^*^*®- ^^®^y citizen of a State is bound to yield 
 a willing and cheerful obedience to the law, and 
 to support, as far as in him lies, the cause of order and good 
 government. And surely this obligation, incumbent as it is 
 upon all, is more especially incumbent on those citizens, who 
 like yourselves have received a superior education. You ought 
 to be above the prejudices and passions which hold unlimited 
 sway over the minds of the masses ; a calmer judgment, a more 
 intelligent obedience will surely be expected, and, I trust, found 
 in you. But there is another point connected with this duty to 
 the State, which concerns most of you very nearly. I do not 
 wish to dwell much upon it, but I think it well briefly to allude 
 to it. Most of you I believe have at an important period of 
 your life received what may really be called a State educa- 
 tion, and to this education, utilized by your own industry, you 
 owe your present position. You have received then a great 
 benefit, will you not strive to make some adequate return ? And 
 Dut t our ^^^^ brings me by an easy transition to another 
 :eiiow-country- class of duties. I mean your duties to your fellow- 
 ^^^- countrymen. For you can hardly show your 
 
 sense of the advantages you have derived from the liberality of 
 the State in a better way than by endeavouring to enlighten the 
 community to which you belong. There are many ways in 
 which you may do this, but a single instance will suffice for the 
 present. It often occurs that the best intentions of Grovern- 
 ment, the best plans devised by it solely and purely for the 
 good of the people, are misunderstood and misrepresented. 
 You and such as you, can, I think, do much to prevent this ; 
 you know well enough the utter groundlessness of the belief 
 popularly entertained from time to time upon such matters, 
 and if each of you in his own sphere were to endeavour to 
 combat these delusions and to place in their proper light 
 the acts of the Government, I feel assured that much imme- 
 diate and permanent good would be the result. Again, to 
 speak of the subject so proper to this particular time and 
 place. Education — ought not yoa who have made some progress 
 in knowledge, who have at least learned enough to long- 
 ardently to know more, and to wish that others should have the 
 same tastes and aspirations ; ought not you I say to endeavour 
 to the very utmost of your power to spread among your people 
 the blessings you yourselves so highly appreciate. Some of you 
 have already devoted yourselves, or are immediately about to 
 do so, to the task of spreading education directly, by becoming 
 
1864— Jlfr. E. Thompson, 31 
 
 teachers ; all honour to you for your choice of a profession. 
 I hope that you will be encouraged to persevere in the course 
 on which you have entered, and that you will not merely look 
 upon tuition as a means of livelihood for a time, to be given up 
 when something more attractive offers itself, but as a profession 
 to last your lifetime. It is indeed an arduous one, full of 
 anxieties, difficulties, discouragements; it may indeed, (if you 
 persevere, it must) afford you a competence, but you cannot 
 expect much more, and wealth is out of the question ; but it 
 has its bright side too ; it is pleasant to watch the progress of 
 pupils in the school and in the world, and it will be no small 
 consolation in after years to look back upon a well-spent 
 useful life, and to feel that hundreds are indebted to you for 
 some of the purest and highest of earthly pleasures. 
 
 But those among you who are not about to become teach- 
 ers, may still do much to promote education. 
 cation^*^ ^^^" ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ place you may exert your personal 
 influence with your families, and point out to all 
 connected with you the great advantages to be derived from a 
 liberal education, and in the course of time when sons and 
 daughters are born to you, it will be your duty to see that 
 they do not, to say the least, fall short of the acquirements 
 of their parents. Again, it may well happen, now that so 
 many roads to advancement are open to you, that some of 
 you at least may become wealthy men ; and a portion of that 
 wealth can hardly be better employed than in providing means 
 of instruction for others. You may found prizes, scholarships, 
 professorships, and the time may come when even a College 
 may owe its origin to the enlightened liberality of some educat- 
 ed Hindu. It was remarked the other day by the Vice-Chan- 
 cellor of the University of Calcutta, himself one of the brightest 
 living ornaments of his own University, that to found a College 
 was a means of transmitting to distant posterity the memory of 
 a name which otherwise would soon have passed away. He 
 instanced a College at Cambridge, founded by a Physician in 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, whose name however well known 
 in his own times would undoubtedly long since have been 
 forgotten, had it not been that year after year students, issuing 
 forth from the College which owes its existence to his bounty, 
 and distinguishing themselves in the University and in the world, 
 have made familiar to the ears even of the present generation 
 the name of a physician three centuries in his grave. This 
 laudable ambition has already induced some natives of Bombay 
 to come forward with princely munificence, and found Colleges 
 
32 University of Madras. 
 
 ajid other institutions for the good of their fellow-countrymen, 
 and I trust that the memory of their good deeds will last as long 
 as the memory of Dr. Cain^s. But why should Madras be behind 
 the sister Presidency in the race of good works ? You are no 
 doubt aware that the Government have proposed to erect for the 
 University a Hall for Examinations, Lectures, and Meetings such 
 as the present ; and this proposal was hailed by the Senate with 
 lively satisfaction ; but that satisfaction I need hardly say would 
 have been greatly enhanced, if the offer had come from a wealthy 
 and enlightened native gentlemen ; for what we desire above 
 everything else is, to see the natives of this country taking the 
 work and cost of education more and more into their own hands 
 and depending less and less upon the assistance of the State. 
 
 And now let me say in conclusion a few words on what I may 
 Avoid con- ^^^^ duties to yourselves. It is a duty you ewe to 
 tejttment in yourselves as well as a duty you owe to your Creator, 
 learning. j^^j. ^^ suffer to lie unimproved the talents commit- 
 
 ted to your charge. Standing on the threshold of life, standing, 
 let me remind you, still only on the threshold of knowledge, it 
 is your bounden duty to neglect no opportunity of self-culture and 
 self-improvement. Busy men you may and I hope will be, but 
 intervals of business there will be which you can turn to good 
 account, and even your ordinary occupations may if rightly under- 
 stood, be a discipline both to the mind and to the heart. Never 
 then be contented with past acquisitions. 
 
 Strive day by day to add to your store of knowledge, and to 
 enlighten and quicken your moral sense ; cultivate 
 ourseif^^ ^ ^ spirit of truthfuluess, cultivate, aye, and with 
 the greatest care, for it is a tender plant, cultivate 
 a nice sense of honour : beware of everything that is mean, beware 
 of aught that may impair your self-respect. As you travel along 
 the road of life, the University which now bids you a hearty fare- 
 well will anxiously watch your progress ; to me personally who 
 have been so intimately connected with many of you, your future 
 career will be a source of the deepest solicitude. We hope then, 
 as I said before, that you will quit yourselves like men in the 
 great battle of the world, advancing from strength to strength, 
 not presumptuously indeed, but in a proper spirit of self-reliance. 
 Farewell — and in connection with what I have just been saying 
 about your duties to yourselves, take with you as farewell words 
 these noble lines of Bngland^s noblest poet : 
 
 To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
 
1866.— T/ie Honorable 8ir Adam Bittleston. 33 
 
 NINTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Hon. Sir Adam Bittleston.) 
 
 Gentlemen^ — Graduates of the University of Madras, I crave 
 your attention for a few minutes^ whilst, in accordance with the 
 rule and practice of this University, and in obedience to the 
 request of the Chancellor, I exhort you to conduct yourselves 
 suitably to the position which you have now attained. 
 
 That is a position of which you may be justly proud. It is by 
 no slight amount of industry and ability that this distinction can 
 be achieved; it entitles you to, and, I believe, secures for you, a 
 high place in the estimation of all your fellow-citizens of every 
 rank and race; and it places you on a high vantage ground for 
 the accomplishment of still greater things. 
 
 I would that I could expect, by any words of mine, to make 
 you duly sensible of the responsibility which this position brings 
 with it; for the University (I am persuaded) attaches some 
 importance to this part of the day's proceedings. She by no 
 means desires it to be regarded as a mere matter of form. 
 
 This University, gentlemen, has not, under existing circum- 
 stances, the means of exercising any of that domes- 
 tween Indian and ^ic discipline which is a valuable feature of the 
 English Universi- Collegiate System in some other Universities, nor 
 ^^^' can she give to her students that kind of moral 
 
 training which results from the free social intercourse of a large 
 body of educated youths, living together as one community, and 
 not only prosecuting common studies and striving after common 
 objects of ambition, but sharing also in common recreations and 
 amusements. 
 
 But not the less is the University of Madras anxious about the 
 
 , ... future character and conduct of her sons. She 
 
 reputation of ^oes not confer her degrees upon them without 
 
 the University first taking from them a solemn promise by their 
 
 ^^^^ ^' future lives to justifiy her choice; and year by 
 
 year, as she sends forth new men with her marks of honour into 
 
 the world, she requires the same exhortation to be addressed to 
 
 them, she requires them to be told what it is she expects of them, 
 
 and what is the standard at which she desires them to aim. Bear 
 
 in mind, then, gentlemen, I beg of you, that the reputation, nay, 
 
 the life of your University, depends upon you and upon those 
 
 who stand in the like relation to her with you. Unless she can 
 
 point, year after year, to an increasing roll of distinguished names, 
 
 the names of men who, by a career of honourable usefulness, have 
 
 5 
 
34 University of Madras, 
 
 proved or are proving themselves benefactors of their country, 
 she fails in her mission. The tree can only be judged by its fruits, 
 and the University must be judged by the character and conduct 
 of her sons. In vain she assumes to raise the standard of edu- 
 cation to a high level ; in vain she strives to promote sound learn- 
 ing and to cultivate the growth of public and private virtue, if 
 her graduates do not stand forth conspicuous amongst their 
 fellow-countrymen both for learning and for virtue, living epistles 
 read and known of all men, wherein the good effects of their 
 early training are written in most legible characters. 
 
 As to yourselves, gentlemen, you have now reached a criti- 
 cal period of life, a critical point in your career. You are now 
 exposed to some temptations which will probably never again 
 attack you with so much force as now, and against which we call 
 upon you to struggle with all your might. Perhaps the worst 
 and strongest of these is the temptation to rest from your 
 labours, satisfied with what you have already done. 
 
 It is often said that these educational honours are sought 
 The object of ^J ^^^ youth of this country not for the honour of 
 seeking educa- them, nor from any love of learning, but for the 
 *io^' sake of the appointments and the rupees which 
 
 are supposed to follow pretty fast and with tolerable certainty 
 upon the acquisition of a degree ; in fact, that the love of money 
 is the moving cause which stimulates the intellectual activity of 
 Hindu youth. ' Many hard things are said about the love of 
 money; and when it is a form of mere selfishness, nothing too 
 hard can be said of it, for all mere selfishness is very hateful; 
 but the desire of wealth, if not too eager, may be rendered blame- 
 less or laudable by the motives from which, and the purposes for 
 which wealth is sought ; and so, as to the desire for employment, 
 whether in the service of the Government or in any other honour- 
 able and useful career, far be it from me to condemn it as a 
 motive of exertion. 
 
 But, of course, gentlemen, it would be lamentable indeed, 
 a very lame and impotent conclusion of all the 
 for^kara^g?^ ® exertions made on your behalf, if the ambition and 
 the patriotism of the native youth of this country 
 should end at this point, and should be limited to such objects as 
 the possession of subordinate appointments in the service of 
 Government; for then the University would have practically 
 dwindled into an Institution for providing clerks for Government 
 offices. Gentlemen, the University looks to its graduates to refute 
 this aspersion by their conduct. We trust to them to show that 
 they have acquired at least such a taste for learning that the 
 
1866. — The Honorable Sir Adain Bittleston, 35 
 
 further pursuit of it is no irksome task, but has become to them 
 one of the cliief pleasures of life. The busiest man can find 
 some leisure for congenial studies, and even old age delights in 
 " a renewal of acquaintance with the favorite studies and favorite 
 authors of youth." How many illustrations of the truth of this 
 might be quoted from the lives of English Statesmen. Take one 
 of the latest examples. 
 
 Look at Lord Derby, the Chancellor of the University of 
 - Oxford, who for more than quarter of a century has 
 
 ^^ ^' taken an active part sometimes in the administra- 
 tion of public affairs, always in the busy turmoil of political life, 
 yet has always found leisure to cultivate the classical studies of 
 his youth, aud has in his old age given to the world an admirable 
 translation of the Iliad, in the preface to which he assures us 
 that the task has been his most delightful recreation. These, 
 gentlemen, are the examples which we desire to hold up to our 
 graduates for imitation. How great a triumph it would be for 
 one of you, even though it were the work of a life, to produce a 
 commendable translation in your mother- tongue of any one of 
 our great English classics. How signal would be the benefit 
 conferred upon your country. How proud would this University 
 be of your achievement ! 
 
 But, on the other hand, gentlemen, this one thing is certain, 
 that you cannot stand still where you are. If you 
 do^yourstudfeT. abandon your studies now, you will assuredly this 
 time next year be less worthy of your degrees than 
 you are now ; and, the following year, less worthy still ; and, in 
 a few years, probably not worthy of those degrees at all. The 
 very title you have now won may suffice to suggest to you that 
 this is but a step in your career, and that unless you are content 
 to retrograde you must be prepared to make the necessary effort 
 to ensure further progress. Do you remember that Bacon, in his 
 ''Advancement of Learning,'^ points out this continual effort 
 at self-improvement as constituting the essential difference 
 between the learned and the unlearned man ? He says that 
 *' Learning disposeth the. constitution of the mind not to be fixed 
 or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and 
 susceptible of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man 
 knows not what it is to descend into himself or to call himself 
 to account ; nor the pleasure of that suavissima vita indies sentire 
 se fieri meliorem. The good parts he hath, he will learn to show 
 to the full and use them dexterously, but not much to increase 
 them : the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and colour 
 them, but not much to amend them : like an ill-mower that mows 
 
^6 University of Madras. 
 
 on still and never wLets his scytlie. Whereas with th.e learned man 
 it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and 
 amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof.^' 
 
 Our words, then, to you, gentlemen, are '^Onward and 
 Upward;" and permit me to remind you that immediately in front 
 of you there is a height which has never yet been reached_, a prize 
 never yet won by any of your countrymen in this Presidency, 
 the degree of M.A. 
 
 I pause here for a moment to name, with the respect which 
 Liberality of ^® ^^^^ *° ^^^ exalted rank and still more to his 
 the First Prince enlightened liberality, one of the Fellows of this 
 of Travancore. University, His Highness the First Prince of Tra- 
 vancore, whose public spirit and love of learning have led him 
 to hold out to you an additional inducement to advance to that 
 degree, and whose presence here this day we hail with sincere 
 gratification. 
 
 But whilst we urge you to further progress, be on your 
 guard, gentlemen, also, I pray you, against another 
 e tno es . temptation to which at your age, and surrounded 
 by admiring friends, you are now more than usually exposed, 
 the temptation to think of yourselves more highly than you 
 ought to think. Be not boastful nor too proud of your own 
 doings j bear your success with modesty, which is ever the com- 
 panion of real merit, and avoid all appearance of arrogance 
 and self-conceit, which are both offensive to others and injurious 
 to yourselves — serious obstacles in the way of usefulness and 
 self -improvement. To this end it is only necessary that you 
 should '^descend into yourselves^' as Bacon has it, and call 
 yourselves to an account by comparing the little you know with 
 the more which others know, and the much more which remains 
 to be known. Depend upon it, you will find cause enough for 
 modesty, as well as for continued and strenuous application. 
 
 But, now, gentlemen, a few words as to your duty towards 
 
 others. You are well aware that, in the matter of 
 
 The career of national education, it is still very early dawn with 
 
 us in this country. The sun has hardly begun to 
 
 gild the hill tops, but we desire to see its light and warmth shed 
 
 into the lowest valleys ; and in no way can you so well show how 
 
 highly and justly you appreciate the real value of the education 
 
 which you have received (for the value does depend upon the use 
 
 you make of it), as by endeavouring to extend as far as you can 
 
 the like advantages to others. This you may do by devoting 
 
 yourselves directly to the work of teaching as the business of your 
 
1866. — The Bonorahle Sir Adam BUtleston. 37 
 
 lives ; you may find more lucrative, you can find no nobler em- 
 ployment ; and in the interests of education it is much to be hoped 
 that ere long the inducements to enter upon that career will be 
 greater than they are at present, that the labours of the school- 
 master will be more highly rewarded, and that both in public 
 and private more heed will be given to the injunction of the poet — 
 
 " Respect, as is but rational and just, 
 The man deemed worthy of so dear a trnst." 
 
 But, gentlemen, there are other ways also in which the 
 Wage war tTiiiversity looks to you for aid in the work to which 
 against igno- she is committed. By the excellence of your own 
 ranee and vice. \\yq^ you may be the teachers of your countrymen ; 
 and not only in the circle of your own families, but wherever your 
 influence extends, you are called upon to maintain, by your words, 
 as well as by your deeds, an uncompromising warfare against igno- 
 rance and vice, in whatever shape they may present themselves ; 
 you are bound to use the weapons, with which education has armed 
 you honestly and consistently for the uprooting of prejudice and 
 the correction of error, wherever and whenever you may encounter 
 them. This is a great responsibility, but it is one from which you 
 cannot escape. Your position as graduates of this University 
 will give weight and influence to your opinions, whether you 
 desire it or not ; and it behoves you, therefore, to take care that 
 your own opinions upon all the many questions of social and 
 national imporfcance, which must come under your consideration, 
 are formed with a due sense of the responsibility attaching to 
 those who are guides and leaders of their fellow-men ; but if you 
 do act under this sense of responsibility, if you are ever ready to 
 listen to the voice of reason, if you never shut out any light 
 which you can get, if you resort to all the means within your 
 reach for the solution of any difiiculties which occur to you, and 
 if you give the whole mind anxiously and unreservedly to the 
 ascertainment of truth, you may justly hope to arrive at sound 
 conclusions, and feel a reasonable confidence that your influence 
 upon your fellow-countrymen will be honourable to you, and 
 beneficial to them. 
 
 There is, no doubt, in native society and amongst the masses 
 of the native population, an undercurrent of feel- 
 Press ^^^""^ ^^oS and opinions about which we know little or 
 nothing. Partially, and but partially, these feelings 
 and opinions find expression through the medium of the Native 
 Press, and thus occasionally they come to light. But the glimpses 
 thus obtained are very far from satisfactory either as to the 
 course or purity of the stream, which, nevertheless, is thus 
 
38 tiniversity of Madras. 
 
 carrying health or disease, life or death, into the very heart of the 
 population. Here, then, gentlemen, I think is a field in which 
 you, and such as you, may do good and laudable service. Your 
 influence can extend where ours cannot reach, and you may know 
 of evils of which we are ignorant. Glentlemen, I would say in 
 particular that it belongs to you and those educated like you to 
 raise the character of the Native Press, to render it a certain 
 instrument of good instead of a too probable instrument of evil. 
 
 But it is time that I should say a few words specially to the 
 Bachelors of Law. I infer from the degree which 
 la^erf ^^fhould ^^^ ^^^^ chosen that your intention is to devote 
 act upon. yourselves to the law as a profession, and that you 
 
 desire to serve your country either as Advocates 
 or as Judges. It would ill-become me, gentlemen, to say 
 anything in disparagement of that choice. It is a profession 
 which holds out to you many substantial rewards; but be 
 assured, it yields its prizes only to those who fairly win them by 
 industry, ability, and integrity. It was a great satisfaction to 
 the Judges of the High Court when they found themselves at 
 liberty to admit the Bachelors of Law of this University to prac- 
 tice generally in that Court, requiring them only first to devote 
 a short time to the task of making themselves familiar with its 
 practice and procedure ; and though this has not hitherto been 
 done at the other Presidencies, we trust to the good conduct of 
 the Yakeels whom we have already admitted, and the Advocates 
 and Vakeels who may hereafter be admitted, to justify the step. 
 Gentlemen, in the practice of this profession you must neither 
 forget your duty to your clients, nor your duty to yourselves. 
 The one demands of you that you should give to your client the 
 full benefit of your knowledge, experience, and judgment, sparing 
 no pains to render these as perfect as you can ; the other 
 demands of you, that you should never, even from zeal for your 
 client, still less from any motive of self-interest, stoop to any 
 dishonourable or unworthy practice. As to zeal for the client, 
 I am afraid that it is not generally in this country a very 
 strong feeling ; and it would not, I think, often be sufficient 
 in itself to tempt the practitioner far astray from the right 
 path, as it has sometimes done elsewhere; but, alas ! the baser 
 motive of self-interest is strong enough everywhere; and in 
 this country litigation is generally so interwoven with fraud 
 and falsehood, that you will need to be ever on your guard 
 against involving yourselves in any complicity with the mis- 
 deeds of your clients. There are, I believe, some persons who 
 can hardly persuade themselves that the profession of advo- 
 
1866.— r/ie Hmorahle Sir Adam Bittleston. 39 
 
 cacy can ever be consistent with personal honour ; but this 
 opinion is probably influenced mainly by a mistaken notion of 
 what the Advocators duty is, or by the recollection of some par- 
 ticular instance or instances, rare and exceptional, in which the 
 individual Advocate has forgotten his duty and abused his 
 privilege. So easy is it, gentlemen, for a very small number of 
 evil-doers to bring discredit on any brotherhood to which they 
 belong ! But I am convinced that it is enough to appeal to the 
 character of the English Bar as a body, in refutation of the 
 opinion to which I have referred. There is no doubt what tho 
 view is which that body now entertains of the Advocate's duty. 
 On a recent occasion it was exhibited in a very marked manner. 
 The English Bar were entertaining an illustrious French Advo- 
 cate, M. Berry er, and in the ancient hall of the Middle Temple 
 there was a very large assembly of English Advocates and 
 Judges to do honour to their guest. Amongst those present was 
 one venerable in age and laden with honours, who had presided 
 over the deliberations of the House of Lords and sat in the chief 
 seat of Justice, and who, in the midst of a life of marvellous 
 activity, both in Parliament and at the Bar, had found time for 
 voluminous authorship in many departments of learning ; but on 
 this (as he had on other occasions) he gave expression to a 
 sentiment which met with no response from that great meeting. 
 Not even the admiration and respect felt for Lord Brougham 
 could extract any token of assent to his opinion, when he said 
 that the first great quality of an Advocate was *' to reckon 
 everything subordinate to the interests of his client.''^ 
 
 But when the present Lord Chief Justice of England rose 
 shortly afterwards, and in terms of eloquent indignation repu- 
 diated the notion that the Advocate was under an obligation to 
 sacrifice everything to the interests of his client, the hall rang 
 with cheers ; and 1 cannot do better than read to you the words 
 which met with such cordial assent : — " Much as I admire (he 
 said) the great abilities of M. Berryer, to my mind his crowning 
 virtue, as it ought to be that of every Advocate, is, that he has 
 throughout his career conducted his cases with untarnished 
 honour. The arms which an Advocate wields he ought to use 
 as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the 
 interests of his clients j^^er fas, but not per nefas. He ought to 
 know how to reconcile the interests of his client with the eternal 
 interests of truth and justice." Act, gentlemen, upon these 
 principles. Remember that your vocation is to aid in the 
 administration of justice, and equally whether you are Advocates 
 or Judges, let your motto be " Fiat Jiistitia,^' 
 
40 University of Madras. 
 
 I have already detained you too long, but perhaps I may be 
 excused on this occasion, the last on which our present Chan- 
 cellor will preside over our meetings, for stepping aside from 
 the direct path of this exhortation, to say that we bid him fare- 
 well with great regret, and with a grateful sense of the active 
 and liberal interest which he has manifested in the cause of 
 education during the period of his Governorship. There is, I am 
 persuaded, no man boie who will join more heartily than he, in 
 the wish with which I now conclude. May yours be that 
 suavissima vita which consists mainly in the consciousness of 
 daily growing better ; and may the Almighty Ruler of the 
 Universe so guide and prosper all our efforts that the plants 
 of learning and of virtue which we plant may strike deep into 
 the soil and become healthy and vigorous trees, stretching 
 forth their branches in all directions over the length and breadth 
 of the land, and yielding abundantly all manner of wholesome 
 and pleasant fruit to a nation continually increasing in pros- 
 perity, and happiness, and wisdom. 
 
 ELEVENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable A. J. Aebuthnot.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — This is not the first occasion on which it has 
 been my duty and my privilege to address the successful can- 
 didates for degrees at the annual Convocation of the University 
 of Madras. Ten years ago, when this University was yet in its 
 infancy, when its permanence was yet uncertain, and its success 
 was a matter of speculation and of doubt, it devolved upon me, 
 by the direction of our first Chancellor, to deliver the first ad- 
 dress to the first graduates, to congratulate them on the honour- 
 able termination of their academic course, and to exhort them to 
 conduct themselves worthily of the degrees which had been con- 
 ferred upon them. At the period to which I refer, little more than 
 
 eleven months had elapsed since the first outbreak 
 oHht Mutiny^^ ^^ *^® great mutiny. Delhi had fallen, and Lucknow 
 
 had been relieved ; but the flames of rebellion were 
 still unquenched. Central India was still overrun by Tantia 
 Topee's levies. Rohilcund was still in revolt. The Talookdars 
 of Oudh were still unsubdued. And in our own Presidency, 
 although we had been mercifully spared from the horrors to 
 which our brethren in Northern India had been exposed, there 
 was in the minds of many a not unnatural feeling that the time 
 was scarcely suited to educational experiments, that there were 
 
IS68.— The Honorable A. J. Arhuthnot. 41 
 
 other more pressing necessities for wliich the revenues of the 
 State ought to be reserved, and that it was not improbable that 
 the comprehensive measures for the extension and advancement 
 of public instruction, wliich had been sanctioned only four years 
 before, would have to be materially curtailed, if not altogether 
 abandoned. 
 
 And not only in this country bnt in England had doubts 
 begun to be felt and controversies to revive in 
 oS^r^^f regard to the educational policy of the Govern- 
 Native edu- ment of British India. Before the mutiny broke 
 ^^^^^- out, that policy was considered to have been 
 
 settled upon just and liberal principles, in what happily con- 
 tinues to be the Great Charter of native education, the Educa- 
 tional Despatch of 1854 ; but at the time of which I speak there 
 was scarcely a topic of importance adverted to in that despatch, 
 which was not treated as an open question ; hardly a principle 
 enforced in it which was not contested by one party or another. 
 That despatch had laid down that considerable extension should 
 be given to the educational operations of the Government in all 
 branches, and especially to the dissemination of useful and 
 practical knowledge among the lower classes. At the very time 
 at which the first Convocation of the University was being 
 held, the policy of such an educational extension was being 
 questioned in an official and authoritative document, emnnating 
 from one of the leading members of the British Government, who 
 at that time held the office of President of the Board of Control. 
 The despatch of 1854 had laid great stress on the grant-in- 
 aid system, as being the most economical, and, in many respects, 
 the most effectual means of extending education, and at the same 
 time placing it upon a sound basis. The policy of the grant- 
 in-aid system, and especially its application to schools establish- 
 ed by Christian Missionaries, which if not expressly provided for, 
 was clearly contemplated in the despatch, was being denounced 
 by the same Minister and by others who shared in his views, 
 and it was shortly afterwards officially notified that the system 
 was under the consideration of the Home Government. The 
 despatch had declared that it was neither the aim nor desire 
 of the British Government to " substitute English for the ver- 
 nacular dialects of the country,^' and that " any acquaintance 
 with improved European knowledge " could only be conveyed 
 to the great mass of the people " through one or other of the ver- 
 nacular languages. '^ Throughout that year, 1858.. it was argued, 
 not indeed officially, but in quarters scarcely less influential ; in 
 public journals whichere now have largely influenced official 
 6 
 
^2 University of Madras. 
 
 men and official measures, that the substitution of the English 
 language for the vernacular languages of India was not the 
 impossibility which it had been hitherto considered, that the 
 adoption of the former as the language of official business was 
 both practicable and desirable, and that with reference to the 
 desire for English instruction which existed in many parts of 
 the country, the policy of communicating all elementary instruc- 
 tion through the medium of the vernacular languages was a 
 mistaken policy. 
 
 Moreover, it was already known that the Government of 
 India would shortly be transferred from the control 
 diJc^om^y^''' ^^ *^® ^^®^^ Company, which had administered it 
 for a century, to the direct control of the Crown. 
 The Court of Directors which had sanctioned, and in whose name 
 had been issued the Education Despatch of 1854, that once power- 
 ful body under which some of the foremost statesmen of the 
 British nation had been willing to serve, which had censured 
 Wellesley and recalled EUenborough, which had honored Malcolm 
 and Munro, and to the great loss of this our Presidency had passed 
 over the high-minded and heroic Metcalfe, that Court which had 
 numbered among its servants. Civil and Military, some of the 
 ablest public officers which any service had produced, was about to 
 be deprived of its powers ; that system of Grovernment which in 
 the unexaggerated language of its distinguished advocates had 
 been ''not only one of the purest in intention, but one of the most 
 beneficent in act ever known among mankind,^' which had 
 planted the germs and had laid the foundations of nearly all the 
 improvements since carried out in India, was on the eve of being 
 abolished. It was under these circumstances that the University 
 of Madras held its first Convocation for conferring degrees, and, 
 as might be expected, the character of the ceremonial was in keep- 
 ing with the feelings of doubt and incertitude which prevailed. 
 
 It was not in the spacious hall in which we are now assem- 
 bled, surrounded by the portraits of some of the 
 most^Snspicu- most conspicuous of India's .worthies ; of Clive, 
 ous of India's the founder of the Empire ; of the great Duke 
 worthies. ^^^ j^-^ iii^gtrious brother ; of Munro, the soldier- 
 
 statesman, whose fame is imperishably connected with the 
 Presidency in which he faithfully served and wisely ruled, and 
 whose minute on native education is the earliest State paper 
 on this subject in the archives of the Madras Grovernment ; of 
 the eminent Judge and Jurist, Sir Thomas Strange; of Bentinck 
 who, with the aid of his talented colleague, determined the much- 
 vexed question whether the educational funds, then sufficient 
 
1868.— r^e Honorable A, J. Arbuthnot. 43 
 
 only for the instruction of tlie upper classoa_, should be devoted to 
 teaching European literature and science^ or should be reserved 
 exclusively for Orientwl learning ; of our first Chancellor, Lord 
 Harris, whoso government is entitled to the credit of having 
 inaugurated nearly all those measures for the moral and material 
 improvement of this Presidency which are now in progress; 
 (Grentlemen, if this Convocation had been held a few months 
 later, it would have been in my power to draw your attention to 
 anotiier portrait, which will soon adorn these walls, the portrait 
 of one who will long be held in affectionate remembrance in 
 Madras; the lamented William Morehead, the second Vice- 
 Chancellor of this University) ; it was not, I repeat, in this spa- 
 cious hall, surrounded by the historical associations which these 
 pictures recall to our minds, that we assembled for our first Con- 
 vocation. We met on that occasion in a small and unpretending 
 building, ill-adapted and inconvenient for an important public 
 gathering. The ceremonial, if such it may be called, was of the 
 most informal and unimpressive description. The attendance 
 was scanty. The interest in the proceedings was confined to a 
 few. 
 
 During the ten years wliich have since elapsed, a great 
 Progress made change has taken place. Most of the questions 
 between 1858 which were then so eagerly discussed have been 
 and 1868. j^^g ^{j^qq settled ; each one of the benevolent 
 
 measures sanctioned by the Court of Directors in 1854 has 
 been more or less vigorously carried out. The University is 
 no longer an experiment. It is an accomplished and admitted 
 success. Its influence is annually attested by the increasing 
 number of under-graduates, and by the marked improvement 
 which is taking place in the standard of school instruction 
 throughout the Presidency ; — an improvement which, is not con- 
 fined to the Government schools, but which is to be found in an 
 equally marked degree in the nuuDerous independent institutions 
 which have grown up and thriven of late years under the foster- 
 ing influence of the grant-in-aid system and of the valuable 
 system of examinations which this University has supplied. I 
 find that in the first year of the University's existence the num- 
 ber of candidates who passed thee Matriculation Examination 
 (and in that year two examinationss were held) was 44, of whom 
 all but 14 came from Government schools. For some years after- 
 wards the numbers diminished instead of increasing ; the fact, I 
 believe, having been that many of; the candidates who presented 
 themselves at the first two examinations were persons who 
 had completed their school studies^^some time previously. It was 
 
44 tlniversity of Madras, 
 
 not until 1862 that there were decided and unmistakable symp- 
 toms of progress. In that year the number of students who passed 
 the Matriculation Examination rose to 82, of whom 33 came from 
 independent schools ; and since that time there has been a con- 
 tinuous advance up to and including the present year, when the 
 number of successful candidates has reached 338, of whom no 
 less than 209 have been educated in other schools, either entirely 
 independent of, or only partially supported by, the State. 
 
 The results of the First Examination in Arts, an exami- 
 nation which was introduced only five years ago, must be re- 
 garded as not less satisfactory, if due allowance be made for the 
 higher standard which is demanded, the number of successful can- 
 didates having risen from 23 in 1864 to 117 in the present year. 
 
 One very satisfactory feature in these examinations is that 
 nearly every district in the Presidency is represented in them. 
 Districts in which not very long since English education was 
 almost unknown, now send up year after year successful can- 
 didates for Matriculation and for the First Examination in Arts. 
 At Oombaconum and Tanjore, at Calicut and Tre van drum, at 
 Madura and Tinnevelly, at Bellary and Vizagaptam, at Masuli- 
 patam and' Rajahmundry, at Nellore and Ohittoor, at Salem 
 and Cuddalore, at Trichinopoly and Negapatam, at Mangalore 
 and Cannanore, at all these places well instructed youths annu- 
 ally come forward to pass examinations which a few years ago 
 would not have been attempted by a dozen students in the Pre- 
 sidency town. 
 
 The results of the examinations for degrees have not hither- 
 The two Grov- ^ been so marked. Up to this time the degrees 
 ernment Col- in Arts have been almost entirely monopolized by 
 ^®*®^' the Presidency College ; but the Provincial College 
 
 at Combaconum bids fair to become a formidable rival at no 
 very distant date, and if we may judge from the large number 
 of Presidency College graduates who have received the ground- 
 work of their education in the College on the banks of the 
 Cauvery, it will need all the efforts of the older institution to 
 maintain her position in the examination list. The admirable 
 school at Madras under the management of the Free Church of 
 Scotland Mission, those maintained by the Church Missionary 
 Society at Masulipatam and by the Gospel Society at Tanjore, 
 and the High School supported at Trevandrum by the enlight- 
 ened Rajah of Travancore, all give promise of carrying away in 
 future their fair share of the honors which hitherto have been 
 almost exclusively enjoyed by the Government College. 
 
1868. — The Honorable A. /. Arhuthnot. 45 
 
 Gentlemen, when we consider these facts, and when we 
 look back to the educational condition of this Pre- 
 and^he PmT°^ sidency within the memory of not a few of those 
 who are now assembled in this hall ; when we call 
 to mind the acrimonious controversies which so long obstructed 
 progress, and the party spirit which existed ; when we remember 
 the difficulties and discouragements under which my friend and 
 colleague in this Senate, our present Director of Public Instruc- 
 tion, sent forth year after year those batches of High School 
 proficients who were the first fruits of his modest but most useful 
 labours, and were the pioneers of Western civilization among their 
 countrymen ; when we compare the spirit of generous rivalry 
 and co-operation which now animates the various sections of edu- 
 cationists, with the atmosphere of contest and controversy under 
 which the earlier educational efforts of this Presidency were put 
 forth, it is impossible not to be struck by the contrast which the 
 present offers to the past, not to be impressed by the wisdom of 
 the policy laid down in that memorable despatch to which I have 
 more than once alluded. 
 
 But here, gentlemen, I must guard against its being sup- 
 posed, that while I thus draw attention to the com- 
 educatioSr^ paratively satisfactory results of the educational 
 policy adopted by the Government of India of late 
 years, we who have been engaged in the duty of carrying out that 
 policy, are not painfully sensible that still greater results might 
 reasonably have been looked for; that at all events in some 
 branches of our educational administration more ought to have 
 been effected ; and that what has been done is insignificant in 
 comparison with that which remains to be accomplished. In the 
 matter of the elementary education of the masses, we have done 
 little more than turn the first sods. The great lines of progress 
 in this department of national education have still to be construct- 
 ed. It has yet to be settled what machinery shall be finally 
 adopted ; whether the measures now in progress for the improve- 
 ment of the indigenous schools with which the country abounds, 
 will in the long run prove effectual, or whether for our village 
 schools, as for our local roads, we shall be compelled, here, as 
 elsewhere, to resort to a local cess. These are questions which 
 demand the anxious consideration of all who are interested in the 
 progress of the nation, and not least of those who, like yourselves, 
 having been taught to value sound learning, are bound to do 
 what you can to disseminate its treasures, even though it be in 
 a rudimentary form, among your less favoured countrymen. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, it behoves me, without any longer 
 
46 University of Madras. 
 
 dwelling on tlie reflections wliicli have been suggested by a 
 retrospect of tlie past history of education in Madras, to address 
 to you those words of congratulation and of counsel which the 
 University has commissioned me to speak. Grentlemen, the 
 Senate bids me to welcome you on your admission as members 
 of an honorable body, to offer to you their congratulations on 
 the completion so far of your academic course, and in the words 
 of the Bye-law, in obedience to which this address is delivered, 
 '^ to exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably unto the position 
 to which, by the degrees severally conferred upon you, you 
 have attained/' 
 
 It has been more than once pointed out that the examina- 
 tion for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in an Indian University 
 corresponds rather with the Honor Exaininations, than with the 
 mere Pass Examinations, of the great English Universities. It 
 is considered that a place in the first class in the examination for 
 the degree of Bachelor of Arts in this University is fully equal 
 in respect to the attainments which it represents to a second 
 class in Honors either at Oxford or Cambri%e. 
 
 Rama Rau Swaminatha Suba Rau, to this honoraWe posi- 
 tion you have attained, and on behalf of the Senate I heartily 
 congratulate you on your success. 
 
 I do not know whether any of you intend to compete for 
 the still higher distinction which the University holds out in the 
 degree of Master of Arts. You are probably aware that some of 
 your fellow-students at Calcutta have already attained this 
 honor, and I trust that this University will be in a position to 
 enrol Masters of Arts among her graduates at no very distant 
 date. But whatever may be your intentions on this point, the 
 course of study which you have gone through has been sufficient 
 to develop and strengthen your intellectual faculties, and has 
 enabled you to pursue without further aid from teachers that 
 system of self -education which it behoves every man to carry on, 
 so far as circumstances may admit, throughout the whole period 
 of life. It has rendered you more or less qualified to 4!)nter upon 
 the study of any branch of Natural Philosophy or of Physical 
 Science to which your tastes may lead you, and it bas unsealed 
 to you the copious, the inexhaustible stores of a litemture, which 
 in its variety, in its extent, and in its intrinsic valiae, surpasses 
 all the literatures of the civilized world. It has, 1 would fain 
 hope, reached your hearts as well as your minds, 
 _^^gh sense of ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^j ^^^ with that loVe of tjruth, with 
 
 that high sense of duty, for the absenoa, of which 
 no amount of mental cultivation can make amends. But overy 
 
1868.— ITie Honorable A. J. Arhuthnot. 47 
 
 position has its responsibilities as well as its advantages, and 
 the greater the advantages, so much the more weighty are the 
 obligations which they entail. It is for you to be the inter- 
 preters to your countrymen of the principles and of the knowledge 
 which you have acquired in the course of your academical 
 studies, of the training, moral and intellectual, which you have 
 received ; to prove by your conduct in the affairs of every-day 
 life, whether your lot be cast in the Court or in the Cutchery, 
 in the mart or on the farm, that the studies to which you have 
 devoted yourselves have had an ennobling and purifying influ- 
 ence upon your characters, that they have taught you to love 
 truth and honor, to eschew all that is mean and selfish, and to 
 be guided in all the actions of your lives by a prevailing and 
 constraining sense of duty. 
 
 It is sometimes said that a wide separation has taken place 
 between that comparatively small section of the 
 Creatiou of native Community who have been educated through 
 atuje!'^ ^^ ^ ^^® medium of the English language and the 
 masses of their countrymen, that the former have 
 become denationalized, and that they do not form that link, 
 which it was hoped they would have constituted, between the 
 European Governors of the country and the great mass of the 
 population. Whether this be the case or not at the present time, 
 it is clear that it must be so eventually, if the learning of the 
 West shall continue to be confined to those who are able to 
 acquire it through the medium of what must ever be an unknown 
 tongue to the millions in this land. Surely, therefore, it is the 
 bounden duty of every man who is interested in native progress, 
 to do what in him lies in stimulating the diffusion of sound learn- 
 ing through the medium of the vernacular languages, and in 
 helping forward the creation of a pure vernacular literature. 
 In this latter object the University has a right to look for active 
 co-operation from her graduates ; for if such a vernacular litera- 
 ture as this country needs, is ever to be formed, it must be the 
 work of men who, like yourselves, combine solid attainments in 
 English literature and science with a thorough knowledge of the 
 languages of India. 
 
 There is another sphere of duty for which the University 
 of Madras desires to enlist the services of her 
 a Jc^oolSaster^ graduates, and upon which she hopes that some 
 of you, who have this day been enrolled as her 
 members, will not be unwilling to enter. I refer to the pro- 
 fession of a schoolmaster. It is clear that if the elementary 
 instruction of the great body of the people of this land is to 
 
48 University of Madras. 
 
 be carried out to the extent which her well-wishers desire, it 
 must be altogether by means of native agency, and that even 
 in the higher branches of education native agency must be 
 largely and increasingly employed. At the present time, the 
 Senate of this University have under their consideration an' 
 important proposition of which the practical effect would be to 
 substitute Sanscrit for the vernacular languages in the higher 
 examination in the Faculty of Arts ; a proposition which I 
 believe might be adopted without in any way hindering the 
 acquisiMori of that knowledge of the vernacular languages which 
 every educated Hindoo ought to possess : provided only, — and 
 this I hold to be an essential proviso, that we had the means of 
 so conducting our examinations in the languages which we retain 
 in our curriculum, as to render them practical tests, not only of 
 the candidate's knowledge of the language to which the exami- 
 nation more particularly relates, but of his power of explaining 
 himself with elegance and precision in his mother-tongue. I 
 never read the examination papers which are printed Annually in 
 our University Calendar without being struck by the complete 
 exclusion of the vernaculars from the papers of questions on the 
 English and Latin languages. In all these papers, and even in 
 those which specially relate to the native languages, English is 
 treated as if it were the mother- tongue of all the candidates. 
 This, of course, arises from the fact that for the most part both 
 teachers and examiners are Englishmen, most of them professing 
 either no knowledge, or, at the best, a very imperfect knowledge 
 of the languages of India. All this must be changed if the 
 vernacular languages are no longer to be made special subjects 
 of examination, and both in teaching and in examining native 
 agency must be much more largely employed. 
 
 Grentlemen, I am aware that the profession of a teacher is 
 generally regarded as deficient in many of the attractions which 
 are to be found in other walks in life. The position is usually 
 considered to be less influential than those which may be attained 
 in other professions. As a general rule, the emoluments are smaller, 
 and the work, if it be done effectually, involves no slight amount 
 of mental and^ physical labour. But the picture has its bright 
 side as well. In no profession is a talented and conscientious 
 man enabled to exercise a greater amount of real influence for 
 good. In few does he see more speedily or more tangibly the 
 results of his labours. x\nd in the duties themselves, especially 
 in the higher branches of the profession, there is surely much 
 that must afford a constant interest and gratification to a 
 cultivated mind, — much that is perfectly consistent with the 
 
1869. — His Excellency Uyrd Napier. ^0 
 
 development of those qualities which go to constitute human 
 greatness. If I were called upon to name the great- 
 The greatest est mau who has lived and died in this nineteenth 
 XlXth Century, century, I should select, not a great Statesman, not 
 a great Orator, not a great General, not a great 
 Lawyer, not a great Poet ; not Pitt, not Canning, not Welling- 
 ton, not Peel, not Wordsworth, not Metcalfe, not even our own 
 Munro, though in him were embodied more than in most of those 
 I have named, the true elements of greatness ; — I should select 
 none of these — my choice would fall on one who labored long 
 and nobly in the profession which I am now urging upon your 
 attention, on one who in the piety and purity of his life, in the 
 earnestness and simplicity of his character, in the largeness 
 and liberality of his views, in the solidity of his learning, in his 
 reverence for all that was great and good, in his abhorrence of 
 all that was mean and petty, combined in himself more of the 
 real characteristics of greatness than are to be found in any 
 other man of his time. I pray that among the graduates of this 
 University there may yet be some who will strive to follow the 
 example of him, with whose name I close this address, the great 
 and good Dr. Arnold. 
 
 TWELFTH CONVOCATION, 
 
 (By His Excellency Loed Napier, K.T.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — If I had the honor to address an assembly of this 
 fin,«T? „r„T,TT^- character in England, there is no doubt that a 
 
 The iiinglish Uni- , . . „ => j 
 
 versities, their an- large portion oi my remarks would nave a retro- 
 tionai'^'Swth^^^' ^P^^^i^® tvLTji. The audience would be, like 
 you, an audience of youth and hope, but the 
 place would be a place of age and memory. The thoughts of my 
 hearers might naturally be pointed not only to the recent years of 
 sport and study, of companionship and rivalry, of meditation, of 
 aspiration, of trials surmounted, and of triumphs won ; but the 
 imagination would be directed far beyond the limits of personal 
 recollection and individual life to the long tradition of a time- 
 hallowed institution. First, the ancient founders would be invoked, 
 grave and pious figures of a vanished faith, then the early bene- 
 factors, kings and men of fame in camp, or cloister, or court, or 
 school, such forms as we find in painted chronicles or on alabas- 
 ter tombs ; then, as the darkness of the middle ages fades away, 
 would be cited the authors of free thought, the revivers of classic 
 taste, the legislators of knowledge, the parents of modern specu- 
 lation, observation, and discovery. Then patriots, politicians, 
 artists, prosecutors of useful science, of industrial inventions, of 
 7 
 
 L 
 
50 University of Madras. 
 
 improved laws, of public liberty, in splendid array down to the 
 fathers of the living and listening crowd. Nor would the scene 
 be unworthy of the history, for in the midst of coeval trees. Halls 
 and Colleges, Chapels and Libraries, Museums and Galleries 
 would stand around, some touched with the traces of a cherished 
 decay, some in the sober hues of maturity, some where the noise 
 of the builders had scarcely ceased, but all testifying to an 
 incessant inheritance of human attachment. Thus the hearers 
 would be made to feel that they are at most an equal link 
 between the generations that are gone and those that are to come, 
 the present would scarcely appear of like value with the past ; 
 and while there would be the noblest incentives to emulation, the 
 mind would be awed by the accumulated impressions of departed 
 worth. I need not say how different is the theme and how different 
 the auditory in the Convocation of Madras. The University here 
 is not of ancient origin or national growth. It is not identified 
 witb the glory, the religion, the recollections, the greatness of the 
 country. A single generation bas seen its birth and life, it 
 is a foreign graft, it has not even acquired a visible habitation. 
 Though this incorporeal influence has already given an impor- 
 tant impulse to intelligence and morality, I feel that in endea- 
 vouring to measure the significance of the University, that is of 
 European teaching in its highest functions, I must appeal to your 
 faith, I must lead you forward into tke seductive regions of 
 tlie future. 
 
 Wbat then does the higher European education promise to 
 The fruits of ^^^ people of this country ? To what aims and ends 
 higher European does the road conduct on which you have planted 
 education. your footsteps, I trust, with constancy and ardour, 
 
 on which you have reached to-day a memorable stage, and which 
 you are prepared to follow out to a higher issue. It conducts to 
 many things, to more, no doubt, than my vision can reach or my 
 sagacity penetrate, to more certainly than I can here delineate 
 and analyze. I shall only designate four objects which you seem 
 destined by this method to attain, and which are certainly of no 
 mean importance. The higher English education will give you 
 ] . A new basis of national unity ; 2. A better knowledge of your 
 own country ; 3. Self-government, the government of India by the 
 Indians in a modified form ; 4. A participation in the general 
 intellectual movement of the world, now and hereafter. 
 
 There is probably no principle in the political system of a 
 
 country more valuable than national unity, that is. 
 
 Want of na- ^j^g prevalence amona' the whole population of one 
 
 tional unity. , t% i j. Z^- j • •^ 
 
 beUef, one language, one extraction, and similar 
 
1869. — Bis Excellency Lord Napier. 51 
 
 eentiraents and attachments. But there is no region, which nature 
 appears to have designed by physical conformation for political 
 union or cohesion, -vy^hich is more deficient in the elements of har- 
 mony than India. You have two capital religions, each command- 
 ing a hearty support on the part of its adherents. The Mussul- 
 man religion moulds its own disciples to a general equality within, 
 but without it is intolerant and aggressive, and its characteristic 
 dogmas are directly repugnant to the Hindu. The Brahminical 
 system, less proselytizing and more patient of dissent, embodies 
 in its ceremonial and social aspects every contrivance to fix its 
 own votaries in impassable divisions. E^/ch religion has a sacred 
 language that no one understands. Over the whole surface of the 
 Peninsula there prevails a variety and mixture of exotic and indi- 
 genous languages which are respectively the depositaries and 
 instruments of polite literature, of written correspondence, of 
 public or commercial business, of popular intercourse. I need 
 not enlarge on the difference of origin which the numerous races 
 of the land discover, and which are manifested not only by com- 
 plexion, features, and physical constitution, but also by moral 
 and intellectual inclinations and aptitude. Men who believe in 
 antagonistic religions, who speak different languages, who betray 
 different descents, cannot have much community of affections ; all 
 have had their vicissitudes of prosperity and suffering, and for 
 the most part the ascendancy and glory of one race have been 
 the oppression and shame of another.. How far the resentments 
 of other times have been continued I cannot judge, but this much 
 I may affirm that few have ascended to the idea of nationality or 
 country. There has been no standing ground which the confused 
 and variegated multitude could occupy together, 
 ty— the mother -^^^ ^^® arena of reconciliation is now thrown open, 
 of a new Com- The higher European culture will weave the bond of 
 monwealth. ^^:^^^ rpj^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ gjj^^ ^ common hall, those 
 
 who have mixed on the same benches, those who have crowded 
 to the same fountains of knowledge with the same thirst, those 
 who have been fused together by the fire of the same generous 
 ambitions, they can call each other fellow-countrymen, they can 
 do a common work. In this way Universities in India are destined 
 to a larger duty than they have exercised elsewhere, they are not 
 only the nursing mothers of learning and virtue and intellectual 
 delights, they are nursing mothers of a new Commonwealth. 
 
 European culture will help you to conceive and create a 
 
 Invosticrate common Country, but in directing your hopes to a 
 
 the institutions new and better India in the future, do 1 ask you 
 
 of the East. ^^ despise and forget India as it was ? As it is, do 
 
52 University of Madras, 
 
 I invite you to forsake the memory and the works of your an- 
 cestors ? Far from it. The first result of the introduction of a 
 new learning, in a country possessing an indigenous and -station- 
 ary civilization, is sometimes to breed a superficial contempt for 
 what is old and past. But the maturer effect is quite different. 
 The higher education will teach you to undervalue nothing but to 
 admire with discernment. If it dispels some illusions, it will 
 unseal your eyes to a variety of interests and pleasures to which 
 you are now insensible. Many familiar objects will gain signifi- 
 cance and charm, the dullest thing will quicken with vitality and 
 meaning. In fact there is much in the ancient polity, art, litera- 
 ture, and manners of the Indians that Indians alone, armed with 
 the powerful keys of European criticism, can f ally open to the 
 Western world. The zeal with which all the institutions and 
 monuments of the East are investigated in Europe should be con- 
 tagious here. I wish I could see public functionaries and persons 
 of independent means in this country devoting their leisure to 
 local history and archaeology, to the collection and preservation of 
 manuscripts, coins and other relics of past ages, to an analysis of 
 native science, treated from a critical European point of view, in 
 fact to securing and placing on record many things of the highest 
 moment which are rushing fast to oblivion and decay. Why 
 should there not be, even now, in every province native gentlemen 
 doing from motives of intelligent patriotism all that Mr. Car- 
 michael and Mr. Nelson have recently done so well in their re- 
 spective districts by the invitation of Grovernment ? 
 
 G-entlemen, those who possess a country and understand it 
 Educated In- ^^^^ 8,n undeniable claim to a share in the honours 
 dians and the and emoluments of its government. If this was not 
 Public Service, true, then the higher education would be a snare, 
 a folly, a curse, and not a blessing. The University would other- 
 wise be engaged in producing intelligences without duties, instru- 
 ments without labour, ambitions without satisfactions, the worst 
 things in an unhappy state. We have not established these 
 manufactories of mind for selfish purposes, as the Romans taught 
 philosophy to slaves. You will, perhaps, hear designing or vision- 
 ary Englishmen on platforms or in Parliaments afiirm that Eng- 
 land is bringing up India for independence. Such illusions it is 
 not wise to cherish. The English conquered India for the interest 
 of England, they retain India for the interest and glory of Eng- 
 land. But the glory of England is in the minds of her people 
 indissolubly associated with humanity and justice. I do not say 
 that in all times and in all places these principles have been uni- 
 formly respected, but I believe it may be deliberately asserted 
 
L 
 
 1869. — His Excellency Lord Rapier, 53 
 
 that in tlie mauagement of lier colonies and dependencies England 
 has iu the long run admitted the aborigines and the conquered to 
 a larger share of political liberty^ commercial equality, and public 
 rights than any other State. In periods of tranquillity and social 
 development there is, indeed, in the minds of the English people a 
 kindly, almost a precipitate desire to raise the subjugated nations 
 to like privileges with themselves. I call upon you therefore, 
 Administrators, Magistrates, Physicians, Engineers of the future, 
 to prepare yourselves for increased responsibilities and more 
 honorable employments. The field of promotion will expand at 
 least as fast as the qualifications to fill it. I have stated before 
 that in my humble judgment it is only through native channels, en- 
 lightened by European education, that complete and correct views 
 of native science, arts, manners, and institutions can be conveyed 
 
 to Europe. I now affirm with the same conviction 
 infeVeteS*^ that it is only by native hands that the full benefits 
 
 of European civilization can be naturalized in 
 India among the vast mysterious numbers who live and suffer 
 and labour under our benevolent but often blind and helpless 
 sway. I have seen an old experienced and earnest member 
 of the Civil Service closing his official career with the com- 
 plaint, that he was leaving the land on which he had expended 
 the strength of his hands and the warmth of his heart, leaving 
 it still dark, undiscovered, impenetrable. We need the native 
 to reach the native. Remember then, gentlemen, that you, 
 the adopted children of European civilization, are the inter- 
 preters between the stranger and the Indian, between the 
 Government and the subject, between the great and the small, 
 between the strong and the weak ; that you walk armed with 
 a two-fold knowledge between two nations that do not know 
 each other, that cannot know each other, except through 
 you. Will you carry a faithful or deceitful message ? If you 
 are the ingenuous and careful representatives of England's 
 good-will to India and of India's claims on England, then you 
 will put your talent to a noble use ; if, on the other hand, you 
 hesitate, misconstrue, conceal, if you show the Government in 
 false colours to the country, and the country in false colours to 
 the Government, then you do a double wrong, a wrong to Eng- 
 land and a wrong to India, you widen what you ought to close, 
 you alienate where you ought to reconcile, you continue distrust 
 and perpetuate misconception where it is your mission to spread 
 mutual confidence and mutual light. I charge you to lay this 
 feature in your position particularly to heart. Be true English- 
 men to Indians; be true Indians to Englishmen, with rectitude 
 and single-mindedness as becomes faithful interpreters. 
 
54 tjniversity of Madras. 
 
 Within the territories of the Queen you are not destined to 
 be servants, you are not destined to be masters, you will fill the 
 office of auxiliaries and- mediators ; but beyond Her Majesty's 
 dominions there lies a scene where there are none of the imperious 
 necessities of a foreign authority. The peaceful consolidation of 
 English power which we now witness is a guarantee for the pre- 
 servation and regulated independence of Native States. Those 
 States too are all launched, under English impulses and English 
 control, on the course of civilization and progress. Cochin, 
 Travancore, Mysore, and Hyderabad, with fifteen millions of 
 inhabitants, are open to the educated youths of Madras, who by 
 strength and knowledge and enterprise are enabled to reach 
 them and rule them. Places, which were once valued as a 
 convenient refuge for tarnished reputations and broken for- 
 tunes, will afford a conspicuous theatre for the superabundant 
 intelligence and energies which the ancient Presidencies may 
 throw off. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured briefly to define the relations in 
 which you are placed by the higher European education to the 
 State and to your countrymen, to England and to India, I cannot 
 conclude without reminding you of the partnership which you 
 have attained with the past, the distant, and the future, with 
 minds and nations extinct, with the great circle of contemporaries, 
 and with the prospective march of intelligence and knowledge. 
 
 And first I congratulate 3^ou that English is your 
 
 Superiority of avenue to the rest of mankind. I do not speak in 
 
 gimge?^ ^ ' 3. spirit of boastfulness. But it is a fact that, by 
 
 the mere force of numerical procession and pro- 
 pagation, the future w^orld must belong to the English race which 
 r)ossesses a preponderant share in it already. India might have 
 become the prey of some other sea-faring and exploring people. 
 The Dutch were a glorious and are still a respectable nation. 
 They might have subdued and held India, and they would have 
 taught you science and politics in Dutch. The Spaniards might 
 have added India to America, and they would have taught you the 
 same things through the Society of Jesus. But what sort of con- 
 tact would Dutch or Spanish have given you with the outer world ? 
 AVhat commerce of intelligence could you have enjoyed with such 
 vehicles of utterance. Few valuable books are now written in 
 those languages, and few foreigners make those languages their 
 study. The Dutch and Spaniards learn other languages to make 
 themselves understood and to gain a knowledge of what is going 
 on. I wish to speak of the French with respect and even with 
 admiration. They strove with liuctuating fortunes for the 
 
1869. — His Excellency Lord Napier, 55 
 
 mastery of India, and at length on the humble field of Wandewash, 
 Colonel Coote made you English subjects and English students. 
 I contend that you have no reason to regret it. French is still 
 
 the common language for men of culture in all 
 FreSch^^"*^ ^^ countries. It surpasses all in lucidity. It is a 
 
 perfect vehicle of exposition and argument. It 
 contains many master-pieces in every province of literature. It 
 is still used in my opinion with increasing beauty and power, 
 and France vies with Germany and England in sending every^ 
 year to the press works of science, fancy, criticism, and research. 
 The springs of national genius and power are unimpaired. 
 Fi-ance thinks and writes, and creates and agitates. But this 
 dazzling ascendancy must not blind us to the poverty of the 
 future. The area of French activity, though brilliant, is circum- 
 scribed. England not only thinks and writes and works, but 
 expands and multiplies unceasingly, embracing all the waste and 
 empty places on the earth, filling them with a free healthy pro- 
 gressive population, rude it is true, at present, and absorbed in 
 the conflict with material nature, but possessing all the slumber- 
 ing instincts and elements of the highest culture. If India had 
 received its European education from France, it would have 
 remained attached to France, in contact and communion with 
 France alone. Educated by England, India remains the political 
 dependancy of a single European State, but it shares the 
 intellectual fortunes of the United States and Australia, of more 
 than half the civilized world that is to be. 
 
 In reference to the dead languages, I hold in the main the 
 opinions which Mr. Norton has often expressed in 
 toek.^ and p^i^i'^ jjg^Q^ Lg^^lj^ ^^^ Q^^Q^ falsely called dead, 
 for they have long been our living tyrants, can 
 only in exceptional cases be a proper study for the Indians. 
 Most of what is beautiful and valuable in those languages has 
 been poured into modern European literature. It is of the 
 greatest importance that you should know what the Greeks 
 and the Romans were, what they wrote, what they did, how 
 they grew and fell, and what portions of their philosophy, 
 poetry, jurisprudence and political institutions have passed into 
 modern Society, but you can learn all this from English books 
 or from books translated into English from German and French. 
 The searching light of modern philology and criticism has 
 dissolved the fables of the ancients. Standing on the vantage 
 ground of distance and comprehensive knowledge, we know the 
 Greeks and Romans better than they knew themselves. To 
 learn Latin and Greek in order to understand them would be 
 
56 University of Madras. 
 
 like learning the art of weaving to make a coat, when you can 
 buy a better coat ready made. 
 
 What amount of satisfaction the educated Indians may 
 derive from the perusal of works of imagination 
 ac'^at&n!^ ^^' ^^ modern languages, it is difficult to anticipate. 
 So much in poetry and fiction depends on nature, 
 manners, traditions, and religion, that we may doubt whether 
 the generality of men will ever find much real enjoyment in 
 productions of the fancy belonging to a distant and different 
 people. There will be, of course, the interest of analysis, com- 
 parison, criticism, but not much of tender and intimate par- 
 ticipation. It amuses one to hear the boys in an Indian 
 school repeating verses which celebrate the beauty of the snow 
 drop, the comfort of the fireside, the affecting associations of 
 the country church-yard, and the virtues of the anc. It does 
 not seem probable that Shakespear, Scott, Byron, or Tennyson 
 are destined to supersede in the affections of the educated Hindu 
 the legendary epics, which contain the sources of national 
 religion and history, or the fables, apophthegms, and tales in 
 which popular humour and wisdom are condensed. The imagina- 
 tion and the heart of the Hindu will probably remain oriental, 
 however much his reason may become European. But for the 
 reason, gentlemen, how ample is the intellectual circle into which 
 you are now admitted ! The natural and abstract sciences, history, 
 political, literary, social, and aesthetic, the study and practice of 
 the fine arts, law and physic, the principles of agriculture, 
 sanitary, penal and economic enquiries, all claim your attention, 
 and all bear upon the phenomena and the interests of your own 
 country. The means I know of prosecuting sustained and 
 independent studies are still defective, but the least manifesta- 
 tion of a desire on your part to enter upon this course, the 
 least exhibition of a liberal spirit in the native community in the 
 pursuit of knowledge, for the sake of knowledge, would be met 
 by the State with generous sympathy. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I bid you farewell. I wish that my feeble 
 
 voice could impel you fortunately and far on the 
 
 His (Lord various paths which are traced before you. Do not 
 
 ^crto^lradu- foi*^®* J^^^ teachers. Do not forget the University 
 
 ates. which has ratified and stamped your efforts. Do not 
 
 forget your fellow-students. Watch one another. 
 
 Strive against one another with a friendly jealousy. Let every 
 
 one be ashamed to do wrong before the face of those who have 
 
 shared the same lessons of knowledge and virtue. If knowledge 
 
 is not virtue as well as power, it is a bad power, the power of 
 
1870.— ilfr. George Smith, 57 
 
 doing evil with greater energy, subtlety, and success. Animate 
 yourselves with a passion for the public good. Resist deceit and 
 covetousness. Be firm and frank but respectful and dutiful to 
 those who are in power. Be long-suffering to the poor and weak. 
 The cause of the higher European learning is entrusted to your 
 keeping. You might bring it to disgrace. But 1 doubt not 
 that you will carry it to higher honour. 
 
 THIRTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Gboegb Smith, M.D., L.R.C.S.B,) 
 
 " But chiefly the mould of a Man's Fortune 
 
 is in his own hands." — Lord Bacon. 
 
 Graduates in Arts and Law, — Gentlemen, it is said that 
 in the practice of some ancient Continental Uni- 
 ?^^^?TT °^ versities, it was at one time the custom to present 
 versiS! ^^ ^^6 Medical Graduate, on the day in which he took 
 his degree, with a ring, a barette, an open and a 
 shut book. The ring typified the solemn espousals of the 
 young Graduate to his profession. The barette or cap indi- 
 cated his consecration as a priest of science. The open book 
 symbolised the things already taught him, and the closed 
 volume was the significant emblem of that larger extent of 
 knowledge which, thenceforward, it was to be the business and 
 labour of his life to acquire. 
 
 Not in types and symbols, however significant, but by 
 solemn promises have you this day accepted the responsibilities 
 of your present position ; promises which espouse you to your 
 profession ; which consecrate you priests of science ; and which 
 pledge you to a '^ daily life and conversation '' befitting your 
 position as the members of this University. 
 
 To each of the questions put to you by the noble Chan- 
 cellor of this University you have replied, this assembly being 
 witness, "^^ I do promise.^' May I entreat of you to realise the 
 extent of the obligations you have taken upon you, and often 
 in after-life to pause and reconsider their terms of solemn import. 
 
 The position which you have now attained as members of 
 this University is one, which, with distinguished honors carries 
 correlative duties and responsibilities, and I stand here before 
 you this day as the representative of the Senate of the Univer- 
 sity, to impress that fact upon your minds, and to encourage 
 as well as advise you to conduct yourselves henceforward 
 8 
 
M University of Madras. 
 
 " suitably unto the position to which, by the degrees conferred 
 upon you, you have attained." In fulfilling the duty confided to 
 me, I would more especially address those of you who, having 
 gained the higher honors of this University, are about to enter 
 upon the practical duties of life ; though the remarks made will 
 be found, I trust, more or less applicable to you all. 
 
 The open book of the past is in your hands, and all can read 
 in it how arduously and how well you have pursued the task 
 set before you. You have fought and won. Your success this 
 day is a source of gratification to the Senate, of honest pride to 
 yourselves and of satisfaction to your parents and friends. In the 
 name of the Senate I congratulate you. May the honorable and 
 successful past be the omen of an honourable and successful 
 future. 
 
 At this important crisis of your lives your Alma Mater 
 would give you her parting advice. She would 
 Action and speak to you not so much of the past or even 
 duty^tiie guide. ^^ ^^^ present as of the future. She would stand 
 as a monitor athwart your pathway, not to ob- 
 struct the sunshine, but to moderate its glare ; not to damp your 
 joy, but to give it a noble aim by pointing out to you a future 
 of action and of duty. Gently would she take the closed volume 
 from your hands, and opening it inscribe on its earliest page 
 the significant words 'Hhe path to happiness is the path of 
 action and duty." The rest of that solemn volume, the record of 
 a useful and well-spent or of a useless and mis-spent life, each of 
 you must con for himself. Often in joy, often in sorrow, often 
 in hope, often in fear, often in perplexity, often in disappointment 
 will the leaves of that book be turned over. Heaven grant that 
 the closing page may be found to bear the assuring words 
 " Action and duty were the guides of his life," and now — 
 
 " After Kfe's fitful fever he sleeps well." 
 Your future career and character will be mainly of your OAvn 
 making, for the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands; 
 pause therefore and reflect how and after what pattern you will 
 mould yourselves. Your mental training has fitted you more or 
 less as Athletes to run the race of life with fair prospect of 
 success. But the race itself is yet before you, and he alone in 
 that Isthmian struggle will win the nobler than pine-leaf 
 crown, who, to culture and discipline of the mind adds culture 
 and discipline of the heart. 
 
 Your true education, that is to say the education of yourself 
 by yourself and your true life-work begin to-day. To-day you 
 
18?0.— Mr. George Smith. 59 
 
 leave the Gymnasium and step into the wide arena of the Stadium. 
 Are you surprised that I speak of this day as the true commence- 
 ment of your studies, rather than as the day of their true 
 consummation ? Do you point significantly to your Master's 
 Diploma and Hood as if these honorable insignia constituted 
 you literally Masters of Arts and Masters of Law. No idea 
 could be more erroneous ; no idea could be more groundless 
 and dangerous. Not thus are the Masters of Arts of the ancient 
 University of Oxford taught to regard the standpoint of their 
 graduation day, when, in the old Latin phrase, the Vice- 
 Chancellor confers upon them the right of " commencing in the 
 Faculty of Arts.'' You are tyros, not proficients. Masters in 
 posse, not Masters in esse. Much of what you have acquired 
 may be compared to "the crops which are raised, not for the 
 sake of the harvest, but to be ploughed in as a dressing to 
 the land/' 
 
 I take it for granted that you have already selected, or that 
 you purpose soon to select, a profession in life, 
 profession.^^ * Let the profession of your choice be emphatically 
 your life-work. Direct to its study the best powers 
 of your mind. In your professional career propose to yourself 
 an exalted aim and put in its service a persevering fidelity. 
 Strive with sustained effort and by every honorable means 
 to succeed in it. Let all knowledge which bears upon it directly 
 or indirectly claim your closest attention, and thus prove to 
 the world, by acts as well as by words, that you are earnest 
 men engaged in an earnest work, and that you are resolved 
 to ground your claims to advancement, not on smiles and 
 favors, not on patrons and friends, but on the extent and value 
 to the community of your professional acquirements. Let your 
 professional character, in short, be the real patron to which 
 you manfully and confidently look for ultimate success in life. 
 Every one knows full well that the busiest men, if methodical, 
 have always leisure time for studies and pursuits other than 
 those directly connected with their profession ; and as I antici- 
 pate that you will all be busy men, economical of time, picking 
 up its fragments that nothing be lost, I may benefit you by a few 
 practical hints as to the manner in which your horce subsecivce 
 may be spent with profit and advantage to yourselves. 
 
 Gentlemen, a serious duty bearing alike on your profes- 
 
 . . , , sional studies and on the pursuits of vour leisure 
 
 A serious duty. . • ii j t •''.'- r 
 
 moments is the due and progressive training of 
 
 your intellectual powers. This training, no longer cribb'd. 
 
60 University of Madras 
 
 cabinM and confinM by the imperious requirements of exami- 
 nation standards, involves not only the discipline of those 
 faculties whose powers have been cultivated, but also, and more 
 especially of those which are weak or which have been over- 
 looked and neglected. To secure, so to speak, the symmetric 
 development of the mind, the due balance and training of its 
 several powers should be aimed at. By careful observation 
 alike of the strong and of the weak points of your mental organ- 
 isation, you will be able to select such lines of study as shall 
 tend to develop the weak and to corroborate the strong. What- 
 ever of mental training your antecedent studies may have 
 effected for you, you may rest assured that you have intellec- 
 tual faculties which stand in need of further exercise and disci- 
 pline. In the earnest effort to "know thyself" you may 
 find, for example, that the faculty of imagination is stronger 
 than that of reasoning; that the power of association is greater 
 than that of generalisation ; or that the faculty of memory is 
 developed out of all proportion to that of judgment. And here 
 I may be permitted to observe that the remarkable power 
 of memory which most native students undoubtedly possess 
 is frequently rather a hindrance than a help to them in making 
 the results of study their own. Materials of thought collected 
 and recalled by memory alone too frequently fail to pass 
 further into the mind. They are consequently neither digested 
 nor assimilated. The bare materials of knowledge may be 
 accumulated, but it is thinking alone which makes what we read 
 ours. The philosophic Locke puts this truth forcibly thus, — 
 " We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram 
 ourselves with a great load of collections ; unless we chew them 
 over again, they will not give us sti^ngth and nourishment.'* 
 Above all, you may find that your mental training is defective, 
 
 not from lack of capacity, but from some remedi- 
 of thTiifr^''^ able or irremediable weakness of the will which 
 
 robs you of the power of controlling your own 
 minds. Never let it be forgotten that with steady effort, aided 
 by the cumulative power of habit, the processes of the intellect 
 can be brought under the control of the will. Set out, then, 
 with a determination not only to comprehend but also to master 
 your own minds. Many an educated man passes through life the 
 possessor of a mind of more than average power, which, because 
 unmastered by the will, is useless and dangerous in proportion to 
 its power and impulse. The frivolous, the wandering, the preju- 
 diced, the uncertain, the impulsive, and the vitiated, not to speak 
 of the diseased, are examples among many of minds which have 
 escaped from the necessary autocracy of the will. " This due 
 
1870.— if r. George Smith. 6l 
 
 regulation and stern control of the processes of the mind/' says 
 a well-known author, " is indeed the foundation of all that is 
 high and excellent in the formation of character. He who does 
 not earnestly exercise it, but who allows his mind to wander, 
 as it may be led by its own incidental images or casual asso- 
 ciations, or by the influence of external things to which he is 
 continually exposed, endangers his highest interests both as an 
 intellectual and moral being.'' 
 
 Gentlemen, the broad fields of thought lie before you all 
 unfenced, and the golden time of youth is yours. Choose your 
 plot of ground with nice discrimination, let its tillage be within 
 the compass of your strength ; plough, sow, reap, and fill your 
 arms with the sheaves of an abundant harvest. Be not dis- 
 mayed at obstacles. The vinegar of perseverance will soften 
 the Alps of difficulty. '^ With labour and patience,'' says the 
 Eastern Proverb, " the mulberry leaf becomes satin." 
 
 Man and Mind are noble subjects of study. 
 
 " On Earth there is nothing great but Man, 
 In Man there is nothing great but Mind." 
 
 The study of human nature on the large scale is as grand 
 p , , and elevating as the study of it on the small scale is 
 
 petty and debasing. The science of man's nature ; 
 the science of his physical peculiarities and geographical distri- 
 bution ; and the sciences which indicate the laws that govern men 
 when grouped in cities and nations deserve your careful study. 
 History, too, '^ a quarry well worth the hawk," offers to you philo- 
 sophy illustrated by examples, and the wondrous lessons of 
 mind which moves the mass, of ideas more potent than bayonets. 
 It speaks to you of the justice of an Aristides, the simple life of 
 a Cincinnatus, the respect of a Regulus for his plighted word, the 
 ijhastity of a Scipio and the virtues of a Cato, and it invites you 
 to a standpoint above the din and excitement of battle, of 
 revolution and of contending human interests, in order that 
 from that vantage ground you may calmly read the mighty 
 lessons of the world's infancy and manhood, and from them 
 gain a clue to the real aim and end of humanity itself. Or, 
 is your bent towards the science of Language ? The classification 
 
 of Languages is the classification of mankind. A 
 PhHoiogy.^*^^^ scientific analysis of language proves the unity of 
 
 the human race. " One blood " ! What a wealth of 
 brotherhood and kindness lies hid in that short phrase. The 
 Chevalier Bunsen, an able writer and clear thinker on this subject, 
 gives a classification of the languages of men, and, after stating 
 the two possible hypotheses which have been advanced, first of 
 
62 University of Madras. 
 
 several independent origins, and second o£ one sole origin of Lan- 
 guage, continues as follows : — " If the first supposition be true, 
 the different tribes or families of languages, however analogous 
 they may be, as being the produce of the same human mind upon 
 the same outward world, by the same organic means, will, never- 
 theless, offer scarcely any affinity to each other in the skill display- 
 ed in their formation, and in the mode of it ; but their very roots, 
 full or empty ones, and all their words, monosyllabic or poly- 
 syllabic, must needs be entirely different. There may be some 
 similar expressions in those inarticulate bursts of feeling, not 
 reacted on by the mind, which grammarians call interjections. 
 There are, besides, some graphic imitations of external sounds, 
 called Onomatopoetica — words the formation of which indicates 
 the, relatively, greatest passivity of the mind. There may be, 
 besides, some casual coincidences in real words ; but the law 
 of combination, applied to the elements of sound, gives a 
 mathematical proof that with all allowances, such a chance 
 is less than one in a million for the same combination of 
 sounds, signifiying the same precise object. If there be entirely 
 different beginnings of speech, as philosophical inquiry is 
 allowed to assume, and as the great philosophers of antiquity 
 have assumed, there can be none but stray coincidences between 
 words of a different origin. Referring to what has already been 
 stated as the result of the most accurate linguistic inquiries, 
 such a coincidence does exist between three great families spread- 
 ing from the north of Europe to the tropic Lands of Asia and 
 Africa. If there exists, not only in radical words, but even in 
 what may appear as the work of an exclusively peculiar coinage — 
 the formative words and inflections which pervade the whole 
 structure of certain families of languages — and are interwoven, 
 as it were, with every sentence pronounced in every one of theip 
 branches. All nations which, from the dawn of history to our 
 days, have been the leaders of civilization, in Asia, Europe, and 
 Africa, must consequently have had one beginning.' ' The 
 remarks of the learned writer refer more especially to the 
 Semitic, Japetic, and Chametic languages, but the same con- 
 clusions equally apply to the Turanian, which is a branch of 
 the Japetic. What could be more interesting to you as students 
 of philology and natives of this land, than to trace, for example, 
 your ancient Indian stock — more or less closely allied to the 
 Sanskrit — with its polysyllabic words and store of inflectional 
 forms through nearly all the languages of the West ; to note its 
 development into splendour and precision in the classic tongues 
 of Greece and Rome, and following, let us suppose, one of the 
 most remarkable of its branches into Central Europe, to observe 
 
1870.— ilfr. Oeorge Srmth, 63 
 
 its gradual transformation into the noble German tougue, the 
 language emphatically of thought and philosophy, of poetry and 
 of taste. 
 
 Gentlemen, whatever may be lacking in these and other 
 sciences of Mind to give extension and intension to the intellec- 
 tual faculties, you will not fail to find in one or other of the 
 remaining classes under which the sciences and arts are grouped. 
 
 And here I may be allowed to solicit your attention to the 
 importance of Physical Science as a means of intel- 
 eiice^^^*^^ ^°*' lectual culture, and I do so, more especially because 
 no sufficient provision for instruction in the sciences 
 of Physics, Chemistry and Life has as yet been made in connec- 
 tion with the University itself, or with any of its afiiliated 
 institutions. 
 
 The groups of Science now alluded to deal, not so much 
 with abstractions, as with external and sensible objects ; their 
 study quickens the faculty of observation, the powers of com- 
 parison and generalization, and the mental habit of method and 
 arrangement. They familiarize the mind with the deeper philo- 
 sophies of seeing, hearing and touch, and, in the close interroga- 
 tion of Nature by actual experiment, they shew the value of the 
 processes of analysis and synthesis. In these sciences reason guides 
 observation, observation corrects theory, and truth can be proved 
 by means cognizable by the senses. " To unite observation and 
 reason, not to lose sight of the ideal of science to which man 
 aspires, and to search for it and find it by the route of experi- 
 ence, — such,^' according to Victor Cousin, " is the problem of 
 philosophy." 
 
 These sciences are valuable not only as training grounds for 
 the intellect, but as store-houses of necessary information on 
 matters of practical importance in life ; matters which so under- 
 lie the political, scientific, literary and social demands of the 
 present time, that no man with any pretension to a liberal educa- 
 tion can afford to be ignorant of them. They constitute, more- 
 over, the best correctives of that cramping of the mind which 
 professional studies, ardently pursued, are so apt to induce. 
 
 Physical Science holds bold and not unsuccessful competi- 
 tion with the sciences of Mind to secure for its service the highest 
 intellect of the time. In an age when knowledge, no longer 
 satisfied with merely flowering into ideas is fruiting into the 
 practical on every side, it behoves those who are training for the 
 
64 University of Madras. 
 
 actualities of life to comprehend the demands of the day, if they 
 would have their high and honorable degrees to represent realities, 
 not anachronisms. 
 
 Daily is it becoming more and more apparent that the posi- 
 tion of nations in the scale of civilization depends, mainly, upon 
 their greater or less acquaintance with, and employment of, 
 natural forces as aids to production, and, if this be true, then 
 how deep must be the interest felt by all classes of society in 
 understanding the laws and facts of Physics. The Statesman 
 in Parliament, the Judge on the Bench, the Educationist, the 
 Man of Letters, the Lawyer, the Soldier, the Sailor, the Merchant, 
 the Manufacturer, and the Farmer have, each in his own sphere, 
 a special interest in the momentous questions emerging from or 
 colligated with Physical Science. 
 
 Gentlemen, whatever choice of congenial studies you may 
 
 make, enter on the quest of truth with earnestness 
 
 Quest of truth, and modesty. Truth is ever young ; she ages not 
 
 though the world gets wrinkled. There are truths 
 
 of beauty and of grace which grow along the wayside of life ; 
 
 there are truths bearing richer fruit which grow among the 
 
 briers and thorns by little frequented paths ; there are truths, 
 
 the most priceless of all, which grow on slippery and rocky 
 
 places, whose golden fruit can be plucked by those alone who 
 
 search for it by sweat and toil. Around you lies an ocean of 
 
 truth, in which the bravest diver may plunge with the certainty 
 
 of bringing up goodly pearls. 
 
 It is true that this world is full of errors, but it is equally 
 true that it is full of the correctives of error. Modestly, there- 
 fore, but firmly and faithfully set out on the holy quest of truth. 
 Use aright the reason which has been given you, and honestly 
 exercise your birthright, the inalienable birthri^t of every man, 
 to prove all things. 
 
 Truth will not always be found on the side of the world's 
 majorities. The sheep principle is strong in humanity, and it 
 is not every combatant who has the courage, even if he have the 
 will, to ally himself with the world's minorities in upholding the 
 good and true. In saying this 1 have no desire to see you 
 angular men, erratic in your opinions, needlessly running counter 
 to the views of all around you, but I do desire that you should 
 shew to the world that you are not merely smooth pebbles of 
 the brook with every angle and prominence flattened down by 
 attrition till all individuality is lost, but that you are men who 
 possess, and desire to maintain a distinct individuality, a 
 
1870— Afr. neonjr Smith. 65 
 
 thoughtful steadiness of purpose, and a power of moral resist- 
 ance which shall prevent your being helplessly swept away by 
 the prevailing floods of fashion, of opinion, of frivolity and of 
 mis- judgment. 
 
 Be careful in forming your opinions. An erroneous principle 
 once assumed has the power of misleading even the strongest 
 and best informed minds, and of binding them in chains of iron. 
 All history and experience prove this. Beware especially of the 
 tyranny of prejudice, than which nothing is more certain to warp 
 and distort the mind. Prejudice is the very cancer of the soul. 
 
 Rest not, however, in mere knowledge polished, selfish and 
 ' sterile, but gird your loins like men to translate 
 Translate know- that knowledge into action, alike for your own good 
 tion. and for the weal of your brother-man. Life demands 
 
 of us not knowledge only, but action. Appreciate 
 then your position as the teachers of India of the future, and 
 fulfil as well as recognize the responsibilities which that position 
 involves. Be zealous, wise and humble. The greatest philosophers 
 the world has ever seen have spoken of the pursuit of knowledge 
 as but a course between two ignorances, and the acceptance of 
 this truth is itself an evidence of true knowledge, and true know- 
 ledge is the parent of humility and of wisdom. " The bough 
 fruit-laden,'' says Sadi, the Persian poet, '^ lays its head upon the 
 ground"; and, as a beautiful sonnet from the *^ Memories of 
 Merton" hath it — 
 
 " Knowledge is like an errant knight of old, 
 Vaunting his prowess ; eager for the fray ; 
 Arm'd cap-^-pie ; with peacock plnmage gay ; 
 Self-confident ; adventure seeking ; bold ; 
 He roams throughout the world, ready to hold 
 Tournay against all comers day by day ; 
 He enters magic oaves without dismay, 
 And views strange sights which others ne'er behold. 
 But wisdom is his meek-eyed lady-love, 
 Whom if he wins not he is nothing worth — 
 Now casting down, her modest eyes on earth, 
 Now heavenward, trustful, she herself doth try, 
 And broodeth o'er her own heart silently, 
 Timid, but constant, patient, as a dove." 
 
 Be students, then, all your lives. Never abandon that 
 honorable title. Select with care not only your 
 Studyallyour professional studies, but also the pursuits of your 
 leisure hours. Love them and reduce their cultiva- 
 tion to a system. Diligently map out your time, and form with 
 care your mental habits. Do everything at its proper season, 
 and you will have time to do everything carefully and well. 
 9 
 
University of Madras, 
 
 '*■ Have a duty for every time, and you will have time for every 
 duty." Avoid dream-land, and correct without mercy that habit 
 of indolence which compels some men to float through life 
 
 " As idly as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." 
 Under this earnest cultivation and discipline of the mind 
 labour itself will be transmuted to pleasure, and the symbol of the 
 curse will become the secret of the blessing : — 
 
 " Labour is life ! 'tisthe Btill water faileth ; 
 Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; 
 Keep the watch wound, for the dark nie^ht assaileth; 
 Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
 Labour is glory ! The flying cloud lightens j 
 Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
 Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ; 
 Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune." 
 
 Apollo, however, as we are told in classic song does not always 
 keep his bow bent, and you too will require intervals of relaxa- 
 tion from professional studies and kindred pursuits. What your 
 recreatioQs ought to be I cannot attempt to define, but this I may 
 say, that they should be selected as carefully and with as much 
 self-introspection as your graver studies. 
 
 I wish I could indicate to you some manly exercise, not 
 altogether foreign to your habits and customs, 
 some noble game like that of cricket which ele- 
 vates at once the moral and physical tone, which calls forth 
 energy and promptitude, which, with muscular force develops 
 judgment, watchfulness, endurance, courage, generous emu- 
 lation, appreciation of the merits of others, manly accept- 
 ance of defeat and manly modesty of success. More battle 
 fields than those of war have been gained on British cricket 
 grounds. He who braces his muscles, braces his mind. 
 
 I gladly point out to you also the genuine pleasures which 
 arise from the love and imitation of the beautiful in Nature and 
 in Art. If we look abroad on this wondrous creation we cannot 
 fail to recognize the beautiful in profusion around us. It is seen 
 in the motions, forms and colours of the animal kingdom ; in the 
 variety, grace and delicacy of the vegetable world ; in the mass- 
 ing, grouping and grandeur of the objects of inanimate creation. 
 Beauty exists as an expression of the great Creator's mind and 
 love, and would exist, even were there no human eye to welcome it. 
 
 Man, however, has been endowed with perceptions specially 
 fitted for the contemplation, enjoymeut and imitation of all this 
 beauty ; but as other powers of the mind require to be evoked 
 and educated, so does the power of appreciating the beautiful. 
 
1870.— Mr. George Smith. 6? 
 
 When evoked and trained, tiie contemplation of the beautiful in 
 Nature and Art is one of the most elevating and pure of the 
 pleasures enjoyable by man. 
 
 " Man," it has been well said, ''is by nature and universally 
 an artificer, an artizan, an artist " ; and no where 
 ofthe EMt.^^^'' can this fact be more abundantly illustrated than 
 here in India. In this as in many other respects the 
 West is but the daughter of the East, though each retains her 
 own marked individuality. The mother, however, has charms 
 of her own, charms of antiquity, originality, grace and harmony 
 of colour, which the daughter strives in vain to equal. Look at 
 the textile, manual and mechanical arts of India ; the '' webs 
 of woven air " spun by Arachne herself ; the embroidered fabrics 
 unequalled for delicacy and design. Look at the skill of the 
 workmen of Shemoogah in carving in sandalwood, of those of 
 Travancore in ivory, of the goldsmiths of Trichinopoly, the 
 silversmiths of Cuttack. These and many other of the manufac- 
 tures of this land exhibit remarkably that instinctive — let me add 
 hereditary — artistic taste, and that artistic eye for form, orna- 
 ment and bloom of colour which have gained for Indian arts the 
 admiration of the world. 
 
 Such national industries you, as sons of India, should learn 
 to appreciate and to cherish, for if you do not, they are little 
 likely to remain your inheritance, or to be improved by Western 
 taste or by Western science. 
 
 Never forget that India was a civilized, an artistic and an 
 industrial nation when Abraham left his native Ur 
 dition oflndia; ^^ *^^ Chaldees, and that it is through you, gentle- 
 men, and others deeply interested in this land, that 
 the latent capabilities of its intelligent and teachable people are 
 to be evoked, so that your native land may once more take her 
 ancient and most distinguished position among the philosophic, 
 the artistic and industrial nations of the world. 
 
 Other rational enjoyments for leisure hours there are, 
 p, many and varied, but these I cannot now stop to 
 
 consider. Pleasures of harmony, imagination, taste 
 and genius. Pleasures, too, of wit and humour. '^ The man 
 who cannot laugh," says the quaint author of Sartor Resartus, 
 ''is not only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils, but his 
 whole life is already a treason and stratagem." Make not a 
 business of mere recreation ; enjoy it like men of sense and 
 pass on : — 
 
 "Sicut canis ad Nilutn bibens et fugiens." < . 
 
68 ijniversiiy of Madrati. 
 
 Gentlemen, man has a heart as well as a head, moral 
 principles as well as intellectual powers, and in 
 thehead*^ ^^ forming the human character this fact ought 
 never to be overlooked. Comment would only 
 weaken the impression of the following suggestive passage from 
 Bacon, which Lord Bolingbroke has pronounced to be one of 
 the finest and deepest in his writings, and which Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton has quoted with admiration ; it is indeed full of significance 
 and truth. " In forming the human character,'' remarks the 
 great philosopher, ^^we must not proceed as a statuary does in 
 forming a statue, who works sometimes on the face, sometimes 
 on the limbs, sometimes on the folds of the drapery ; but we 
 must proceed (and it is in our power to proceed) as Nature does 
 in forming a flower, or any other of her productions ; she throws 
 out altogether, and at once, the whole system of being, and the 
 rudiments of all the parts." 
 
 I must conclude. Many are the temptations which are 
 likely to beset your path in life ; temptations from 
 tem^tions!™* without, temptations from within, to resist which 
 will require the energetic action of all the better 
 elements of your character. Walk therefore the path of life 
 warily, wisely ; recognize the weakness of self, and never for a 
 moment forget the golden saying of the brave Duke John of 
 Saxony, " the straight line is the shortest road." 
 
 If your studies, imbued as they have been with high prin- 
 ciples of honor and of truth, fail to make you men of honor, 
 truthfulness and integrity, they have failed to influence for good 
 your moral nature, however much they may have succeeded in 
 sharpening your intellect, or in adding to the stores of your 
 knowledge. Your Akna Mater will fail to recognize in you her 
 own success, unless you exhibit to the world an incorruptible 
 integrity, chivalrous honor, unswerving truth, genuine sym- 
 pathy with your brother-man, and an enlarged mind free alike 
 from pride, prejudice and selfishness. 
 
 Cultivate then a tender conscience, a conscience which shall 
 Ctdtivate a tave power to rule alike your thoughts and actions, 
 tender con- In One word, be gentlemen in all the feelings, 
 science. principles and chivalry of gentlehood. Let the 
 
 world see that with informed heads you have reformed hearts, 
 and that your intellectual training has been no one-sided system 
 which has done all that is possible to be done for the mind, while 
 it has left untended and untrained the heart, whence are the 
 very issues of moral life. 
 
1871.— Rev. William Miller. ^ 69 
 
 Good example is a language all can understand. There are 
 footsteps and footsteps on the sea shore ; footsteps which the 
 returning tide sweeps away ; footsteps which ocean's waves 
 cannot efface. Let me point out to you the footprints on the 
 sands of time of one who translated faithfully into daily life the 
 'Hrue and fesf of his princely shield; of one who lives alike 
 in the hearts and memories of a grateful and sorrowing people, 
 iis the personification of all the courtesy, wisdom and nobleness 
 of soul of the poet's ideal knight. Amid ^' that fierce light which 
 beats upon a throne '' he stood before a blot-seeking, blot-loving 
 world, noble yet humble, wise yet gentle, learned yet modest, 
 bearing on his breast ''the white flower of a blameless life,'' and 
 in his heart the love of all that is good, and true and beautiful. 
 In your much narrower sphere of duty seek to imitate a gentle, 
 true life like his ; like him, strive to leave to your children that 
 noblest of all burdens to carry, an unstained and honored name, 
 and, above all, reverence, as he did, your conscience as your king. 
 
 In looking back, whether from the near or distant future, 
 upon this eventful day of your lives, your satisfaction will be 
 deepened by the reflection that your honors were conferred by 
 one who bears a historic name, a name synonymous in the annals 
 of Britain with promptitude and power, no less than with loyalty 
 and duty ; by the reflection also that your success has been 
 witnessed by a sovereign Indian Prince, whose enlightened rule 
 will be pointed to with admiration by generations unborn ; and 
 more than all, will your satisfaction be deepened by the remem- 
 brance that your much-coveted degrees have been proclaimed in 
 the presence of a Prince of the Blood-Royal of England, whom 
 with loyal hearts we welcome to our shores for his own sake, for 
 the sake of Albert the Good, and for the sake of her, the gentle 
 Lady, who reigns, not more by right of ancient descent over the 
 persons, than by right of queenly love in the hearts of a free, a 
 manly and a loyal people. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Rev. William Millee, M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — After long continued study, after trials through 
 which you have passed successfully, and after promises which 
 before so many witnesses you have deliberately made, you are 
 now admitted to the honour of ranking while you live as mem- 
 bers of the University of Madras. It devolves on me to exhort 
 you, according to its statutes, '' to conduct yourselves suitably 
 unto the position to which, by the degree conferred upon you, 
 
70 ^ University of Madras. 
 
 you have attained/' It is but natural that before you pass finally 
 from beneath her fostering care^ your Alma Mater should wish 
 to address to you some parting words of counsel. Some of you, 
 it is true, are not yet to sever the tie that has so long bound you 
 to her. Some of you — and I hope not a very few — will endeavour 
 to obtain still higher honours at her hand after another period 
 of submission to her guidance ; but most of you in any case 
 have completed the portion of your lives that you can afford to 
 devote to academic pursuits, and even those who seek for a 
 higher place in the rolls of the University must henceforth be 
 much less than hitherto under her direct control. They must 
 journey on, not indeed unguided but at least unwatched by her 
 or by any of her delegates. 
 
 In greater or smaller measure, therefore, you all stand from 
 this day forward in a new position. You pass from the toils of 
 learning to those of life, from the acquisition of knowledge to 
 the higher task of working into the texture of your history on 
 earth, the knowledge that has been acquired, from being reci- 
 pients of the influence of others to positions where your own 
 influence must largely tell upon the generation to which you 
 belong, and through it upon all the generations that shall follow. 
 It is well becoming that, at such a stage, this University should 
 tell you how she expects those to live whom she has stamped with 
 her approval, and who are now her representatives to the world. 
 And, therefore, as you listen to what I say, regard it not as the 
 words of one who has little title to speak with authority in 
 virtue of age, or experience, or learning. Kather in so far, but 
 in so far only, as my words approve themselves to be words of 
 truth and wisdom, regard them, I entreat you, as spoken to you 
 by that University which has conferred on you so many benefits 
 already, and towards which I trust that you will cherish while 
 you live, feelings of mingled love and veneration. 
 
 The obligations of many kinds under which you lie are 
 almost infinite in number; but great though the desire of this 
 University is that you should be in all respects noble-hearted and 
 well-conducted men, it is not of the whole round of duty that she 
 calls me now to speak. Inasmuch as you are subjects, inas- 
 much as you are citizens, inasmuch as you are men, there are 
 countless claims upon you such as you cannot safely or 
 honourably neglect; but these lie beyond the scope of my 
 present task, except in so far as all duty is from its very nature 
 linked indissolubly together. It is the duties arising from your 
 present position that 1 have to impress upon you — your duties 
 as the sons of science — as those to whom has been entrusted the 
 
ISIL—Eev. William Miller. 71 
 
 lamp of knowledge, and that in the midst of a land that, much 
 as we may wish it otherwise, we cannot deny to be comparatively 
 a land of darkness. 
 
 These duties divide themselves naturally into two classes : 
 those that you still owe to yourselves upon the one hand, and 
 those that you owe to your country and your fellow-men upon 
 tlie other. 
 
 With regard to yourselves, remember that your work as 
 seekers after truth is not ended. We say indeed. 
 Your duty as and it is rightly said, that you have completed your 
 truth.^^ * ^^ education; but there are different kinds of com- 
 pleteness, and the sense in which you can deem 
 3^ourselves completely educated requires to be attentively con- 
 sidered. There is a completeness like that of the giant tree, 
 around whose blossoms myriad tribes of insects sport and 
 whose pyramid of leaves spreads wide a welcome shade from the 
 fierceness of noonday sun. That tree has reached the highest 
 development of which its nature makes it capable. It stands 
 complete. But there is a completeness too like that of the seed, 
 which, whatever it may become hereafter, is far from having 
 realized the ideal of its being. Yet in its own fashion, the seed 
 too is complete It has so drawn in the life of its parent stem 
 that it is fitted to become in the common course of nature such 
 in all respects as that parent is. The germ of all is already in 
 it. Every organ that is needed to make it complete even in the 
 fullest sense, may now be developed out of it. Let it only be 
 placed in the proper conditions, let it only in these conditions 
 preserve its own vitality, and it is certain to grow into all that 
 it was designed to be, without any new external aid. It is the 
 latter completeness, not the former, that can be affirmed of 
 your education. Complete in the widest sense it certainly is 
 not ; but we trust that you have within yourselves all that is 
 essential for enabling it to become so. The years you have spent 
 under the care of this University have left in you, as we hope, 
 not only a certain small stock of information, but a certain 
 love of knowledge for its own sake, a certain receptivity to 
 truth, and above all the aptitude to grasp and to make your 
 own whatever may become the subject of your thoughts here- 
 after. If indeed there be among you any whose only care has 
 been to keep in mind the bare facts they have been instructed to 
 attend to, and who are satisfied now to let study drop, because 
 their trials have been sustained and their position is secure, for 
 such these bye-gone years have been, at all events in the high- 
 est sense, useless if they have not been worse. Such may. 
 
72 University of Madras. 
 
 indeed, by tlieii* so-called study liave bettered the material 
 prospects of tlieir lives, but as children of the light and seekers 
 in profession after truth, they have but degraded themselves to 
 a lower level than that from which they started at the first. 
 But we hope for better things from all of you. Ideals, it 
 is true, are attained but seldom, and with you as with us all, 
 mental training is far from perfect, and zeal for knowledge far 
 from pure. Yet we trust that in no inconsiderable measure you 
 have a sense of the dignity of wisdom^ a sense of your own need 
 of it, and a power at the same time of gathering it henceforward 
 for yourselves. Thus you are complete with the completeness 
 of a seed. As the seed is cast into the bosom of nature in 
 order that its energies may be called forth and its destinies 
 accomplished, so do you cast yourselves into active life, deter- 
 mined in it to exercise, and by exercise to increase those mental 
 powers that the training of the past has given you — determined 
 that by continual accessions to your knowledge, the stream of 
 thought shall be kept flowing constantly within you and bearing 
 health, activity and growth into the very recesses of your 
 being. 
 
 And here I am reminded that, in the case of some, the 
 necessity is very clamant that they should thus maintain and 
 increase their knowledge. 
 
 Graduates in Law, in Medicine and Engineering, the 
 sciences to which you have devoted yourselves obviously demand 
 the labour of «. lifetime. In the case of law, the field is so wide 
 and the possible application of its principles so varied, as to 
 make it very plain that no one should enter on its study who 
 is not content to be ever learning, and ever to confess himself 
 but a learner still. And Medicine and Engineering are sciences 
 that in this age are eminently progressive. The thinking of 
 our time is of such a kind as to be largely auxiliary to each of 
 them. Every addition that is made to our knowledge of the 
 plan of nature — and how numerous and startling are such 
 additions now-a-days — ^is capable of being pressed into the ser- 
 vice of one or other, or of both. You, who have chosen it as 
 your noble function to study, to preserve, and, when need be, 
 to cure the dwelling with which man's spirit is endued : — you 
 who are to have it as your high vocation to subdue the stub- 
 born forces round us to our common use, and to render this 
 earth an increasingly commodious residence for mankind, — 
 you must be ever watchful of what is new and ever labouring 
 to extend the limits of your knowledge, if you would even 
 arrive at or maintain proficiency in your special callings. 
 
1871.— Rev. William Miller. 75 
 
 But to all of you, gentlemen, I would say : — be students 
 while you live. It is a duty that you owe to your- 
 and men ^°°^ Selves, in order that your intellectual being may be 
 no stunted and miserable thing, but the noble 
 growth that it will be developed into by your faithfully following 
 out the path on which you have creditably entered. Be students 
 of books, as you have been hitherto. In the busiest life you will 
 find some time for this. Draw in and make your own the fruit 
 of the minds of others, and thus keep yourselves ever moving with 
 the stream of human thought that has flowed on, and shall flow 
 on through all the ages. Yet even more, be students of men and 
 of the facts of life- It is in no dreamland of fancy, and in no 
 retirement of studious seclusion, that man's mind and character 
 are fitted to arrive at their due expansion. The men that you 
 meet with in all their variety of intellectual and moral nature, 
 the political and social forces at work around you, the tendencies 
 and aims of current speculation, will furnish to the well-trained 
 mind, food for constant thought — ^for such thought as may elevate 
 and brace the whole inner life by keeping it in perpetual contact 
 with what is real and enduring beneath the shows of the fleeting 
 hour. And on all such subjects, while you do not despise or 
 neglect the words of others, dare to form an opinion 
 
 oJ^^'o^nions^ ^^ 7^^^ ^^^' ^^^^ ^J venturing to think your own 
 thoughts and to acknowledge no authority but that 
 of truth, can you ennoble your minds upon the one hand, or 
 discharge your moral responsibility on the other. And be not 
 dismayed though thinking which thus aims only at the true, 
 should lead you often into perplexity and doubt. That is but 
 part of the diaeipHne of life. Some of you know the quaint old 
 saying adopted as a motto by one of the leading minds of the 
 present century : 
 
 " Trath like a torch, the more it's shook it shines." 
 
 These perplexities and doubts are but the shaking which 
 makes truth beam forth more clearly before long. Meet them 
 manfully. Labour on till certainty is reached. Be sure of this, 
 that a fuller insight into any fact whether great or small, but 
 most of all if it be into one of the eternities of human specu- 
 lation, is by itself a rich return for all the toil and danger of 
 the search, at least to those in whom the sacred thirst for truth 
 has been once effectually awakened. 
 
 And though my theme at present be mainly that intellectual 
 
 character, the growth of which a University must always make 
 
 its first concern, I may be permitted to point out before passing 
 
 on, one noble result of a different kind which will have a tendency 
 
 10 
 
74 University of Madras. 
 
 to flow from your faithfully pursuing wisdom and knowledge 
 in whatever department of human thought. He that gives 
 himself to this pursuit is raised above the power of some at 
 least of the allurements with which the world is crowded. He 
 that aims at an object thus beyond himself, grows in some 
 degree insensible to the voice of selfishness — the most subtle 
 and most persistent of tempters into whatever is dishonourable 
 and base. Endeavour, therefore, to grow in knowledge for this 
 additional reason — because thus you may gain no inconsiderable 
 aid in living a life of unspotted integrity, so that you shall be 
 missed and mourned for when you walk no more in the ways of 
 men : — so that of you it may be said, to quote language that 
 recent study must have made a household word to some of you, — 
 
 " He had kept 
 The whiteness of his life, and thus men o'er him wept." 
 
 But what in the next place of the duties towards others that 
 spring from your possession of that germ of know- 
 Labour for ledge which is destined as we trust to grow wide 
 others.^^^ ° ^11^ great ? This briefly above all — that you use 
 this knowledge, and all the power that in greater 
 or less degree it is certain to bring with it, for the benefit of 
 men, not for the attainment of any personal ends. That you 
 should employ your knowledge thus is the design with which 
 it has been given you. It is the design in so far as regards this 
 University and her subordinate colleges which have been the 
 instruments of your education. It is the design in a still higher 
 sense : namely, in so far as concerns the government of the world 
 itself. On the one hand, you cannot imagine even for a moment 
 that all the expenditure of wealth and time and strength on the 
 part of those who have contributed directly or indirectly to your 
 training, will have attained its end if you arrive at distinction 
 or at power : — you so few, and when considered merely by your- 
 selves, so utterly insignificant compared with the teeming millions 
 around you. No; you have been enlightened in order that through 
 you those millions may be blessed. On the other hand, very 
 little consideration is needed to convince you that if you live and 
 labour only for yourselves, you will run counter to the plan on 
 which the whole world is beneficently ruled. 
 
 Time was when men supposed that the luminaries of heaven 
 „ . , moved ceaselessly round this earth, while it in rest 
 
 Service and j 1 i. t. • j.i • • • j. j.* 
 
 subordination, ^^^ ©^se was content to receive their ministrations. 
 
 the life of the Now We know that according to the plan of this 
 
 mverse. universe, our planet could receive in no such way 
 
 $LS this the light and heat that it requires. It can obtain them 
 
1871.— i^eu. William Miller. 75 
 
 only by obedience to the attracting power of the distant sun. 
 It is not only served ; it is itself a servant in the first place. 
 And so of all the other bodies of our system, and apparently of 
 every system that the telescope of the astronomer has revealed. 
 The well-being of each and the stability of the whole are 
 secured by a constant regard in each to a centre and an aim 
 beyond itself. Imagine for a moment this globe breaking 
 away from the order of ministration and dependence in which 
 it is now embraced. How soon would all its beauty perish, how 
 soon would its varied tribes of abounding life sink back into the 
 cheerless chaos out of which they have arisen. And, gentlemen, 
 for those who have acquainted themselves at all with the facts 
 of physical science, I need not add how in every department of 
 every natural kingdom the same law of helpful service holds. 
 Not for itself but for every being that drinks in life and beauty 
 from its beams, does the light return each morning on the earth. 
 Not to rejoice in their own array do the lily and the rose deck 
 themselves in splendour. Not to be an end unto themselves do 
 the fruits of the valley spring. Not for its own sake does the 
 patient ox labour in the furrow. Service and subordination are 
 the life of the universe ; isolation and selfishness its death. 
 
 Listen therefore to the parable which nature daily teaches 
 to those who have penetrated but a little way into 
 The road to 'jo.qj. mysteries. Listen and learn that it is in the 
 ness. path of usefulness that you can arrive at, I say not 
 
 merely the highest glory, but even the only happi- 
 ness. And doubt not that in the active life before you, you 
 will find abundant opportunity for such service to your fellow- 
 men as the plan of all creation thus summons you to render. 
 Those who have* chosen their profession can easily discern the 
 particular benefit that in its exercise they can confer on others. 
 Make the doing of that good your main design. True, it is by your 
 labour you must live, and it would not be right or wise to forget 
 this aspect of the case. But let such personal results of effort be 
 ever with you the second thing and not the first. In the practice 
 of the law let the securing of justice and the setting right of wrong 
 be the object on which your heart is set ; — not the mere pocketing 
 of your fee. In the exercise of the healing art, fix all your 
 thoughts upon your immediate task of preserving health or life 
 to those who trust to you for aid. And, graduates in Engineer- 
 ing, let your conscious aim be this, — that the structures of any 
 kind that you erect, or the canals, let us say, that you may dig, 
 shall be a convenience and a joy to the struggling lives of those 
 who are in the world already, and of such a kind that they shall 
 
76 Vniversity of Madras. 
 
 continue to serve their purpose in the midst of generations that 
 are still to come. If thus you act, then, unless the plainest 
 teaching of nature be a lie, you will not lose by it even in the 
 lowest view, while your moral nature will be ennobled, and you 
 will enjoy what must surely be the satisfaction of believing that, 
 so far at least, you are obedient to the law by which all existence 
 is bound together into this one glorious universe. And what- 
 ever be the profession you may choose, you may all in the 
 exercise alike of it and of your pergonal influence, do much to 
 awaken in others that desire for knowledge which this Univer- 
 sity trusts that she has been the means of awakening in you. 
 If you are in the least worthy of the position in which you stand, 
 you need not me to tell you that by doing so you will confer on 
 them a greater boon than the very greatest that is merely 
 material in its character. 
 
 There was a time when the nations of Europe, too ignorant 
 even now, were sunk in ignorance of the very densest kind. 
 It was by the individual effort of those who had been themselves 
 enlightened, that the darkness began in any measure to be rolled 
 away. A story of the age of Charlemagne, related by Dr. 
 Newman in his delightful volume on the Office and Work of 
 Universities, may serve as an illustration of the spirit in which 
 some of them went about this work. '* Two wandering Irish 
 students,^' he says, "were brought by British traders to the 
 coast of France. There, observing the eagerness with which 
 those hawkers of perishable merchandize were surrounded by 
 the populace, they imitated them by crying out, Who wants 
 wisdom ? here is wisdom on sale ! This is the place for wisdom.^' 
 It is an example for you — not in the letter but certainly in the 
 spirit. What was genuine and therefore useful in them, might 
 be in others the veriest affectation ; yet the need of knowledge 
 is such in India that those who know its grandeur should hesitate 
 at little if only they can arouse in their countrymen a desire to 
 be sharers in its benefits. 
 
 In exhorting you thus, gentlemen, to labour for the good of 
 Acquaintance o^E-ers, I am not unaware that something is tacitly 
 with sons of assumed. If you have no personal perception that 
 ^^°^®" the object proposed to you is in itself a noble one, 
 
 undoubtedly the arguments I have used, or reasoning of any 
 kind, will have but little practical effect. But I believe that 
 some consciousness of its intrinsic grandeur is alive within you; 
 and that the only thing needed is that this consciousness should 
 be fanned into a flame. Suffer me, therefore, only to remind 
 you that this University in doing so much directly for your intel- 
 
1871.— i2«v. WiUiam MiUer, 7? 
 
 lectual progress has done something indirectly, yea, has done 
 
 much, to arouse and guide your moral nature too. Besides the 
 
 special training that some have had, you have all enjoyed more 
 
 or less of general culture, in which you have come in contact 
 
 with the words and thoughts of some among 
 
 " Those dead but sceptred sovrans that still mle 
 Our spirits from their urns." 
 
 You have surely done more than arrive at a bare intellectual 
 apprehension of their meaning. You have caught something 
 of their spirit too. To you has been unlocked that treasury of 
 invigorating thought of which Shakespeare and Milton stand 
 the guardians. The very tongue that they and their fellows 
 have ennobled, is a channel whereby moral life must flow into 
 those who study it with sympathy. Some portions too of the 
 wide field of history you have traversed. There you have met 
 with men that have contended for freedom and for truth at the 
 danger of life or at the cost of it : with those too that amidst 
 perplexity and peril, unsupported by any breath of popular 
 applause, have toiled on in some righteous cause until its worth 
 grew clear to all, and empires ennobled became the memorials 
 of their lives. Such are the men you have admired, not those 
 whose self-centred existence brought them it may be wealth, or 
 ease, or power, but came to an end without a single impress left 
 for good on the destinies of mankind. 
 
 It cannot be all in vain, the acquaintance that you thus have 
 made with 
 
 " The sons of ancient fame, 
 Those starry lights of virtue, that diffuse 
 Through the dark depths of time their vivid flame." 
 
 In the light that streams from them you perceive it to be 
 the lofty thing it is, to labour and to wait for great unselfish 
 aims. Thus we would have you live, according to the pure and 
 holy instincts that these bright examples have from time to 
 time called forth within you. Thus we would have you live, 
 for whether your influence be great or small, and even if little 
 success attend your most devoted efforts, you will thus in inmost 
 spirit ^' claim kindred with the great of old.^^ 
 
 Such then, gentlemen, are the duties arisiug from your 
 present position that I would exhort you to discharge : — to 
 labour for the acquisition of knowledge and of wisdom, in order 
 that your intellectual being may grow into the glorious thing it 
 is fitted to become ; then to see to it that you employ in the 
 service of men and for their good, all the skill and all the influ- 
 ence that through your own development you thus will gain. 
 
78 University of Madras- 
 
 And now, in conclusion, what are the considerations by which 
 I can best urge you to discharge the duties that have been so 
 imperfectly pointed out ? Some helps you feel that you require, 
 for he knows little of himself who has not learnt by sad experi- 
 ence that man's moral weakness is so great, that, without some 
 powerful aid, the clearest demonstration of what duty is, goes 
 but a little way towards securing that duty shall be done. 
 
 But powerful, yes and effectual aids there are, nor are they 
 far away from those who seek them in earnestness with patience 
 and humility. When I think of you, standing as you do with 
 all the hope and strength of youth about you, coming into the 
 world as you have done in a country like this that is beginning 
 to sweep forward along new paths towards unthought-of desti- 
 nies, the considerations that might be here adduced seem almost 
 infinite in number. From among the many that crowd on me 
 let me select only two. I say not that they are the strongest 
 that might be used, but at least in their own place they may be 
 helpful, and I choose them now because one is a thought that 
 should never be absent from your minds, while the other is spe- 
 cially approriate to the circumstances in which you stand to-day. 
 
 The first consideration is that you should live and labour as 
 you have been adjured to do, for the sake of India, 
 bo ^^for Tdi^ jouT country. Forget not her ancient fame. For- 
 get not that literature and philosophy and art had 
 here their home ere Athens had arisen to keep watch on the blue 
 ^gean, when the seven hills of Home stood still lonely by the 
 Tiber. Remember that on you and such as you depends whether 
 India is ever to regain the place of leadership that she has lost. 
 Strangers have endeavoured and are endeavouring to do much ; 
 but little can their efforts profit, if you, the children of the soil, 
 are not their hearty and enthusiastic fellow-workers. You are 
 the electric chain along which the thought of Europe must travel 
 into the heart of India. You must determine whether re- 
 awakened by heartfelt contact with her long separated brethren of 
 the West, making their thought her own and modifying it to 
 meet her own necessities, India is to become the centre of a 
 higher philosophy and a nobler culture than she knew of old to 
 all the nations of the East. 
 
 The other consideration is the respect that you should 
 The fair fame cherish for the fair fame of the University of which 
 of the Univer- from this day forward you are members. She 
 ^^*y- deserves to receive from you the reward that she 
 
 most desires ; and that reward is this : that throughout your 
 lives the thought of how your actions will affect her, should nerve 
 
1872.— ifr. Henry Fortey. 79 
 
 you for the right and keep you from the wrong. True, she has no 
 historic name which she commits it to you to keep unsullied ; but 
 she has her name to make, and it is you that must make it for her. 
 True, there are no associations of antiquity clustering around her, 
 such as throng upon the hearts of those who bid adieu to aca- 
 demic life, where placid river and fruitful plain and 'Hall ancestral 
 trees '' enshrine as in a *' haunt of ancient peace," the lordly 
 magnificence of Oxford; or where upheaved rock and dark ravine 
 and frowning battlements that carry down into the present the 
 constant memory of a stormy past surround with a beauty that is 
 all her own the humbler halls of Edinburgh. But in the very 
 want of memories like these, is there not a summons to us all to 
 labour together in order that our successors may enjoy them ? 
 And for their absence, has not your University something of a 
 recompense in the hopefulness, the buoyancy, and the glorious 
 possibilities of her youth ? She may yet be all that her elder 
 sisters are. She may yet effect as much of solid good, and that 
 in a far wider field than almost any of them can boast. But it 
 all depends on you. Her revenues may be large, her Senate may 
 be learned, her colleges may be crowded, yet in spite of all she 
 will win no fame because she will deserve none, if you, who are 
 the outcome of her labours, are destitute of that power to wield 
 the minds of men which nobility of character and nobility of aim 
 can alone bestow. But once let it be found by proof that those 
 whom she stamps with her approval are men of high-toned prin- 
 ciple and lofty purpose, to whose influence and guidance their 
 countrymen joyfully submit, and soon will your Alma Mater gain 
 for herself far-spread renown, and gain thereby a power unima- 
 gined hitherto to carry on successfully the mighty work that 
 has been entrusted to her. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, farewell ! From the calm heights of 
 study and of thought, descend into the arena of the world, there 
 to live and strive as the sons of learning ought, and so to take 
 an effectual and an honoured part in irradiating with the light 
 of knowledge an ancient and a famous land. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Heney Fortey, Esq., M.A.) 
 
 Mr. Chancellor and Gentlemen, — Barely fifteen years have 
 passed away since the foundation of this University, and during 
 that time it has developed from an experiment into a strong and 
 vigorous Institution most powerful for good throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. It is indeed almost impossible 
 
80 University of Madras. 
 
 to over estimate its beneficial influence. It determines the 
 course of study in our schools and colleges, and its examinations, 
 so conducted as to deserve and command the respect of the 
 public, are looked forward to as the great events of the educa- 
 tional year. Annually the struggle is renewed, and as the close 
 of the academic year comes round, masters and pupils, who have 
 worked hard before, work harder still, and every faculty is 
 brought to bear on the attainment of the one great object in 
 view. And yet the University is not in my opinion open to the 
 imputation that it encourages what is commonly called " cram.'^ 
 Any one who refers to the examination papers will, I think, 
 come to the conclusion, that a very sound acquaintance with the 
 subjects on which they bear must be possessed by those who 
 would answer them satisfactorily. The difficulty of these exami- 
 nations has certainly of late years been increased, and there- 
 fore it is doubly satisfactory to find, that the number of those 
 who pass them has also increased. The results of the Arts 
 Examination are this year altogether without precedent ; and I 
 am sure that no one in this distinguished assembly can have 
 seen the long array of the graduates approach your Excellency 
 in almost endless succession, without experiencing the most 
 lively gratification. And, if such are the feelings of those who 
 have had little or no share in producing these results, how proud 
 must be the satisfaction of the Principals, Professors, and 
 Masters to whom they are in a great measure due. We are all 
 of us no doubt impressed with the value of education, but it is 
 on occasions like these that that impression deepens, and we 
 beconje truly conscious that the Teacher is a great power in the 
 State. 
 
 But I am commissioned by your Excellency to address 
 words of counsel and advice to the graduates, and I proceed 
 therefore, as best I may, to the execution of my task. And now, 
 gentlemen, I entreat you to believe that I speak to you in all 
 humility, for it is indeed from my own errors and short-comings 
 in the past that I have gained that experience, which comes 
 late to me, but which yet may be of timely service to some of 
 you. But, before I proceed to moralise, I have a more pleasing 
 task to perform. In the name then of the Chancellor and 
 Fellows of this University, I congratulate you on your success. 
 I congratulate you also in the name of your fellow-graduates, and 
 of all good and liberal-minded men throughout the Presidency. 
 You are young men of intelligence and fair repute, and when you 
 leave this Hall you will carry with you our good opinion, and 
 our best wishes for your future. I trust that honorable careers 
 
1872.— Mr. Henry Fortey. 81 
 
 are in store for you all, and of so great a number it is not too much 
 to expect that some will attain to eminence, and become men of 
 mark in the country. And now, I will not affront you by dwell- 
 ing on the ordinary precepts of morality. You have this day 
 solemnly promised that you will, in your daily life and conversa- 
 tion, conduct yourselves as becomes members of this University, 
 and we are bound to believe that, due allowance being made for 
 human infirmity, that promise will be kept. But, gentlemen, the 
 battle of life is a struggle between good and evil, and they who 
 come off victorious are often hard-pressed in the fight. Should 
 therefore, any one of you, at any future time, under stress of great 
 temptation, stand irresolute between right and wrong, his con- 
 science darkened within him, then let him call to mind these words 
 of one of the wisest of men : " What is more heavy than evil fame 
 deserved ; or likewise who can see worse days than he that yet 
 living doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation ? " 
 
 And now let me remind you of your second promise, that. 
 The acquisi- ^ ^^ *^^® utmost of your opportunity and ability you 
 tion and diffu- will support and promote the cause of true learn- 
 Bion of know- i^g/ rj%e ^uq fulfilment of this pledge involves 
 both the acquisition and the diffusion of knowledge. 
 To those of you who have already chosen your professions, I would 
 say consolidate and extend the professional knowledge you have 
 already acquired. We cannot all be Crichtons, — and having 
 chosen your occupation your first duty is to attend to that, and to 
 learn to do your work thoroughly well. On a review of your past 
 studies, you will find many important subjects of which your 
 knowledge is meagre and imperfect, and many difficulties to clear 
 up. Devote your best energies to these objects, remembering that 
 between the young student, however successful, and the ripe and 
 mature scholar, there is a vast space which can only be passed 
 over by years of patient and laborious toil. Remember also that 
 every profession is both an Art and a Science, and that dreamy 
 theorism and vulgar empiricism are equally to be avoided. But 
 attention to your own professional work will not necessitate the 
 entire neglect of those other liberal studies in which you have 
 been grounded ; and I would especially counsel those whose occu- 
 pations may not involve any severe mental discipline to cultivate 
 some one of those magnificent branches of knowledge which are 
 prescribed for the Master's degree, and to return hereafter, and 
 claim at the hands of this University the highest honor which 
 it has to bestow. Such studies as these will bring you into 
 contact with the greatest intellects of this and former ages, and 
 will fill your minds with a pure and unwearying delight. 
 11 
 
University of Madras. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I turn to a nobler aspect of your 
 promise. You are tlie very van-guard of the great intellectual 
 army which is destined to drive ignorance out of the land, and 
 your responsibilities are co-ordinate with your privileges. It 
 will therefore be your duty, and I am sure it will be your pleasure, 
 to help all those who are struggling towards the light. Dispersed 
 through the country, and surrounded by those less instructed than 
 yourselves, it will be your high privilege to excite in them a thirst 
 for knowledge, to lead them to take an interest in literature and 
 science, to dispel error, and to inculcate truth. There are, as 
 you know, hundreds of Missionaries in this country, — gentle- 
 men, with whose objects you do not sympathize, but whose 
 characters you are bound to respect. And shall these strangers 
 in the land surpass you in their desire to benefit your own race ? 
 Or shall the disinterested benevolence of the Great Company 
 which founded this University be rendered fruitless through 
 your apathy ? No ! a thousand times no ! You will go forth as 
 pioneers and apostles of the truth, and will earn the respect and 
 the gratitude of your country- And, when your ranks are 
 counted by thousands instead of hundreds, as they surely will 
 be before this generation has passed away, your knowledge and 
 influence will penetrate to the remotest corners of the land, and 
 you will inaugurate a glorious day, the light of which almost 
 dazzles the imagination. My words are indeed feeble to urge 
 this noble duty, but listen to those of a great modern writer, and 
 let them rouse your enthusiasm : " Add to the power of dis- 
 covering truth the desire of using it for the promotion of human 
 happiness, and you have the great end and object of existence. 
 This is the immaculate model of excellence that every human 
 being should fix in the chambers of his heart ; which he should 
 place before his mind^s eye from the rising to the setting of the 
 sun — to strengthen his understanding that he may direct his 
 benevolence, and to exhibit to the world that most beautiful 
 spectacle the world can behold, of consummate virtue guided 
 by consummate talents.'' G-entlemen, when I read this fine 
 passage I was reminded of an honored friend, who pours such 
 floods of light on every subject he discusses as continually to 
 astonish and delight his hearers : and who, notwithstanding the 
 arduous duties which devolve on him in virtue of his high oflice, 
 daily adds to the vast store of his learning. To his great erudi- 
 tion it is too much to hope that any of you will ever attain ; but 
 in his accessibility to all earnest students, whether European or 
 Native, and in his desire that every one should cultivate to the 
 highest possible degree the faculties he possesses, he sets you 
 an admirable example worthy of all imitation. Grentlemen, I 
 
1372.— Ifr. Hert/ry Fortey. 88 
 
 trust I shall not be misunderstood. I do not desire to exalt 
 the office of the professional teacher above other equally honor- 
 able employments. I say only that, wherever you may be placed 
 and whatever positions you may fill, it will still be your 
 duty to diffuse around you the light of your knowledge and 
 in the words of your promise, " to support and promote the cause 
 of true learning." Nor, in speaking as I have done, has 
 it been my intention to imply that this duty has been hitherto 
 altogether neglected. More, no doubt, might have been done 
 than has actually been accomplished, but I could mention the 
 names of several graduates of this University, who have nobly 
 exerted themselves to benefit their fellows, and whose quiet and 
 unobtrusive labors have been '^ all for love and nothing for 
 reward/' 
 
 Gentlemen, you have further promised that you ' will 
 
 uphold and advance social order and the well-being 
 
 Faithfully in- of vour foUow-men.' Here as always, your true 
 
 terpret aims ot • , , j j , -n t_ £ j j. i- 
 
 Government. interest and your duty will be found to be coin- 
 cident. For, if there is any one truth in morals 
 more clear and indisputable than another, it is this : that the 
 highest good of the individual is not only consistent with, 
 but is absolutely inseparable from an earnest desire for the 
 public welfare. Look abroad and see what men are most to 
 be envied, or, since thus you may be deceived with outward 
 shows, look rather within, examine your own hearts, and consider 
 whether the gratification arising from the attainment of any 
 purely self-regarding object is likely in any way to compare 
 with that exquisite pleasure which will stream in on you with 
 -the blessings of all good men, if you nobly devote yourselves to 
 the service of your country. This country is, as you are aware, 
 undergoing a process of transformation, and you will have 
 countless opportunities of aiding in the good work. These 
 I shall not stop to particularize, but I may observe that all 
 reforms are viewed with suspicion and distrust by an ignorant 
 people, and you may do good service in one way by faithfully 
 interpreting the motives and the measures of Government to 
 those with whom you come in contact. The provisions of two 
 important Acts lately passed by the Local Legislature for the 
 raising and administration of local and municipal 
 nidS^Fund^."' ^^^^^ ^^Q likely, for a long time to come, to be 
 subjects of frequent discussiou. Now, many of 
 those who pay these taxes have little or no perception of the 
 benefits they are to receive in return. Steeped in ignorance 
 themselves, they do not desire improved schools for their children, 
 
o4 University of Madras, 
 
 and, accustomed from time immemorial to disregard tlie laws of 
 health, they attach no importance to sanitation. Now, in cases 
 of this kind you may do much good by pointing out the bearing 
 of these measures on the Avelfare and progress of the country. 
 As I have alluded to these Acts I will venture to add that 
 whatever objections may be taken to parts of them, they are in 
 principle a vast stride in advance of all previous legislation 
 in this Presidency. By the constitution of these Local Fund 
 Boards, spread like a net-work over the land, the people have 
 been admitted to some share in the administration of their own 
 affairs, and the performance of the duties entrusted to these bodies 
 is the best training that they can have for the right use of a larger 
 measure of political power. But these Acts are, after all, but 
 the skeletons, the dry bones, which the people must infuse with 
 vitality by their public spirit, and if they fail of their due effect 
 the blame will rest, not with the originators of these measures, but 
 with you. Gentlemen, other noble aims and objects will suggest 
 themselves to you which I have not time to discuss. One of 
 
 these is Female Education. Beauty of form is 
 caW^^^ ^^^' ^^ ^®s* ^^* ^ fleeting quality, and, when divorced 
 
 from culture and refinement loses half its charm ; 
 and I venture to say that you will never have the faintest con- 
 ception of the happiness of an English home until the women 
 of this country are so educated as to sympathize in all your 
 pursuits and all your aspirations. 
 
 And now let me reiterate a warning which has often fallen 
 from the lips of previous speakers. I trust that you are not 
 all of you looking forward to employment in the Government ser- 
 vice, for, if so, many of you are probably doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. Of the Universities in Europe but a small fraction of the 
 graduates are thus employed, and the great majority take to 
 the learned professions, to agriculture, and to commerce. There 
 are many wealthy and respectable merchants in this city and in 
 the provinces, but I fear there are but few who have those 
 enlarged views which follow from a liberal education. I trust that 
 in a few years' time there will be several gentlemen of this class 
 who will take their seats in the Chamber of Commerce and be 
 listened to with respect by the European members. Gentlemen, 
 I have said but little of the profession to which I have the honour 
 to belong, but I do feel that in the present stage of the progress 
 of this country able men and men devoted to the work are 
 urgently needed. And be sure that, if you enter on this profession 
 in an earnest spirit, not actuated by merely mercenary motives, 
 you will meet your reward. There ai'e, as you know, many of 
 
187S.— Mr. W. A. Porter. 85 
 
 your own countrymen and many Europeans now thus employed 
 who have so labored as to gain the respect and attachment of 
 all who know them. But if I would single out for your admir- 
 ation one bright particular example of a long 
 abn'^a?i'^mrAe'~ ^^^^ honorably spent in noble work conscien- 
 tiously performed, then I must needs speak of 
 him who entered on his labors long before you were bom, 
 who educated many of your fathers, and whose stainless purity 
 of character has always been so recognised as to hush even the 
 very whisper of malice. If there is any one of us now living 
 and laboring amongst you who deserves that, after he passes 
 away and returns to his own land, his honored form should 
 remain as an imperishable memorial, pictured to the life or 
 sculptured in enduring stone, then I say advisedly that it 
 is he who was many years since Head Master of the High 
 School and is now your Director of Public Instruction. And 
 now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to thank you for the 
 patience and courtesy with which you have listened to me. With 
 small pretensions to knowledge and none to eloquence, I still could 
 not resist the temptation of His Excellency's kind invitation to 
 address you. For I wished to inspire you with some of my own 
 enthusiasm in regard to the good time coming. Faith in the 
 future makes life worth having, and I trust it will so operate on 
 you that your lives hereafter may be characterized by the same 
 hisrh qualities which have contributed so much to your present 
 success. 
 
 SIXTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By W. a. Portee, Esq., M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — It is now my duty, at the request of His 
 Excellency our Chancellor, to congratulate you 
 reta^student. * ^^ ^^^ honors you have achieved, and to remind 
 you that the position you have gained in the 
 University raises some expectations as to your future career. 
 I think these expectations are not without solid grounds. You 
 have learned more than others of your countrymen, and you 
 have gone through a severer training, and therefore more is 
 expected from you. And, I confess that, in anticipating for you 
 an honorable and useful career, it is chiefly on the discipline 
 you have undergone that my hopes are grounded. He who 
 has led the real life of a student has practised no mean virtues. 
 He has pursued with devotion a single worthy end. Self-denial 
 has been his daily companion. He has closed his ears against 
 siren voices on every side. To use words that have become 
 
University of Madras. 
 
 famous, he has scorned delights and lived laborious days. And 
 this moulding and pressure has been continued for many of the 
 most impressionable years of life. It will be strange indeed 
 if a person came out from this process unimproved and un- 
 strengthened. I have described a real student. But I have 
 a right to assume that you have to some extent practised these 
 virtues, or you would not be standing here. Those of your com- 
 panions who have made no approach to this character do not 
 appear among you to-day. For them the race has been too 
 severe and they have dropped from your ranks. 
 
 I have now to mention for your encouragement that the 
 same qualities, mental and moral, which give suc- 
 fathw^o^ma^^ ^^^s at College, will in general be attended with 
 a like result in the severer struggle on which 
 you are now entering. And, though alas ! there are cases in 
 which the future contradicts the past and a blight comes over 
 the promise oli youth, . the ordinary rule is otherwise. The 
 student, if I may parody the words of the poet, is the father 
 of the public man. The habits of ten years are not forgotten in 
 a day. He that is diligent at College will probably be diligent 
 still. Neither on the other hand, are lower qualities suddenly 
 elevated. If the spirit of manliness that triumphs over obstacles 
 be wanting at College, it will be wanting in manhood. The 
 student of many excuses will be a man of small performance. 
 If a cold or a headache was always at hand to keep him away 
 from his class, the same convenient maladies will attend hiir 
 through life. 
 
 The present year is in some respects a marked one. Im- 
 portant changes affecting the studies and the 
 le^eafT^^ length of the course come into operation next 
 
 year, and the present is the last under the old 
 regulations. You conclude what may be called the first period 
 in the history of this University. In this space of 16 years, 
 the progress, if we judge by the numbers that have passed 
 the various University examinations, has been surprising. The 
 advance has been one triumphant progress without a check; 
 and the diminished numbers of graduates in the present year 
 are no contradiction to the statement. For the Bachelors of 
 Arts of this year are not the representatives of the students who 
 Matriculated three years ago, but consist of stray students of 
 various years, who, from one cause or another, did not proceed 
 to their degree at the usual time. Are there equal grounds for 
 congratulation when we look not at the numbers but at the 
 Qualities of the students. Such critical enquiries are natural at 
 
1873.— Mr. W. A. Porter. 87 
 
 a time which is marked however slightly as an epoch, and they 
 are moreover in a manner forced upon us by a hostile tone of 
 opinion which, for some time past, has been very marked. 
 
 The policy of establishing Colleges and conferring 
 
 Opposition to degrees, the policy in fact of the higher education 
 
 tion.^^' ^^^' has lately been a good deal called in question. The 
 
 cost, it is said, is very great, and the results are 
 of little value. Nay — for to this length the opposition sometimes 
 goes, the effects, it is said, are often mischievous. Morally 
 it produces conceit and politically it is a blunder. Sometime 
 ago when criticisms of this kind were more than usually rife, 
 a friend of mine who held these views asked me if Educational 
 officers had nothing to say in their defence. I replied that I did 
 not think the attack very dangerous. When a policy is new it 
 may be necessary to defend it against attack. Its continu- 
 ance may otherwise be in danger, and, to secure it a fair trial, 
 those who think it valuable, must array arguments in its defence. 
 But in the present stage of education in India, I am willing to 
 leave the matter to the silent testimony of facts which in my 
 opinion, are steadily accumulating in its favor. The higher 
 education has been now in operation in this Presidency for more 
 than 20 years. The earlier pupils of our schools have reached or 
 past their prime of life, and many of them now hold high posts 
 in all the departments of public life. Among these are men 
 whose names are widely known among their countrymen and 
 who are honored where they are known. The pupils of later 
 years have also in large numbers found employment in official 
 life. Of these young men whose work is carried on in com- 
 parative obscurity, I am not in a position to speak with authority. 
 That must be left to the officers who have the immediate 
 supervision of their work. One thing, however, is clear to me. 
 A great change has gradually come about in the feeling with 
 which they are regarded by those who have charge of the admin- 
 istration. In opposition to much prejudice — a prejudice that 
 to some extent, no doubt, was due to their own failings, among 
 which may be reckoned an unwillingness to begin low enough on 
 the official ladder — they have gradually made their way in the 
 Courts and Cutcherries, and I believe it is generally admitted 
 that especially in method and regularity, and I believe also, in 
 the tone of morality, the public service has in recent years 
 vastly improved. And this result is only what might have been 
 
 expected. Method and system are the charac- 
 
 An educated teristic marks of intellectual training. You can 
 
 noraut in^. ^ ' see it in the simplest narrative as told by different 
 
 men. The uneducated man is dominated by 
 
88 University of Madras. 
 
 accidental circumstances of time and place, and follows every 
 incident, however irrelevant it may be. Tlie man of culture sees 
 tlie relations of things and the art of arrangement is habitual to 
 him. And it is impossible for a student to master anybody ol 
 reasoned truth without acquiring some tincture of method and 
 orderly arrangement. Everyone has heard of the remark once 
 made of Burke, that one could not stand under the same archway 
 during a shower of rain without finding him out. The comment 
 of Coleridge on this observation is not perhaps so commonly 
 known. I gladly quote the substance of it, as it bears on the 
 point I am seeking to enforce. That which strikes us, he says, 
 in such a casual meeting with a man of superior mind or culture 
 is not the weight or novelty of his remarks, for that is precluded 
 by the shortness of the intercourse. Still less will it arise from 
 any peculiarity of his words and phrases. For unusual words 
 he would avoid as a rock. Only one point of distinction remains ; 
 and that is the habitual and unpremeditated arrangement of 
 what he says. However desultory the talk, there is method in 
 the fragments. This habit of mind is more needed at present 
 in the public service of this country than at any previous time. 
 The administration has become in recent years more elaborate, 
 and it is certain that, for the working of our present system 
 there are needed men who have received a somewhat extended 
 course of intellectual training. 
 
 I have already given the reason why I did not rise to 
 the challenge of my anti-educational friend, and stated tluit 
 I should be ready to leave the matter to the slowly gathering 
 weight of opinion which seems to me unmistakably in its favor. 
 At the same time, I do not wish to discourage our critics by 
 treating them with apparent neglect. I trust they will persevere. 
 Satire and ridicule have their uses. But, as they would be still 
 more useful if they were guided by knowledge and sympathy, 
 I will venture to make one or two remarks that 
 The fault of ^ ^^ ^^ more friendly and charitable view 
 
 our CntlCS. ,. "^ t • i . i • "^ rm 
 
 of educational work m this country, ihe critics 
 of the Hindu student set up too high a standard. They com- 
 pare him not with the graduates of England or Scotland or 
 Germany, but with an ideal man who loves culture purely 
 for its own sake and into whose mind there never enters, in 
 connection with his studies, any idea of personal aggrandize- 
 ment in the shape either of money or of fame. This perfect 
 character, of which perhaps rare specimens may be found, is not, 
 I venture to say, the type of the ordinary graduate in any counti-y 
 known to geographers. To find this high ideal, you must make 
 
187S.--Mr. W. A. Porter, 89 
 
 a voyage to the kingdom of New Atlantis — that glorious dream 
 of Bacon's where, as we are told, they trade not for silver and 
 gold, nor for silk and spices, but for knowledge and light. One 
 evil of this impossible standard is that with a want of logic which 
 is not uncommon, people are apt to conclude that because there 
 is a large balance of alloy, there is no precious metal whatever. 
 The failure to reach the lofty ideal being conspicuous, it is argued 
 that the nobler elements are altogether wanting. Thus it has 
 happened that the commonest reproach that is flung at our students 
 is that they have no real interest in knowledge for its own sake. 
 Let us look at this matter fairly. It is perfectly true that the hope 
 of advancement is the original motive which sends so many boys 
 to our schools. It is equally certain that the majority of our stu- 
 dents have to turn their knowledge to immediate use as a means 
 of living. But after both these admissions, which I make in the 
 frankest manner, I emphatically deny the inference commonly 
 made from them that there is no love of knowledge. Knowledge 
 must be gained before it is loved, and the fact, that it is turned 
 to purposes of utility, is no proof that it is regarded in no 
 higher aspect. I will put a parallel case. Most men who study 
 law or medicine do so with a view of making a living by their 
 profession. And, as soon as they are qualified, they are ready, 
 may I say eager, to exchange their knowledge for money. Yet 
 no one would say that in the rank of these two great professions 
 there is no disinterested regard for their respective pursuits. 
 How then has it happened that the injurious 
 The reason for opinion I am combatinsf is so widely spread ? The 
 
 the nntounded ^ . j. c j. i rm / i- j? i 
 
 charge. reason IS not tar to seek. The contention tor place 
 
 and profit is in public and all men can see it. 
 The effort after knowledge and self-improvement is made in 
 retirement and known only to their associates . That every avenue 
 to office is painfully crowded with applicants, that the doors of 
 every court and cutchery are besieged by youths who have 
 passed examinations is a sight plain enough to every one. But 
 the silent and studious hour is not passed in the public eye. 
 Thus it has happened that one particular phase which hap- 
 pens to be prominent has been accepted for the whole character, 
 and the voices of the few that knew better were too feeble to be 
 heard amidst the. general chorus of depreciation. In fact, the 
 character of our students has been painted by persons who had 
 only a superficial acquaintance with them. And as in the absence 
 of exact knowledge, there is plenty of room for the fancy to 
 work, their delineators have in this instance imitated the spirit 
 of the old geographers, who, in mapping the unknown interior 
 of Africa, filled it with deserts. 
 12 
 
90 University of Madras. 
 
 I refrain from making any sweeping assertion as to the 
 genuine interest felt by our students in science 
 BolSa^^^u^ies! ^^^ literature, lest I should fall into an error on 
 the other side as great as that I am combating. I 
 content myself with pointing out that, whatever be its amount 
 it is necessary in judging it to take account of any special cir- 
 cumstances that tend to diminish it. One of these is the recent 
 introduction of English education. It has not yet been in 
 existence even for a single generation, and, except in a few 
 centres, there is not a sufl&cient number of educated men inter- 
 ested in the new studies to form an intellectual society. I lay 
 great stress on this fact. Every one knows the difficulty of 
 solitary studies, and, on the other hand, how powerfully we 
 are attracted towards subjects which interest the society in 
 which we move. I believe it explains, in a great degree, the 
 practice too common I admit, but by no means so common as is 
 often stated, of dropping English studies after the degree is 
 obtained. Even in England, we do not find all our graduates 
 solacing their leisure with the differential calculus or a Greek 
 play, and it is not to be wondered at that the student in this 
 country, with so much less in his surroundings to draw him to 
 study, should show too much alacrity in dismissing his books. 
 
 In another point that is commonly made a ground of censure, 
 there are special circumstances that ought to be 
 ^Foreign Po i- j^gp^ ^^ mind. I have heard it often imputed as a 
 failing to the educated youth of this Presidency, 
 that they take no liberal interest in the great transactions 
 • that are -taking place around them. And by great transactions 
 is generally meant what is happening on the European stage. 
 Let those who make this complaint consider in what degree 
 we ourselves take an interest in the politics of foreign countries, 
 I believe it is in the main limited to those questions to which 
 there is something similar at home. Apart from war, which 
 appeals to elementary passions and will be eternally inter- 
 esting, I believe it is limited, as I have stated. A struggle 
 between labour and capital in France interests us because it 
 is a vital question in England. And it is much the same with 
 the politics of ancient times. The history of (xreece owes much 
 of its interest to the resemblance between the parties of Grreece 
 and the parties of our own time. A recent writer has called 
 Mitford^s history a party pamphlet, and of the same historian 
 Mr. Arnold said " He described the popular party in Athens 
 just as he would have described the Whigs in England. He 
 was unjust to Demosthenes because he would have been unjust 
 
1873.-.TF. A. Fort&f. 91 
 
 to Fox." It is plainly unreasonable to look for any vivid 
 interest in European politics wlien the questions that agitate 
 the Western nations are so different from those that present 
 themselves in the East. If our students were not too polite to 
 descend to so obvious a retort^ they might ask with some perti- 
 nence if educated Englishmen were in the habit of taking a deep 
 interest in the land tenures of India. 
 
 While I urge these pleas for a more kindly spirit of criticism 
 as regards the higher education in this country, I 
 diMfstu?ents^ concede that there are many imperfections which 
 cannot escape the most friendly critic. Perhaps, 
 it would have been better if I had directed attention to some 
 of these. To do so would be useful both to you and to me, 
 to you before whom there lie, I hope, many years of further 
 progress, and to me whose duty it is, as one of the body of 
 teachers, never to be satisfied with what it has already done 
 if anything better is within reach. Permit me, though late, 
 to refer to a single defect. Speaking then from my own ex- 
 perience, I believe it is true, looking to the great body of our 
 students, that while there is plenty of industry there is too 
 little thought. They are prone to satisfy themselves with words 
 without realizing clearly to their own minds an exact image or 
 picture of the thing, and, in a complicated group of facts, they 
 are too often content with attending to the parts separately with- 
 out studying their relation to each other or the whole. Of the 
 latter defect illustrations are easily given. In examinations it 
 is seen in the frequent mistakes as to the exact point of a 
 question. It has been said that it requires some knowledge to 
 ask a wise question. It is equally true that it requires a good 
 deal of knowledge to understand the purport and drift of a 
 question. Any body of reasoned truth or any group of con- 
 nected facts is like a complicated machine and a knowledge of 
 the bearing and connection of the parts is necessary for an intel- 
 ligent comprehension of a question. From a want of this comes 
 the charge of vagueness so frequently made against a particular 
 paper. The vagueness for the most part is in the student's mind 
 and not in the question. The same defect is seen in the want of 
 power to separate material things from immaterial when a 
 brief statement is required of a complicated story. A wise 
 traveller, after visiting the points of interest in a foreign city 
 seeks some lofty point, tower, or mina.ret, from which the whole 
 lies before him ; and the student by a mental effort, which may 
 not inaptly be likened to the toilsome labour of climbing, should 
 seek to get a wide survey of every subject he studies. Labour 
 
fi^ University of Madras. 
 
 of this kind is painful^ and this fact in some degree accounts 
 for its being so little practised. But I believe 
 ourteackb^*^^ there is something in our system which tends to 
 encourage this kind of mental indolence. It has 
 the defect of having been framed for an earlier stage of edu- 
 cation. Our schools have gradually developed into colleges 
 and as was natural enough, the system remained unaltered. The 
 schoolboy was under instruction for six hours a day, and the 
 student to the last day of his course attends his professors for 
 the same number. For all these hours, he is listening to in- 
 struction and is left without sufficient time for preparation or 
 subsequent reflection. We are now beginning to find our 
 mistake, and the question has attracted the attention of the 
 highest authority. What in fact is the lesson taught by this 
 system ? Is it not that the student^s chief business is the passive 
 one of receiving and not the active one of finding. We act 
 as if his brain were an empty hull into which each professor 
 in his turn was to tumble a science. By this system of over- 
 teaching, we deprive our students of the pleasures of search and 
 leave them none of the spontaneity in the pursuit of their studies 
 which springs from being left to themselves. I remember an 
 apologue quoted by a distinguished literary man, at once novelist 
 and orator, whom we have recently lost. A certain Greek writer 
 tells us of some man who to save his bees a troublesome flight to 
 Hymettus cut their wings and placed before them the finest 
 flowers he could select. The poor bees made no honey. I think 
 that by our system we imitate this foolish man. We cut the 
 wings of our students and give them the flowers they should find 
 for themselves. 
 
 Let me conclude by urging you to make use of the advan- 
 tages which a knowledge of English offers you. It is the most 
 valuable of your acquisitions. It opens to you a great literature. 
 It places you in communication with modern thought. The 
 treasures of a foreign tongue are guarded by difficulties as hard 
 to be passed as the dragons of ancient story. You have made 
 your way through them, and you are now within hearing of the 
 great poets and sages whose writings adorn our tongue. These 
 are now your inheritance. I wonder when I hear the strange 
 limitation sometimes placed upon the moral power of what is 
 called secular education. We have in our service that vast 
 literature of power whose influence on the character by acting 
 on the emotions none can measure. Who has not felt it ? 
 
 A new current given to the thoughts, a new purpose im- 
 planted. It is often, as it was with the Anthony of our great 
 
1874. — Honorable H, 8. Ounningham. 93 
 
 dramatist when in the company of the Egyptian Queen he was 
 giving a kingdom for pleasure. 
 
 He was disposed to mirth, but, on the sudden, 
 A Roman thought struck him. 
 
 Thus often some noble thought, a note flung from the harp 
 of some mighty siuger, strikes across the pettiness of our lives 
 and sets us on a path of a new endeavour. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CONVOCATION, 
 
 (Bt The Hon^ble H. S. Cunningham, M.A.) 
 
 My Lordj Mr. Vice-Chancellor, andCentlemen, — The ordain- 
 ers of to-day's ceremonial have decreed that a part of the 
 programme should consist in an address by a member of the 
 Senate to those who have taken degrees, exhorting them to con- 
 duct worthy of the honour conferred upon them. 
 The objects They thousrht, I suppose, that some one actiner as 
 
 of the Umver- .i a i. ) j.i_ • i. u x 
 
 gity. the benate s mouth-piece should express to you 
 
 what is, I am sure, the Senate's common feeling — 
 our deep sense of the importance of the objects for which the 
 University exists, our earnest hope that those objects may be 
 attained, and our hearty good wishes, gentlemen, for yourselves. 
 And in wishing you well, we wish well to the country at large, 
 for with you and such as you lie the hopes of the India of the 
 future. It is here, in the educated classes, in the thinking, 
 knowing, reading portion of the community, that is to be found 
 the real outcome of our administration and the true test of its 
 success. It will be in vain that year by year the machinery of 
 Government is rendered more elaborate and complete — in vain 
 that tlie last discovery of science, the last triumph of art, each 
 new invention, each fresh device for enriching and embellishing 
 life, is trau sported to your shores and India brought into the 
 full blaze of European culture, — all will be in vain if there is not 
 meanwhile growing up a class of sensible, intelligent, sound- 
 thinking, and right-feeling men, with vigorous judgments and 
 high aims and pure tastes, who will know how to use these many 
 advantages to good effect, how to cause that the contact of East 
 and West shall be a blessing instead of a disaster — who will act, 
 as it were, as the interpreters and heralds of knowledge to their 
 less instructed countrymen, and be the medium through which 
 knowledge, and the many blessings which knowledge connotes 
 may filter down to the strata of society which lie below them. 
 
9* University of Madras, 
 
 We must take care, then, that our culture is practically 
 useful with respect to the circumstances of those 
 fulnetsf^ ^^" ^^° S^^ ^*' Otherwise learning degenerates into 
 pedantry. Let us remember the apologue of the 
 French savant who was caught, so historians assure us, by an 
 Arab tribe. His captors proceeded at once to turn their prize 
 to good purpose. They asked him if he could ride? He 
 answered, " No ''-, could he fight ? again a negative ; could he 
 run ? No. He said, he was accustomed only to sedentary pur- 
 suits. Thereupon they tarred and feathered him and set him 
 to hatch eggs, that being the only strictly sedentary pursuit 
 with which they happened to be acquainted, and of the practi- 
 cal utility they were at all convinced. 
 
 And not only must our culture be practically useful, but 
 those who receive it must beware of the dangers and responsi- 
 bilities which it entails. In the first place there is the danger 
 incidental to all great unsettlements of thought and sudden 
 inroads of new ideas, and the shock which is thus given to 
 
 society. In this respect the History of India has 
 
 History of been exceptional. In most nations the progress 
 
 exoeptioni na- ^^ ^ nation in culture has been gradual; knowledge 
 
 ture. has been learnt line upon line and letter by letter; 
 
 the whole community has gone more or less 
 along with the leaders of its thought; society has become 
 accustomed to altered forms of life ; new ideas have permeated 
 and leavened the whole structure before being adopted by any 
 one fraction of it. In India, it has been far otherwise. We 
 look back to a remote period in the very dawn of history, 
 and we find her in the van of civilization. We find a branch 
 of that happy and noble Aryan community from which you and 
 we, gentlemen, take our rise, practising many of the amenities 
 and all the virtues of civilized life at a time when most of what 
 is now regarded as the civilized world was sunk in barbarism. 
 India, however, appears at an early date to have entered upon 
 a cycle of national existence in which progress found no place, 
 and to have remained stationary while the nations of the West 
 sprang into being and took up the running. The structure of 
 society admitted of little change, and the prevailing theologies 
 discouraged the desire for it. India was one of the stationary 
 powers of the world. Then at last the spell was broken, her 
 long sleep was ended. She was caught by a wave of the turbu- 
 lent European life, at one of its most turbulent moments, and 
 hurried along on that resistless current to that future which 
 awaits us all. Henceforth India had to be a member of the 
 
1874.. — Honorable E, 8. Cunnmgham, 95 
 
 , ^ 
 
 modern world. Henceforward all was change, new ideas poured 
 in apace. Enlarged knowledge made havoc of the old traditionary 
 beliefs, and great revolutions of thought came about. The most 
 august and venerable institutions began to shake and crumble. 
 All the old paths of life were broken up. Now this is a process, 
 in the highest degree perilous to all concerned. Change of 
 course there must be ; we can none, even the most conservative 
 among us, be exactly as were our forefathers : — 
 
 What custom wills, in all things should we do it, 
 The dust on antique Time would lie unswept, 
 And mountainous Error be too highly heaped 
 For Truth to overpeer — 
 
 But still there is a great danger as well as great pain in 
 leaving the old customary paths in which so many preceding 
 generations walked. The old belief, with all its venerated 
 associations, learnt from our childhood, seems to form part of a 
 man's very heart, and, true or false, to lose it, is to lose a portion 
 of himself. Life looks cold and dreary and hopeless without 
 the graces that the piety and fancy of younger generations have 
 thrown around it. *' If '^ — we feel inclined to cry with the poet — 
 
 " If the sad grave of human ignorance bear 
 One flower of hope, ah, pass and leave it ^here — " 
 
 Leave at any rate the hopes and beliefs, which, all illusive as 
 they may have been, served yet to irradiate a darkling life and to 
 guide some wandering spirit across the trackless ocean of exist- 
 ence ! It is for those who encounter these dangers not to ignore 
 them, but to face them at once with modesty and courage. Let 
 them beware of lawlessness, cynicism or arrogance of thought ; 
 
 Make knowledge circle with the wind, 
 But let her herald, Eeverence, fly 
 Before her to whatever sky 
 Bear seed of men or growth of mind j 
 
 Be slow to use your liberty as a cloak of licentiousness. Be 
 slow to abandon those traditionary rules of a temperate life, 
 which come to you, with all the sanction of religion and 
 experience of ages. Come to the new world of thought that has 
 opened upon you, but come with cautious steps and a reverent 
 mind. Do not forget that if, from the circumstances of the 
 case we are debarred from offering you instruction in many 
 of the deeper, graver, and more serious aspects of life, none 
 the less do those aspects exist, and none the more safely 
 can they be ignored by you. Underneath these 
 What is com- different religions, yours and ours, and nearer 
 th^ E^st^'and *^® Surface perhaps than theologians would have 
 the West. US believe, lie certain common aspirations, com- 
 
 mon cravings, common pangs, and the man who 
 
96 University of Madras. 
 
 Ignores them, ignores tlie highest part about' himself and is on 
 the high road to a degrading materialism. It is a line conception 
 of the poet which represents man as coming at his birth fresh 
 from celestial abode with all the signs of it about him, which 
 gradually, in rude contact with the world, fade away — 
 
 With something of a mother's mind 
 
 And no unworthy aim 
 
 The homely nnrse doth all she can 
 
 To make her foster child, her inmate, Man, 
 
 Forget the splendors of his home 
 
 And that imperial palace whence he came. 
 
 But they must not be forgotten. Art in its fairest forms, science 
 with its train of wonders, literature with its thousand delights, 
 will to the man without moral sense but make the absence of that 
 moral sense the more apparent. And remember that while there 
 is endless diversity as to dogma, that diversity does not extend to 
 the world of morals, and while theologians are hopelessly at 
 variance about their respective creeds, there is no such variance 
 among good and reasonable men as to how we ought to live and 
 what objects we ought to propose to ourselves. Virtue and 
 vice have the same meanings to us all. Honesty and justice and 
 truth — that much neglected virtue, candour of intellect — purity 
 of soul and body — magnanimity on the one hand, and mercy and 
 generosity and self-devotion on the other — these are the same to 
 all alike, these are the real landmarks by which our course must 
 be steered ; and while these remain intact, the shock of dogmatic 
 systems, though it may perplex, need never overwhelm. It is not 
 when men doubt the dogmatic and philosophical parts of their 
 creed s,but when moral truths are obscured that individuals become 
 corrupt and nations sink into infamy. Education may, and proba- 
 bly will, make a man question his creed — it never need make 
 him doubt about his conduct. Let a student remember this, and 
 that everything he learns should tend towards ennobling himself 
 and bettering the world about him, and there need be no fear 
 for the result. Let him remember Lord Bacon's warning : — " I 
 would,^^ says he, ^^ address one general admonition to all ; that 
 they consider what are the true ends of knowledge and that 
 they seek it not either for the pleasure of the mind, or for con- 
 tention, or for superiority to others, or for profit or power or 
 any of these inferior things ; but for the benefit and use of life ; 
 and that they perfect it and govern it in charity." 
 
 But it may be said, why educate at all ? It is, perhaps, hardly 
 
 respectful to so lettered an audience as that which 
 
 cm-srof°God!" ^ address even to consider such a question. But 
 
 if an answer were necessary, the first would be 
 
1874. — Honorable H. S. Cunningham, 97 
 
 that ignorance is a highly expensive luxury, and that India, having 
 only fifty millions a year and a great deal to do with them, cannot 
 afford to be ignorant. It is " the curse of God ;" it costs lives, it 
 costs money, it costs happiness. Men, when first the curtain rises 
 upon the stage of history, are wretched, trembling beings, a rather 
 inferior sort of wild beasts, snatching a precarious livelihood from 
 shell-fish or berries, exposed to untold hardships, brutalized by 
 the most degrading customs, frequently exterminated in the un- 
 equal conflict with disease, misery and wild animals more powerful 
 and courageous than themselves. By slow and painful degrees 
 the race mounts up and culminates at last in the fully civilized 
 man. Each step in the ascent is a piece of knowledge, a further 
 acquaintance with the working of the world's machinery and the 
 rules according to which the world around us proceeds, and so a 
 better mastery over natural results. 
 
 Whenever we violate the laws of nature, whether inten- 
 tionally or not, we suffer at once. For half the 
 A knowledge iHs of life there is a remedy or a protection could 
 tur^"^' ^"^ ''''' we only find it. Take the simplest of all matter, 
 the water we drink. Calcutta was at one time the 
 perennial home of cholera, one of the fountain heads from 
 which that fell disease constantly started to devastate man- 
 kind. The water available for drinking was, every scientific 
 man declared, sufiicient to dispose everyone to disease, and 
 to spread, if not to originate it. A supply of absolutely pure 
 water was brought in. After a great deal of discussion the 
 Brahmins decided that it was not irreligious to drink it. What 
 was the result ? The very first year the deaths from cholera 
 sank to less than half the number of the previous year and to 
 very little more than to half what had ever been known in the 
 very healthiest year on record. And a corresponding diminu- 
 tion occurred in other cognate diseases. Much the same was 
 experienced in Bombay, and I have no doubt, though happily 
 we have no cholera here, that a similar improvement in the 
 public health will be experienced here. But these are 
 only three among all the thousands of cities and towns in 
 India, and in many of them, Delhi is one I remember, the 
 death-rate is awfully high, and the cause has been distinctly 
 traced by men of science to impure water. Generally you 
 may be sure that wherever you have a town population, drink- 
 ing out of wells, a considerable percentage of them is poisoned 
 every year, and a still larger percentage condemned to the 
 misery of enfeebled health. This is a needless waste of life to 
 be debited to ignorance. Then I will take another matter, small- 
 13 
 
98 University of Madras. 
 
 pox ; it is not such a scourge liere as in some parts of India^ but 
 it cost tlie Presidency 39,000 lives last year. In tlie Punjab 
 and N. W. Provinces it is almost universal. In 1866, no less 
 than 66,000 persons died of it in the Punjab. Altogether in 
 1871 over 100,000 people died in India of small-pox — no, not of 
 small-pox, they died of ignorance. Small-pox was the blade 
 that struck them, but ignorance was the destroying angel who 
 wielded it, and they might be well and alive now but for the 
 ignorance which shut their eyes to the safeguard which science 
 offers. The best proof of this was that when strenuous vaccinat- 
 ing operations were set on foot, in the Punjab, for several years 
 past the annual average has sunk to 29,000, 
 
 Then as to cost of money, look at what ignorance costs the 
 ryot. Take Mr. Eobertson's most interesting report 
 TBMce^ ^^°" ^^ Indian Agriculture, and see how science, which 
 is only a grand word for common sense and accu- 
 rate information, would enrich him if he would let her; how 
 he might have bigger crops and more of them, and better and 
 more productive cattle, and how ignorance makes him attempt 
 what he never ought, and leave unattempted the thing he might 
 do with profit, and do the right thing in the wrong and costly 
 way, and in fact, commit all the blunders that ignorance and 
 empiricism must, till science comes to lend her aid. 
 
 Then as to happiness, what pleasure lost, what beauties un- 
 perceived, what a stupid, brute-like, uninteresting 
 knrwledge!^ °* affair does life become to the man who walks 
 through it with his eyes shut to its wonders and 
 beauties. To the real student, of course, to ask him why he likes 
 education, is to ask him why he likes light rather than darkness 
 and life than death. With his books he lives a higher and nobler 
 life than the present gives him. His untrammelled soul com- 
 munes with the wisest and best men of his own day, and with them 
 both in their happiest moments : he feels the pleasant excitement 
 of intellectual effort : he experiences the charm of difficulty grap- 
 pled with and overcome ; he climbs, exhilirated with past success, 
 from one vantage ground of truth to another, sees an ever-increas- 
 ing area at his feet, and welcomes new light into his soul. Fired 
 with the noble acts of other men, he resolves that he will do 
 something to benefit and ennoble mankind ; he thrills with the 
 promptings of an honourable ambition, that last infirmity of noble 
 minds. These are the pleasures for which he is content to live 
 and labor, for these he rejects tbe ignominious joys of sense ; for 
 them he scorns delights and lives laborious days, or rather in them 
 he finds his greatest delight and his best repose. 
 
1874. — Honorable H. S. Cunningham. 99 
 
 Gentlemen, these are the pleasures which knowledge has to 
 give, and for the encouragement of which the Indian Universities 
 
 were designed. They have already done good 
 Education of ^qj.]j_ ^^l^ jt IS a fact of happy augury for India 
 
 that the people so generally recognize them, and 
 that the leaders o£ Indian society are so aware of the impor- 
 tance of education that one of the first gentlemen in the country 
 (the Rajah of Vencatagherry) is now urging on Government a 
 scheme for the public education of all the sons of the Zemindars 
 of the Presidency, and has backed his proposal by an offer of a 
 munificent donation. Already the Universities have done much, 
 
 but they are still infant institutions. I wish 1 
 
 Description of could give you an idea of an English University. 
 
 versit^^^^ ^^' Inaagine a venerable city, standing amid sweet 
 
 English meadows, embowered in immemorial trees, 
 washed by the waters of a classic stream — picture to yourselves 
 her streets flanked not by the emporia of trade but by solemn 
 shrines and time-encrusted colleges, redolent with the piety and 
 learning of 1,000 years ; here are cool cloisters and long arcades 
 and the trim gardens where learned leisure walks and thinks : 
 youngest but not least fair among the sister edifices is the 
 Temple where the votaries of physical science may study and 
 adore : towering amid the rest, and presiding over them is a 
 noble Library rich with gathered treasures of the literary world; 
 there is a sweet stillness in the air, for it is learning's chosen 
 home ; the genius of the place breathes calm around ; here you 
 will find a thousand students, the flower of England's youth, 
 all busy with the exploration of some field or other of learning's 
 wide domain — you will find mind opening to mind in the healthy 
 commerce of opinion, competition without a touch of envy, and 
 controversies unlike those of later life, without a drop of .gall. 
 ^* How sweet to linger here,^' one cries 
 
 " With fair philosophies," 
 That lift the mind ! 
 
 How natural the great poet's vow, 
 
 " Let my dne feet never fail 
 
 To walk the studious cloister's pale, 
 
 And love the high embow'd roof 
 
 With antique pillars ma??sy proof, 
 
 And storied windows richly dight 
 
 Casting a dim religious light ; 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow 
 
 To the full -voiced choir below, 
 
 In service high and anthems clear 
 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 
 Dissolve me into ecstacies 
 
 And briug all Heaven before mine eyes." 
 
100 tfniversiiy of Madras. 
 
 Gentlemen, I walked in those streets a few months ago, and 
 witnessed a curious and illustrious assembly. There 
 Products of vv^as the Head of the English Church, the Primate 
 versity/^ ^ of England; the Head of the Anglo-Roman Church, 
 the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster; the 
 Head of the English Law, the Lord Chancellor of England; Lord 
 Coleridge, Master of the hearts of all whom eloquence affects; Lord 
 Salisbury, the brilliant bearer of a great historic name; Stanhope, 
 the philosophic historian ; Lyddon, the ascetic dogmatist ; Arnold, 
 the Epicurean man of letters ; a great collection of orators, states- 
 men, philosophers; men of art and science — what collected them 
 there ? What united men otherwise so diverse in taste and opinion? 
 What but a common piety to their Alma Mater, a common allegi- 
 ance to the place where they first learnt to think, first experienced 
 the rapture of truth, first listened to the strains of philosophy, 
 '^not stern and rugged as dull fools suppose, but musical as is 
 ApoUo^s lute," first learnt how many, and how ennobling are the 
 pleasures with which learning rewards her sons. 
 
 Gentlemen, there was a curious characteristic of this meeting 
 it was spontaneous and unofficial, a mere meeting of a club of 
 Oxford men, a Debating Society and a Reading-Room, to cele- 
 brate the first half century of its existence. You may take a hint 
 from this. The most important education is what 
 o/tlfoTgh^^^^^ ^ ^^^ gives himself. We want to see in you inde- 
 pendent thought; what is wanted for India is a class 
 of independent and high principled, courageous men who will 
 form an enlightened public opinion. Many things are done badly 
 or left undone, because Government is afraid to move without 
 more guidance from public opinion than it at present receives ; 
 you have the remedy for this in your own hands. We want you 
 to think and learn and feel on public matters, and so to strengthen 
 the Government in its task of ruling this great empire for its 
 good. You and we, brothers in blood, have met after long cen- 
 turies of separation, not so very far from the cradle where our 
 common rise began — we have met, and we must resolve as brothers 
 ought, that our meeting shall be for the benefit of both, resolve 
 this, and be men enough, courageous enough, high-minded 
 enough to carry your resolution into effect, and there is practi- 
 cally no limit to the good you may effect, and the blessings which 
 you may be instrumental in pouring on mankind. 
 
 ''Methinks," said Milton of his own country, then in a 
 
 critical moment of her existence, " methinks I see 
 
 of^exiSin^c?^^^ ^^ ^^^ mind a mighty and puissant nation, rousing 
 
 herself, like a strongman after sleep, and shaking 
 
1875.— 3fr. Geo. Thorn. lOl 
 
 her invincible locks ; methinks I see her, as an eagle^ renewing 
 her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full 
 midday beam ; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at 
 the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole tribe 
 of timorous and flocking birds, with those also who love the 
 twilight, flutter about, amazed- at what she means, and in 
 their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and 
 schisms/' Gentlemen, let us apply Milton's language of courage 
 and hope to your own case, and think of India as the mighty 
 and puissant nation, rousing herself, after her loDg, long sleep, 
 purging and unsealing her long-abused sight, and preparing 
 herself^ as I pray God she may, to enter upon a nobler and hap- 
 pier cycle of existence than ever yet has dawned upon her. 
 
 Then whenever it is fated that we are again to part company 
 and History writes, ^^Fuit" upon the British Raj, 
 The monTi- gj^e will not record that the races of rulers and 
 rede in India^ administrators from the far West came hither 
 on a bootless errand, or departed without having 
 achieved a grand result. She will point to a long list of solid 
 improvements effected, to many real curses of the race re- 
 moved^ to happiness brought within the reach of classes who 
 knew not of its very existence, to life rendered to many millions 
 something brighter, better, and nobler than before ; she will 
 record how the English found India impoverished, and left her 
 opulent ; found her the home of ignorance and superstition, 
 placed the sacred torch of knowledge in her hand ; found her 
 the prey of the great untamed forces of nature, turned those 
 very forces to enrich and embellish her ; found her the monopoly 
 of a despotic few, left her the common heritage of all her sons ; 
 found her a house divided against itself, and the prey of the 
 first comer, left her harmonious and tranquil, and therefore 
 strong ; found her a mere congeries of petty tyrannies with no 
 principle but mutual distrust and no policy but mutual extermi- 
 nation, left her a grand consolidated empire with justice for its 
 base and the common happiness its guiding star. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Geo. Thom, Esq., M.A.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — ^You have now reached a most important stage 
 in your journey through life, and may well pause for a little to 
 look back on the difficulties you have surmounted and forward 
 to the great world which you are about to enter. In the name 
 
l02 tfniversity of Madras, 
 
 of His Excellency tlie Chancellor and the Fellows of this Univer- 
 sity I congratulate you on the position you have attained, and 
 trust that your past success may be an earnest of a future career, 
 highly honorable to yourselves and useful to your country. 
 
 The University to which you have now the honor to belong 
 has been in existence only some eighteen years. 
 fi'^^TT^^' ^^ ^^ cannot, therefore, point to an Institution 
 sity. ' invested with the authority of antiquity, nor stimu- 
 
 late you to action by bringing forward the illus- 
 trious example of a brilliant array of men famous in the annals 
 of their country. But we have no mean counterbalancing ad- 
 vantages. We have neither the difficult, the tedious, task of 
 modifications and reform, nor, should change become desirable, 
 have we, on the score of sentiment^ to retain any org*anization 
 which is not the best of its kind. Your University has already 
 expanded far beyond what could have been supposed possible 
 even by those who were most sanguine of its success. It is a 
 great power in the land. Its influence permeates every school 
 and shapes the course of study in every college. Its honours are 
 eagerly sought after by yearly increasing numbers. It is a centre 
 of national life and of national unity. Whatever your difference 
 of caste and creed, of mother-tongue and race, the higher educa- 
 tion will form among you a bond of union for the great work of 
 doing battle with ignorance and superstition, and disseminating 
 light and knowledge throughout the length and breadth of the 
 land. 
 
 And surely, gentlemen, you are well fitted for such a work. 
 
 You have received many advantages denied to 
 lanjiage""^^^^ *^® majority of your countrymen. You have 
 
 been trained to read, to speak and to think in 
 one of the leading languages of the West — a language which 
 possesses the richest and most varied literature in all depart- 
 ments of. human thought, and which for you constitutes the 
 only pathway to all that is best in Philosophy, in History and 
 in Science. This is the greatest of your acquisitions. It intro- 
 duces you to the society of the original thinkers of the age, and 
 enables you to participate in the intellectual movements of your 
 generation. 
 
 The importance of a scientific training in English was only 
 recently recognized in England itself. There the reverence for 
 Latin — legitimate enough as long as Latin was the language of 
 educated men in all Europe — was handed down from generation 
 to generation, and was strong enough to cloud the most vigorous 
 
1875 .—If r. Geo. Thorn. 103 
 
 intellects and to lead them to regard any education not founded 
 on a classical basis as essentially false. 
 
 It would be presumption on my part to say much either 
 for or against classical education. I venture. 
 
 Classical liter- however, to express a hope that the day is not 
 far distant when the classical students of this 
 University may be counted by hundreds and not by tens; 
 for there is much in classical literature which we cannot afford 
 to lose and which cannot be had elsewhere. But the spirit in 
 which classical studies have, until very recently, been pursued, 
 and which even now has many advocates, is characterized as 
 narrow by the most competent authorities. To get up endless 
 rules and gigantic lists of exceptions by heart, to turn Latin and 
 Sanscrit into English for the purpose of learning these languages, 
 and to give little or no thought to the subject-matter or to the 
 picture of human life presented, is surely not the system by which 
 the classics can be rendered either attractive or instructive. If 
 we are to have classical education, let us not perpetuate the 
 '^ elegant trifling" of the English public schools in prose and 
 verse composition. Let us learn Sanscrit for the purpose of 
 being able to read it, and read it for the purpose of being im- 
 pressed with its beauties and with the primitive form in which it 
 presents to us the ever-interesting problems of human life. 
 The question as to whether the study of a classical language 
 should form part of our higher education was recently discuss- 
 ed by the Senate of this University, and, as was to be expected, 
 elicited great diversity of opinion. Without presuming to say 
 what should or should not be done at present, I may observe that 
 in the University of London, on which ours is closely modelled, 
 a competent knowledge in Latin, Greek, English, and either 
 French or German is required in every candidate for the B.A. 
 degree. No doubt, the educational machinery in England is far 
 in advance of what it is now, or what it will be for some time, in 
 
 Intellect of India. But, in point of intellect, the average 
 the average Hindu is not One whit behind the average English- 
 Hmdu. man, and what can now be reasonably expected 
 
 from the latter may soon be looked for from the former. The 
 time then, we trust, is not far distant when those who occupy 
 the place which you do now shall have been taught a classical 
 language as well as their own vernacular. 
 
 But though an appreciative acquaintance with literature 
 
 and a firm grasp of history, '' treated not as a 
 
 ^^ °^* succession of iDattles and dynasties ; not as a series 
 
 of biographies ; but as the development of men in times past and 
 
ence. 
 
 104 University of Madras, 
 
 in other conditions than our own," are highly important elements 
 in education, the culture got from these alone would be narrow 
 and one-sided. And the defects can only in part be remedied 
 by Mathematics. 
 
 In their own place Mathematics are invaluable. There is 
 no better discipline for the mind than that close 
 and continued thought, that strenuous and volun- 
 tary application, to which the distinguished Mathematician must 
 have submitted. But his sphere of labour is after all a narrow 
 one, and the symbolical language he uses is by no means calculated 
 to promote acquaintance with his own vernacular. 
 
 The education cannot now be regarded as complete, unless 
 natural knowledge has received a large share of 
 iS^'"^ ""* ®'''" attention. The great fact of our age is the 
 advance of science. It numbers among its votaries 
 many of the greatest intellects of the day. It leads to the 
 possession of the most elevating ideas. It brings us face to 
 face with physical nature and with the relations of cause to 
 effect. It develops the powers of reason and observation, 
 and enables the mind to draw accurate general conclusions 
 from particular facts. ^^ It removes those superstitions, those 
 fantastic persuasions and prepossessions, which are the fog and 
 pestilence, the mist and malaria of the mind/' It is an indis- 
 pensable preparation for the more complicated problems which 
 meet us in the science of life. But not only is the knowledge 
 gained in the pursuit of science wide and elevating, and excellent 
 as a mental training, but it is also essential to success in life ; 
 and this, gentlemen, is what the most of us cannot afford to 
 overlook, in spite of the objection which may be urged against 
 it that it is a low standard to set up. Whatever your trade or 
 your profession may be, you will encounter keen competition and 
 will assuredly be left behind in the race, if you are not alive to 
 the movements of the scientific world and ready to press scientific 
 discovery into jour service. 
 
 You cannot expect to reach the lofty peak untrodden but 
 by the foot of Newton, nor yet perhaps the 
 truth^^"""^ ^°'* lower level of a Faraday or a Kirchhoff. But 
 you can imitate these illustrious men in their 
 earnest, their untiring, search for truth. The path will not 
 always be smooth and level, sometimes it will be rough and 
 angular, leading through dense jungle a,nd over pathless and 
 rocky mountains, but at every stage disclosing beauties which 
 yield a lifelong pleasure. In words which do much more justice 
 to the subject — " who can contemplate our globe in this orderly 
 
1875.— itfr. Geo. Thorn. 105 
 
 system of the universe with all the delicate adjustments that 
 astronomy reveals, and all the splendid mechanism of the 
 heavens; contemplate our atmosphere with all its mechanical, 
 chemical, and physical properties — the distant sun darting its 
 light and heat and power on the globe, and fostering all the 
 varied and beautiful animal and vegetable life, giving rise to 
 winds and showers and fruitful seasons, and beauties of form 
 and richness of colour, filling our hearts with food and gladness ; 
 who can know something of the inexorable sequences, see some- 
 thing of the felicitous combination of the varied forces of nature 
 that are employed, — and not feel awed and impressed by the 
 view, 
 
 " To see in part, 
 That all as in some piece of art 
 Ib toil, co-operant to an end," 
 
 is to see that which he who sees it not is as incapable of estimat- 
 ing as the deaf man is of judging of music, or the blind of 
 enjoying the glories of a sunset." 
 
 Do not be discouraged at difiiculties. The value of the dis- 
 covery will, in most cases, be commensurate with the difficulty 
 of the search, and the difficulty itself, the healthful exercise of 
 your mental powers, will form not a small portion of the pleasure. 
 
 Hitherto your course has been shaped and your education 
 directed by others ; 'now you must think and act for yourselves, 
 and realize the rules and principles you have been taught. You 
 are able to appreciate in some degree the merits and defects of 
 the culture you have received. Your knowledge of the laws of 
 matter, force and mind, rudimentary though it may be at 
 present, is yet sufficient to place you on the ladder of intellec- 
 tual progress, and your own efforts well directed, will enable 
 you to ascend. Try to find out more of the mode of operation 
 of these laws and to bring your whole life into harmony with 
 them. This is the aim and end of all real education, and 
 cannot be gained by desultory or intermittent efforts. Habits 
 must be formed. 
 
 " For use almost can change the stamp of nature." 
 
 Let action ever be your watchword. The man of energy 
 
 and decision takes at the flood the tide which leads 
 
 Action. ^^ ^Q fortune. He seizes every opportunity to 
 
 gain the end he may have in view, and not unfrequently is 
 
 able to bend to his purpose the very accidents of life apparently 
 
 most calculated to defeat it. 
 
 14 
 
106 University of Madras. 
 
 "Who breaks his birth's invidious bar 
 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
 And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
 And grapples with his evil star. 
 
 Who makes by force his merit known 
 
 And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
 
 To mould a raiffhty state's decrees, 
 And shape the whisper of the throne : 
 
 And moving up from higher to higher, 
 Becomes on fortune's crowning slope 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 
 The centre of a World's desire." 
 
 Whatever be your occupation, you will find in it ample 
 scope for all your energies. Your honest en- 
 ei^nence!^^ *° deavour to master it and everything connected 
 with it will open out for you a field of knowledge 
 which is literally boundless. While thus aiming at complete 
 mastery over the one thing which is to be your chief work in 
 life, you should also endeavour to counteract the prejudicial 
 influence of a narrow line of thought by acquiring a sound 
 general knowledge of the leading subjects of human interest. 
 "A man of the highest education knows something of every 
 thing and every thing of something.'^ It is by this combination 
 alone that you can hope to become trustworthy leaders of 
 public opinion in the great questions with which your generation 
 will have to deal, or produce anything really great in any 
 department of human thought. It is thus that great statesmen, 
 great poets and great philosophers have attained their eminence. 
 
 In a University like ours, whose characteristic feature is 
 its system of examinations, there is a danger, which such of you 
 as adopt the profession of teaching should guard against, of 
 subordinating learning to education. The teacher naturally 
 directs every effort to secure the success of his pupils at the 
 University examinations, and in training them for their battle 
 with the examiner is in danger of sacrificing high learning and 
 original research, and of leading the student to regard success 
 in an examination as the chief aim of study. Yoa will en- 
 deavour to correct these tendencies, to lead the student to value 
 culture for its own sake as well as for what it brings, to despise 
 mere position in University lists in comparison with his higher 
 interests, and to look beyond the glittering and evanescent 
 honours of a College, career to the requirements of after-life. 
 
 When the higher education is still in its infancy, we can 
 
 When can we Scarcely look among you for the highest learning 
 
 look for original or for original research. But when your ranks 
 
 research. ^^^ numbered by thousands, instead of hundreds, 
 
1876.— 3fr. Geo. Thorn, 107 
 
 when the endowments of the University, largely increased by 
 private munificence, are given in part to help the successful 
 graduate to cultivate his favorite branch of knowledge, when the 
 University itself is more of what every University should be — 
 "A. School of Universal Learning'^ — where the student finds a 
 teacher in every department of knowledge, — then we may look, 
 and look not in vain for a contingent from India to the intellec- 
 tual benefactors of humanity. 
 
 We cannot, gentlemen, accept the view ^* that most of you 
 are likely to find University distinction a disadvantage rather 
 than an advantage in after-life." You cannot, of course, all expect 
 to get situations under Government or rise to high worldly posi- 
 tion. But what then ? "I am certain," said the great Spinoza, 
 " that the good of human life cannot lie in the possession of 
 things which for one man to possess is for the rest to lose, but 
 rather in things which we can all possess alike, and where one 
 man's wealth promotes his neighbour's.^' In almost every part 
 of the immense field of human labour, from the obscure corner 
 in which toils the manual craftsman to the arena of the enlight- 
 ened statesman, the highly educated man has incalculable 
 advantages. The outlets for his ambition are numerous and are 
 ever increasing. The immense machinery requisite for the pur- 
 poses of primary education in Southern India must be provided 
 by the University. Without the higher education the lower 
 becomes impossible. 
 
 Gentlemen, on you and such as you depends the future of 
 India. In the bustle of professional life you may 
 Strive to be have little time or opportunity to give much 
 nXtened^ pa- thought to the higher concerns of humanity. But 
 triots. use your time well, and each of you without step- 
 
 ping out of his way to do so will find it in his power 
 to increase in some degree the stock of human happiness and 
 wisdom. The extent of the good you can accomplish will depend 
 on your acquaintance with the momentous social changes ever 
 going on around you, on your familiarity with the thoughts of 
 the leading minds of the age, but mainly on your own energy of 
 character. Never forget that your own work, however humble, 
 forms a real part of that present from which the future is evolved. 
 It will assuredly be your own fault if you fail to be recognized 
 as centres of moral and intellectual life ; as men who under all 
 circumstances will stand up for what is right and true ; as true 
 and enlightened patriots who will not uphold the institutions of 
 their country^ right or wrong, but will develop to the uttermost 
 
108 University of Madras. 
 
 what is good, eradicate what is bad, and borrow from abroad 
 advantages which are not to be had at home. 
 
 " Self reverence, self knowledge, self control 
 These thre* alone lead life to sovereign power 
 Yet not for power (power of herself 
 Would come uncalled for), but to live by law, 
 Acting the law we live by without fear ; 
 And, beca,u8e right is right, to follow right 
 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." 
 
 NINETEENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable Me. Justice Innes.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — By desire of His Grace our Chancellor, and in 
 his name and on behalf of the Fellows of the University in general, 
 I have the pkasure of congratulating you on the honours you 
 have won, and of expressing our hope that your future career 
 will not be without a rich fulfilment of so fair a promise. You 
 have, as it were, entered a quiet haven at the close of a success- 
 ful but anxious voyage. The troubles and difficulties of it you 
 can now look back upon with a calm indifference, added to a not 
 unworthy pride that yon should have so completely overcome 
 them. Believe me that we have sympathized with you in your 
 long labours, and experience, in common with all who value 
 education, a heartfelt delight in being thus able to congratulate 
 you. While some of your body will no doubt enter upon a fresh 
 academical course, with a view to further honours, others of you 
 will probably at once enroll yourselves in some honourable pro- 
 fession. But whatever your future may be, you this day enter 
 upon an independent career ; and remember that the manner in 
 which you comport yourselves will affect the estimation in which 
 the teaching of this University will be regarded. 
 
 By illustrating in yo«r lives the advantages of the higher 
 
 education you have the opportunity afforded you 
 
 Prejudices of removing", or at least diminishing, the preiudices 
 agamst higher i.- i, • , p . i. i -. j.-n 
 
 education. wnicJi m some quarters, unrortunately, it still 
 
 encounters. Many of the grounds for condemning 
 it have in the course of years been shown to be devoid of founda- 
 tion ; but it has been admitted to be open to criticism in some 
 respects. Thus one who has had great experience in tuition, 
 and whose opinion would on other grounds, always claim respect- 
 ful attention, has said, " I believe it is true, looking to the great 
 body of our students, that while there is plenty of industry, there 
 is too little thought." He traced this defect in some measure 
 to the amount of time devoted to teaching, which left the students 
 
1876. — Honorable Mr. Justice Innes. 109 
 
 little leisure for considering the parts of a subject in their several 
 relations to each other and to the whole, and digestiug and 
 jissiniilating what they had learnt. This defect is probably not 
 peculiar to the teaching of the graduates of this University. 
 After a good deal of labour spent in the mere reception of know- 
 ledge, there is a very natural shrinking from the further mental 
 task of taking that thorough survey of the subject which is 
 suggested as necessary to the proper comprehension of it ; and 
 the requisite habit of mind is not very readily acquired. The 
 study of Physical Science now made compulsory for the Matricula- 
 tion, and which I hope will henceforward be more generally pur- 
 sued in the University course, is calculated I think, though indi- 
 rectly, to supply this defect in some degree, as it must tend to 
 arouse and stimulate the mental faculties, and endow with reflec- 
 tive activity minds which are now only too content with a mere 
 passive reception of what they are taught. 
 
 I look upon the study of Physical Science as very important 
 on account of the mental discipline which it neces- 
 sicarscience.^' sitates. It entails steadfast labour and accurate 
 observation, and the development of the perceptive 
 faculties is one of its most prominent results. But what is its 
 most distinguishing feature as a study, is that it is based on 
 freedom of thought and opinion ; and insists upon verifying all 
 its conclusions by original research. It may indeed be said that 
 this is necessary for the full and complete prosecution of every 
 branch of learning, though not perhaps for elementary studies, 
 and that Physical Science offers therefore after all no such excep- 
 tional advantages as those attributed to it. But in fact, very 
 few pursue their studies in other branches of science to the point 
 at which original research requires to be resorted to, and the 
 superiority that Physical Science claims in this respect is that 
 from the very first rudiments of the study it allows you to take 
 nothing on trust. You stand at once face to face with the 
 forces of nature. Every step taken must be verified, and fami- 
 liarity with its secrets is closed except to immediate contact and 
 experiment. It is to Physical Science that we owe the greatest 
 triumphs of man over inanimate nature ; and to it is mainly due 
 the vast expansion which civilization has attained in the last 
 hundred years. It has been successfully applied to the advance- 
 ment of innumerable industries, and has especially opened to us 
 a better knowledge of our mineral resources and of the means of 
 multiplying the eartVs productive powers. 
 
 To Physical Science is also due the faculty which we now 
 possess of the rapid transmission of thought, which makes bo 
 
110 University of Madras, 
 
 account of distance, and whicli has linked together into one vast 
 market the farthest-severed trade centres of the world. This 
 power is every day tending to a widespread diffusion among the 
 masses of the fruits of the earth and the products of industry, 
 and therewith to the increase of the general welfare of mankind. 
 The bonds of human brotherhood are drawn closer by daily and 
 hourly intercourse. Misunderstandings become less frequent ; 
 differences are more easily composed. There appears to be no 
 limit to the possible conquests of Physical Science. Nor does it 
 seem presumptuous to hope that it may yet disclose to us a 
 method of compelling the atmosphere to do our bidding and to 
 disgorge those stores of fertilizing moisture which it often 
 pennriously withholds from a thirsty soil, and a famine-stricken 
 people ; and even of controlling atmospheric disturbances in their 
 most violent and destructive forms. 
 
 But great as are the advantages which do and may arise 
 out of the study of Physical Science, I do not wish 
 Importaaice of to undervalue the other branches of learning which 
 guage to Indian^! J^^ have pursued, which are no less a desirable 
 part of a liberal education, and no less important 
 to the purpose of fitting you for taking your place in the great 
 world of men, and exercising the unfailing influence of minds 
 better and more highly instructed than the generality. You 
 have so mastered the English tongue that you can use it as a 
 clear and graceful interpreter of thought, and if by further study 
 you so assimilate it as to make it part of your nature, you will 
 find that it will serve to create and animate thought as well as 
 to interpret it. English opens to you a treasury of literature 
 which no other nation can offer, and with it the entire philosophy 
 of the Western world. The currents of European and of Indian 
 thought are essentially conflicting, and by reason of your educa- 
 tion you are, as it were, tossed about by the contending forces 
 of these two opposing currents. But you are in a better posi- 
 tion than your English brethren for observing, the extent to 
 which the measures of the English Government are accepted 
 and become naturalized on the soil of India; and your capability 
 of estimating the advantages of European civilization necessarily 
 surpasses that of your uneducated fellow-countrymen. This 
 your position in relation to the Rulers and the great body 
 of your fellow -subjects imposes upon you an honourable burden 
 as citizens of a great community. For it points to a duty in 
 you to afford your Rulers information and tender them advice, 
 wlienever a proposed legislative or political course, though 
 prospectively beneficial, would be attended with too great a 
 
1876. — Honor Me Mr. Justice Ivmes. Ill 
 
 disturbance of the public mind to admit of its being safely 
 followed ; and also to soften prejudices and allay apprehensions 
 with respect to measures, which, emanating from a foreign race, 
 by whom they are often conceived from a widely different 
 standpoint to that of your fellow-countrymen, may well be 
 regarded by the latter with a certain amount of honest though 
 ill-founded suspicion. 
 
 In an education which ranges over a variety of subjects, 
 Representa- *^^* ^^ Constitutional government will not unuatu- 
 tiv« Govern- rally have received some attention from you ; and 
 ment in India. your study of it will enable yon to exercise a bene- 
 ficial influence upon a class of your countrymen, who condemn 
 the system of government in India and demand that India should 
 enjoy the freedom of England. Now your reading will enable 
 you to comprehend that freedom in the sense in which it is so 
 used is, for the most part, a set of results which in England have 
 been brought about by the gradual efforts of several generations. 
 Of some of the most important of these results you are already 
 in the fullest enjoyment, as Equality before the Law, Liberty of 
 Speech, Liberty of the Press. There is no country in Europe 
 whose condition in these respects is in advance of that of India. 
 But no nation can impose upon another a fully matured system 
 of Representative Government. To be effective, it should be the 
 fruit and outcome of a tendency, natural or acquired, by which 
 the individuals of a nation identify themselves with surrounding 
 'interests and willingly take part in the duties and burdens of 
 local affairs. Such institutions are not indigenous in this country. 
 But if there is one more over-mastering determination of the 
 national mind in England than any other, it is that everyone of 
 her dependencies shall, as far as is consistent with good and 
 orderly government, be placed in a position to enjoy the freedom 
 she herself enjoys. The national determination finds expression 
 in periodical movements. History shows that at certain intervals 
 decided steps in advance are taken, always in the direction 
 of improved government. What has from time to time been 
 done in India is this. First of all provision was made for the 
 collection of revenue, not for the purpose of putting the hard- 
 earned gains of the poor into the coffers of the. wealthy and 
 great, but to provide the means of guaranteeing the security 
 of property, and for the purposes of orderly administration. 
 Extortion, violation of the liberty of the person, and oppression 
 of every kind had, by generations of misrule, come to be 
 regarded as the normal exercise of authority. Slavery and 
 various cruel and murderous practices existed in many parts of 
 
112 University of Madras. 
 
 the country as institutions sanctioned by human and divine 
 laws. General and equal laws have been enacted by the British 
 Government, the habit of official tyranny has to a great extent 
 been extinguished, inhuman practices have been repressed. 
 Slavery is no longer recognized by law, and though in the 
 relations between the agricultural labourers and their employers 
 in some parts of the country, the spirit of it may still be seen 
 at work, it survives no longer as an institution. A system- of 
 education, with the Universities to guide it in their several 
 Presidencies, has been initiated with a successful effect upon 
 the administration of the territory under the British Govern- 
 ment, and of not a few of the Native Principalities. , The 
 national mind is also being brought into familiar contact with 
 a class of ideas which may facilitate the eventual introduction 
 of further constitutional measures. Juries, Municipalities, the 
 management of local affairs, Honorary Magistracies, and seats 
 in the Legislative Council are all means to this end. It is 
 rather a process of naturalizing than mere sowing, and your 
 rulers are no doubt compelled to proceed cautiously on a path 
 which may abound with pitfalls, a path to which history affords 
 no guide, and which the light of political science fails to 
 irradiate. A constitution is most efficacious, when, like branch 
 from trunk, or like fruit from tree, it issues from the natural or 
 acquired ^'tendencies, the general belief and the collective con- 
 sciousness of the people." To obtain a hold on the popular 
 mind the growth of the fundamental institutions must be slow 
 and gradual. Those who are impatient for changes of a more 
 crucial and obvious character, should not forget what has been 
 already effected. While bearing in mind the advance in social 
 order and well-being which they have themselves witnessed in 
 their own day, they should not lose sight of the condition of 
 anarchy into which the country had fallen when first the Eng- 
 lish took upon themselves the functions of Government. 
 
 It may be well to consider what that condition was. From 
 the commencement of the sixteenth century we 
 Goadition in gee the process of absorption of the less by the 
 found Indm^'^ more powerful Governments in a gradual but con- 
 stant state of progression. In the North, the 
 Afghan dynasty succumbed to the Mogul. The territory of 
 the Bahmani dynasty of the Deccan became apportioned between 
 three States, of which the Mogul was the acknowledged superior. 
 To the allied armies of these three States fell the celebrated 
 Hindu Kingdom of Vijiyanagar. In the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century Sivaji commenced his course of organized robbery. 
 
1876. — Honorable Mr. Justice Innes. 113 
 
 and his race divided for a while with the Mogul the competition 
 for India. At what was practically the fall of his dynasty in 
 1760 and the wreck of the aspiration of the Mahrattas for a 
 Hindu empire, there remained, except Tanjore and the ancient 
 kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, no independent sovereign 
 but the Mogul. For Orissa had been absorbed by the Mogul 
 armies late in the seventeenth century, and Mysore was being 
 ground under the heel of Hyder, who himself avoided assuming 
 the position of royalty. The Mogul was sovereign of India 
 from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin ; but the best energies of 
 the dynasty had long been spent, and when strength was put 
 forth at the seat of Government, the extreme boundaries of the 
 empire, if they felt it at all, were sensible of but a feeble vibra- 
 tion. The imbecility of the Government let loose the license of 
 the Governors of Provinces, and the country was patrolled from 
 end to end by bands of pitiless marauders. As Macaulay said in 
 one of his speeches, " The people were ground down to the 
 dust by the oppressor without, and the oppressor within ; by the 
 robber from whom the Nawab was unable to protect them ; by 
 the Nawab who took whatever the robber had left to them. All 
 the evils of despotism and all the evils of anarchy pressed at 
 once on that miserable race. They knew nothing of Govern- 
 ment but its exactions. Desolation was in their imperial cities, 
 and famine along the banks of their broad and redundant rivers. 
 It seemed that a few years would suffice to efface all traces of 
 the opulence and civilization of an earlier age." 
 
 It was at this juncture that the English entered upon that 
 
 career which has resulted in the union of most of 
 
 Look at thab the numerous peoples of this vast empire under one 
 
 picture and on , t t i /^ j th 
 
 this. strong and orderly Government. Four genera- 
 
 tions have passed away since then, and I believe 
 that the tales of the lawlessness and misery of the preceding 
 period are beginning to live but faintly in oral tradition. But 
 in all its appalling features History still hands it down to us. 
 The picture is fore-shortened, indeed by the perspective of time, 
 but still conveys to imagination a sufficiently expressive contrast 
 between those days and the present. The system which the 
 English Government is cautiously pursuing may eventually 
 disclose a considerable aptitude for local self-government which, 
 duly fostered, may lead in time to the fullest development of 
 representative institutions. But what that sagacious Historian, 
 Mill, when examined before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons in 1832 thought then " utterly out of the question,'' 
 can scarcely even after the lapse of 44 years be very neai* at 
 15 
 
114 University of Madras. 
 
 hand. Now the Government is in this position, that while it is 
 not possible for it to withhold from the young a knowledge of 
 the principles of free Government, it may for a long period be 
 incapable of bestowing in its completeness what the students of 
 history find held up to such well-founded admiration. 
 
 To you who have enjoyed the advantages of the higher 
 education, the State may well look to dissemiuate 
 Responsibili- j^g^ views on these matters, and to make it clear 
 ates.^ ^ ' that if slowly, yet surely, England will impart to 
 her great dependency of which she is so justly 
 proud, all that measure of freedom which is compatible with 
 orderly Government. And your education will not be in vain if 
 you employ the knowledge you have acquired in dispelling the 
 suspicion and jealousy which ignorance upon this subject may 
 engender ; and so add strength to that Government which alone 
 is capable of preserving to you the security of person and pro- 
 perty. Now, gentlemen, the University has stamped you with 
 its approval, has testified to your qualifications, and sends you 
 forth as its representatives of this year to the many millions of 
 India. You have solemnly promised to comport yourselves as 
 becomes members of this University. See that you do so. The 
 honor of the University is committed to your keeping. See that 
 your life and conduct reflect those high principles, that lofty 
 tone of thought, which the instruction you have received is 
 designed to engender ; and show that your education consists 
 not merely in the acquirement of a certain limited amount of 
 knowledge which may be useful in procuring a means of livelihood 
 or may recommend itself by an intellectual display, but is an 
 active principle bent on further conquests and ever seeking to 
 enlarge the boundaries of the domain of science. And this not 
 solely * for the gain it gets ' ; still less ^ for the praise it brings, or 
 the wonder it inspires'; but ^for the relief of man's estate' — 
 the promotion of the welfare of our common humanity. Surely, 
 gentlemen, you have an admirable field for your exertions, 
 whether they lie in legislation, in disentangling and illustrating 
 the mazes of the law ; in administering justice ; in taking part 
 in the executive government ; in clothing the parched landscape 
 with a network of fertilizing and wealth-gathering agencies ; or 
 in that noble profession which addresses itself to the relief of 
 physical suffering. To all of you I would say in conclusion work 
 well and earnestly in your several professions. Much that is 
 attractive and absorbing will be found in every vocation by an 
 earnest worker. And it is a mistake to suppose that it is not given 
 to the men of this day to eugage in heroic contests and take part 
 
1877.— Co^cmeZ R. M. Macdonald, 115 
 
 in venturous toils sucli as enchant us in ancient story. The 
 Present — the living Present — abounds in opportunities for heroic 
 self-sacrifice such as a demi-god might envy, and you will find 
 ready at hand much work that is alike arduous and honorable ; 
 much of chaos that still waits to be reduced to order ; many an 
 Augean stable that still calls for no unworthy hands to cleanse it. 
 
 A fresh de- ^^^ tvoiQ presses, Your work is waiting for 
 
 tachment of the you. You go forth as a fresh detachment of the 
 
 array of human army of human progress in India, and we wish 
 
 progress. n j j 
 
 you Grod-speed. 
 
 TWENTIETH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Colonel R. M. Macdonald.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — The Statutes of this University require that 
 an address shall be made to the newly-admitted graduates by a 
 member of the Senate, and this duty has, on this occasion, been 
 entrusted to me by His G-race the Chancellor. In his name, and in 
 the name of the Senate, I congratulate you on the success which 
 has crowned your long labours. A few of you have reached 
 the goal of your studies, so far as University examinations are 
 concerned. Others, although Bachelors of Arts, have still 
 before you the higher, but rarely sought, degree of Master, as 
 well as the various degrees which this University confers in the 
 Faculties of Law, Medicine and Civil Engineering. But every 
 student knows that all that he has learned of any subject 
 forms but a small portion of the whole, and that Litera- 
 ture and Science are Alpine regions, in which the 
 Knowledge's horizon extends as the pilgrim ascends. What- 
 pinere . ^^^^ department of knowledge you may have 
 selected, or may hereafter select, you will find a lifetime too 
 short for the work which lies before you. 
 
 Some of you have yet to elect the path which you are to 
 
 pursue in life. A great writer has given us a 
 
 "The Youth sketch of an imaginary poem, entitled *' The 
 
 Roads^.'' Youth at the Cross Roads,^' in which his hero 
 
 depicts two female characters personifying the 
 
 Tragic Muse and Commerce, as contending for the possession of 
 
 his person. You stand, as Wilhelm Meister did, at the Cross 
 
 Koads, but most of you are probably balancing between the 
 
 service of Government and the profession of law. Both, no 
 
 doubt, offer an honorable career, but it is to be regretted 
 
 that more do not endeavour to find other outlets. One of the 
 
Il6 University of Madras. 
 
 noblest of all professions is tliat which alleviates pain, arrests 
 disease and prolongs life. That beneficent pro- 
 Tj*al absence fession is wholly unrepresented here to-day. In 
 duates. ' twenty years the Faculty of Medicine has pro- 
 
 duced three doctors, half-a-dozen bachelors and 
 one licentiate, and among these there has as yet been only one 
 Native. Medicine has many prejudices to combat in this coun- 
 try. Sir Charles Trevelyan has described the victory which 
 was gained in Bengal, when the first Brahmin student was seen 
 handling the knife in the dissecting room, and '' the Shasters, 
 with the elasticity peculiar to them, were made to declare that 
 the dissection of human bodies for medical purposes was not 
 prohibited." But in this Presidency, as already remarked, 
 scarcely any progress has been made. It has been calculated 
 that seven or eight thousand medical practitioners are needed 
 to take the place of the Hakeems and Vydians, whose ignorant 
 treatment is so often dangerous and even fatal to their patients. 
 The circumstances of the country render the general employ- 
 »ment of highly educated men in such posts out of the question, 
 but it seems probable that in some of the larger towns there is 
 field for practitioners who have taken the higher medical degrees, 
 and that, in many of the smaller towns, medical men of 
 a somewhat lower grade might find remunerative employment. 
 The degree of Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery has, accord- 
 ingly, been recently revived, and as some young men are now 
 studying for this degree, it may be hoped that in a few years 
 some progress will be made in this important direc- 
 Anotherpoor- tion. The Faculty of Civil Engineering is also 
 Factdtyr^" ^ One which has generally been poorly represented, 
 but it is satisfactory to find that, during the last 
 three or four years, graduates in Arts have been beginning to 
 graduate in Civil Engineering. The openings for persons who 
 have passed these examinations have as yet been few, and have 
 practically been circumscribed by the requirements of the 
 public service. In this respect India differs at present from 
 England. There, it has been remarked, ^' Government is usually 
 nothing to the Civil Engineer, unless it be looked upon as a 
 foe, from whom recognition and remuneration'^ must " be won 
 by sheer hard fighting." The great works which have changed 
 the face of Europe and America — the roads, the railways, the 
 canals, the bridges, the harbours — have been often made with little 
 or no aid from the State. Even here, however, changes are 
 taking place, and it is probable that, in course of time, there 
 will be more outlets than there are at present for local pro- 
 fessional talent. The great famine which is now desolating the 
 
1877. — Colonel R. M. Macdonald. 117 
 
 land is one of those calamities to which India has always been 
 liable, but the prevention of which does not seem beyond the 
 reach of engineering skill. The last speech from the Throne 
 leads us to hope that a series ©f well-coBsidered schemes may be 
 devised for the prevention of such visitations in future. In the 
 execution of such schemes you may render useful and valuable 
 
 services. How much may be done in this direction 
 C ^ton ^^^^^^ by the genius of a single man has been already 
 
 shown in this Presidency. Sir Arthur Cotton has 
 scarcely received all the local honors which he deserved, but he 
 has left enduring monuments behind him in the great works, 
 which have made the Deltas of the Cauvery and and the Godavery 
 the granaries of Southern India. Some have trod, and others 
 may tread, in his footsteps, but Sir Arthur Cotton's task was 
 more difficult than theirs, for he was a pioneer, and had not only 
 to subdue the forces of nature, but to battle with prejudice and 
 ignorance in high places. It is impossible to gaze on the rich 
 fields of cultivation with which he has enriched those districts, 
 or to watch the long lines of boats plying their busy traffic along 
 the navigable canals devised by him, without feeling that much 
 of the future wealth and prosperity of India lies in the hands of 
 the Civil Engineer. The Faculty of Law is the only one of the 
 
 professional faculties which has as yet produced 
 stui '^^^^^^^^^ an unfailing annual supply of graduates. The 
 
 sentiment which animated Milton when, in a poem 
 addressed to his father, he thanked him for not making him a 
 lawyer, is one which will meet with no response in this country. 
 The study of law is congenial to the Hindoo mind. Every study 
 has, however, some drawbacks, and every profession has some 
 dangers incidental to it. Archbishop Whately points out that 
 an advocate, who is called on '^to plead various causes, to 
 extenuate to-day what he aggravated yesterday, to attach more 
 or less weight, at different times, to the same kind of evidence, 
 to impugn and to enforce the same principles, according as the 
 interests of his clients may require,^^ is in some danger of gradu- 
 ally growing indifferent to the ascertainment of truth and may 
 bo tempted to resort to specious sophistry or even more question- 
 able devices in the interests of his clients. Some of you will, 
 perhaps, not be advocates, but ministerial officers. These I 
 would remind of the admonition of Bacon, that " the place of 
 justice is a hallowed place, and therefore not only the bench, but 
 the footpace, and the precincts and purprise thereof ought to be 
 preserved without scandal or corruption.^' The attendance of 
 Courts, he says, is subject to certain bad instruments. Among 
 these he enumerates the " sowers of suits which make the Court 
 
Il8 University of Madras, 
 
 swell and the country pine ;" the men whom he calls '' the left 
 hands of Courts, persons who are full of nimble and sinister 
 tricks and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and direct 
 courses of events, and bring justice into oblique lines and 
 labyrinths," and, lastly, '^ the poller and exacter of fees, which 
 justifies the common resemblance of the Courts to the bush, 
 whereunto while the sheep flies for defence in weather, he is 
 sure to lose part of the fleece." Much has been done of late 
 years to improve the administration of justice in this country, 
 but it is probable that some of the evils depicted by Bacon have 
 not disappeared in the Mofussil Courts. I trust that some of 
 you will become the right hands of those Courts, and that if, in 
 course of time, you are called to higher functions, and have to 
 preside over Courts of your own, you will emulate the example 
 of some of your predecessors, and show that the natives of this 
 country are capable of filling with credit posts which demand 
 the exercise of the highest faculties. 
 
 I must, however, remind you that the main function of Uni- 
 Themainfunc- vcrsitics is not to train men to become physicians, 
 tionofUniversi- or engineers, or lawyers, but to discipline the 
 *^®^- whole moral and intellectual being. You all gra- 
 
 duated in Arts before you were permitted to graduate in Law, 
 and although a somewhat lower test in Arts is accepted at present 
 as a preliminary condition for graduating in Medicine and Civil 
 Engineering, the same principle is recognized in all the profes- 
 sional degrees. Every profession has a tendency to narrow the 
 mind, and if a physician, a lawyer, or an engineer allows himself 
 to be wholly immersed in the details of his calling, and does not, 
 from time to time, visit those higher regions in which it is per- 
 mitted to the living to 
 
 " ...hold higli converse with the mighty dead," 
 he may rise to eminence and be a valuable member of society, 
 but the absence of that elevating and ennobling culture which 
 it is the peculiar province of literature to bestow will leave its 
 stamp on him. In one respect the training of this University is 
 less favourable to general culture than that of any other 
 
 University in India, or perhaps in the world. All 
 • ^whiclf^^th^e ^ther Universities require an acquaintance with at 
 Madras Uni- least One classical language. This is not essential to 
 varsity is less g^ Madras degree. You have, however, all acquired 
 general culture the key to One of the noblest literatures in the world. 
 thanotherUni- Tj^g master-minds of England, her poets, her 
 
 philosophers, her orators, her historians, will, if 
 you summon them, take up their abode with you. Their most 
 
1877.— Colonel R. M. Macdonald. 119 
 
 precious thouglits, their loftiest speculations, their wit, their 
 wisdom, all belong to you, if you choose to lay claim to them. 
 
 The culture of which I am speaking is especially incum- 
 bent on those among you who intend to adopt the 
 Tho P^J^fes- profession of teaching. I fear that the number of 
 such will be small. We hear a great deal of gra- 
 duates being turned out annually in such multitudes that they 
 are unable to find any kind of suitable employment. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, however, there are, at this moment, several 
 hundreds of educational posts which ought to be filled by gradu- 
 ates, but which are occupied by persons of humbler attainments, 
 because, in the present state of the market, the services of 
 graduates for such posts cannot be secured, and, as education 
 advances, situations of this kind will be numbered by thousands 
 instead of by hundreds. Such employment need not necessarily 
 be in connection with Government. Already in several large 
 towns schools have sprung up under the management of young 
 graduates, who, without any aid from the State, are beginning 
 to find remunerative employment. Unfortunately, however, it 
 is the case in this country, as it is the case in many other coun- 
 tries, that the dignity of the teacher's vocation is not properly 
 appreciated. It is in reality one of the most important of all 
 ofiices one to which it is the interest of the community that the 
 most gifted minds should be attracted, bat the profession is a 
 laborious one, and the prizes are at present few. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the educated natives of this 
 
 ^ , , , Presidency have, as a sreneral rule, kept entirelv 
 
 Educated na- ipp -i^ i p/- ^ 
 
 fives and inde- alooi irom agricuJtural, manuiacturmg and com- 
 
 pendent walks mercial pursuits. India is, at present, a poor coun- 
 try, but with intelligence, enterprise and capital, 
 she might become rich. In Europe, America, and the Austra- 
 lian Colonies much of the success which has attended such pursuits 
 has been due to the influence of educated men. Many persons 
 consider that the state of feeling which prevails on this subject 
 here is partly due to the great preponderance which has, until 
 recently, been assigned to literary and mathematical studies 
 in the curriculum of the University, and to the entire absence 
 of the intellectual discipline afforded by the natural and experi- 
 mental sciences. In this respect, however, great changes have 
 been recently made, the ultimate effect of which remains to be seen. 
 Physical Science is no longer the dead letter which it once was. 
 It is now as compulsory as English and Mathematics for the 
 Matriculation and First Arts examinations, and those students 
 who wish to pursue the study of Physical Science up to the 
 
120 Universify of Madras. 
 
 B.A. degriee are permitted to drop their Mathematics altogether 
 during the last two years of their course. Government has aided 
 the efforts of the University by the appointment of a professor of 
 Physical Science, whose lectures and laboratory are open to the 
 students of all Colleges, and we already see the first fruits of the 
 new system, as seven of those who have graduated to-day, have 
 taken up Physical Science as their optional subject. The recent 
 The Sydapet establishment at Sydapet of an institution in which 
 Agricultural Col- systematic instruction is given in the science and 
 ^®^®' practice of agriculture is also an event which may 
 
 lead to important results hereafter. 
 
 But besides the various openings to which I have referred 
 in connection with Medicine, Law, Civil Engineer- 
 Other open- jj^^^ Teaching, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufac- 
 tures and the public offices, it is certain that in 
 course of time many other outlets will suggest themselves to you 
 or to your successors. We have had among us not very long 
 ago a Parsee gentleman, who has proved that even the stage is 
 not an impossible career for a highly educated native gentleman. 
 The drama has, in all civilized nations, been a 
 source of much intellectual entertainment, and the 
 Hindoos at a very early period produced dramatic works, 
 some of which have been the admiration of Europe. But the 
 drama may exercise an evil, as well as a good influence, and its 
 tendency in this Presidency has been at times of so pernicious a 
 character that I should rejoice to see some well-directed effort 
 on the part of native gentlemen of position and education, to 
 purify and elevate the taste of their countrymen. The revival 
 of the ancient Sanskrit drama and the creation of a modern 
 vernacular school are objects in no way unworthy of your ambi- 
 tion. One of the gentlemen who appears here to-day has, in the 
 intervals of his law studies, achieved the somewhat difficult task 
 of presenting the Merchant of Venice in a Tamil dress, and 
 another, who has not succeeded in establishing his claim to a 
 degree on this occasion, but who will, I hope, be more fortunate 
 next time, has still more recently brought out a Telugu adapta- 
 tion of Shakespeare's Julius Cassar, written entirely in Iambics — 
 a bold but successful innovation in Telugu literature. It is not 
 at all likely that Shakespeare will ever be naturalized in this 
 country, but such attempts as these may, I hope, be regarded as 
 indications of the dawn of that day of literary activity, for 
 which we have been so long looking. If a new school of verna- 
 cular literature is to arise at all, it must be created by you or by 
 such as you. It is sometimes said that we are premature in our 
 
1877.— Colonel R. M. Macdonald. 121 
 
 expectations, that the higher education is a plant of recent 
 growth in this Presidency, and that there has not been sufficient 
 time for the production of any great work. Thirty or forty 
 years may be a short period in the history of a nation, but it is a 
 long period in the life of a man, and the fact remains that one 
 generation has grown up under the influence of European cul- 
 ture, and is passing away without having left any permanent mark 
 on the literature of the country. About twenty years ago. 
 Dr. Caldwell remarked that for the last one hundred and fifty years 
 the Dravidian mind appeared to have sunk into a state of 
 lethargy, scarcely any Tamil poem or treatise of any real value 
 having appeared, except such as had been composed by European 
 Missionaries, and he ascribed this stagnation to the " natural 
 tendency to decay and death, which is inherent in a system of 
 slavery to great names.^' 
 
 There is no greater foe to human progress than the tyranny 
 of custom. You stand in a peculiar position. You 
 custom. *^^"* ^^^® ^^ *^® ^^® ^^^^ inherited the traditions of 
 one of the most conservative nations on the face of 
 the globe, and on the other you have been brought under the 
 influence of new ideas, which must make you long to see India 
 take her place in the march of civilization. History teaches us 
 some lessons on this subject. Montesquieu remarks that one of 
 the causes which contributed to make the Romans masters of the 
 world was that, in the course of their successive conflicts with 
 various nations, they always gave up their own customs, as soon 
 as they discovered any that were better. One of the most 
 remarkable instances which he enumerates occurred in the first 
 Punic war. Montesquieu is, I believe. Wrong in saying that the 
 Romans had at this time no knowledge of navigation, but their 
 skill was small, and such ships as they had were no match for 
 those of the Carthaginians, who were at that period the best 
 seamen in the world. A Carthaginian galley was about this 
 time accidentally cast ashore on the coast of Italy. The Romans 
 took this vessel as their model . In a few weeks they built a fleet, 
 supplied the want of sailors by men drilled to row on scaffoldings, 
 and defeated the Mistress of the Seas on her own element. Rome 
 afterwards showed the same aptitude for imitation, when '' cap- 
 tive Greece took captive her rude conqueror,'^ and Roman 
 literature became almost an echo of the literature of Greece. 
 But unhappily she copied much that was bad as well as what 
 was good. She lost the simplicity of her ancient manners. 
 The Epicurean philosophy corrupted the hearts of her citizens, 
 and Eastern conquests brought in their train the luxury and 
 16 
 
122 ■ University of Madras. 
 
 dissolute manners of Syrian cities. One of the causes of the 
 rise of Rome was also one of the causes of her decline and fall. 
 Changes should be always well considered before they are car- 
 Innovate quiet- f ie<^ out.^ " It were good/' says Bacon, '' that men 
 ly and by de- in their innovations should follow the example of 
 s^^^^- time itself; which indeed innovateth greatly, but 
 
 quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived." But in this 
 country especially, great caution is necessary in adopting the 
 manners and institutions of foreign nations. There is much in 
 the present state of European society which is admirable and 
 deserving of imitation, but there is also a good deal which, 
 although unobjectionable in itself, is not suited to India in its 
 present stage, and there is not a little which is wholly unworthy 
 of being copied at all, and which Europeans themselves deplore. 
 I shall quote in connection with this subject a passage from a 
 lecture in which Ruskin discusses before an Oxford audience 
 the causes oi the degraded state of Art in Great Britain. 
 '^ Gentlemen," he says '' there has hitherto been seen no 
 instance, and England is little likely to give the unexampled 
 spectacle, of a country successful in the noble arts, yet in which 
 the youths were frivolous, the maidens falsely religious, the men 
 slaves of money, and the matrons of vanity. Not from all the 
 marble of the hills of Luni will such a people ever shape one 
 statue that may stand nobly against the sky ; not from all the 
 treasures bequeathed to them by the great dead, will they gather 
 for their own descendants, any inheritance but shame." I shall 
 offer no comment on this passage, beyond observing that if there 
 is any truth at all in the portrait, it is obvious that some dis- 
 crimination is needed in copying European models. The best 
 mode of forming an opinion as to the extent to which European 
 Study insti- institutions and customs should be introduced into 
 tutions on the this country, is to go to Europe and study them 
 ^P°^'- on the spot. Travelling is an important part of 
 
 education, but it is one for which no provision is made in this 
 University, although travelling fellowships are not unknown 
 elsewhere. To many, however, if not most of you, the expense 
 will prove an insuperable obstacle, and others will meet with 
 the difficulty which I believe still remains unsolved, as to whether 
 such journeys are permitted by the Shasters. Those who are 
 untrammelled by either of these obstacles may be reminded that 
 a great deal has been done of late years to make the position of 
 the Hindoo stranger in England as little irksome as possible, 
 
 I trust that you will, in your several avocations and spheres of 
 life, endeavour to fulfil the engagements into which you have 
 
1878.— Dr. M. G, Furnell. 123 
 
 now publicly entered, that you will maintain the high character 
 for which the graduates of this University have, as a body, been 
 distinguished, and that you will remember that one of the duties 
 which yon owe to your countrymen is that of influencing thought. 
 If I were called on to name the Hindoo whose career has made 
 the deepest impression on my mind as exemplifying the bene- 
 ficial effects of European culture, I should have no hesitation in 
 fixing on one who lived at a period in which there were no 
 Indian Universities, who never sat on the bench 
 milZKo^''"'' of ^ Sigh Court or at a Council Board, whose 
 only title was one which the East India Company 
 refused to acknowledge, whose life is unnoticed in the histories 
 which are read in our Colleges and Schools, and whose 
 memory has received but scanty honor at the hands of his 
 countrymen. lu speaking of Rajah Rammohun Roy, I do 
 not forget that half of those now present think that he went too 
 far, and that the other half regret that he did not go farther. 
 We are not called on here to consider how far he may have been 
 right in his opinions, but men of all creeds may agree that in his 
 earnest and fearless pursuit of truth, in the modesty and simpli- 
 city of his character, in the purity and benevolence of his life, 
 and in the high intellectual powers which he brought to bear on 
 his self-imposed task, the great Hindoo Reformer is entitled to 
 no mean place in the history of his age and country. 
 
 TWENTY-FIRST CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By M. C. Furnell, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S.) 
 My Lord Duke, Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen, — 
 
 " Salus popnli est suprema lex." 
 It is customary to close this interesting Convocation at the 
 Madras University with an address from one of its Fellows, 
 and we owe it to the practical sagacity of our most noble and 
 distinguished Chancellor, of which since his advent to power 
 over us we have had so many examples, that on this occasion 
 it is delivered by a Physician. You can well believe me when I 
 say that when I remembered the many eloquent orations that have 
 been heard on those occasions, especially from members of the 
 Bar, whose vocation it is to speak, and speak well, I might, and 
 did shrink from accepting the role of Public Orator. Yet when 
 the reason of the choice was made plain to me, that each profes- 
 sion, especially of those engaged in teaching the youths of this 
 couutrj^, should, in turn, say what it had to say on Education, — 
 given as it were its *'raisou d'etre,'' I hesitated no longer. 
 
124 tfniversity of Madras- 
 
 It is befitting that on this the first day of our assembly in 
 
 this Hall, I should congratulate the Senate of 
 hSsI ^^^^^^ *^^® University in having, at last, found a home 
 
 worthy of its reputation, in a Temple erected by 
 one of its Fellows, which adds to the list of magnificent edifices 
 by which he has gradually changed the features of our city '; 
 and, although some of us who have gazed upon the Taj could 
 wish, at the risk of being deemed hypercritical, that the domes 
 of this building partook somewhat more of the aerial graceful- 
 ness of those seen in that marvellous structure — revealed more 
 of themselves and less of their supporting columns^ — yet must 
 we give our unqualified admiration of the rest of this beautiful 
 building, and especially of the noble room wherein we are now 
 assembled. I have been long enough in Madras to remember 
 what the style of our public buildings was before Mr. Chisholm 
 came amongst us, and when we contrast this Senate House, the 
 Presidency College, and the Eailway Station, to say nothing of 
 other buildings, with the old stereotyped structures of the 
 Department Public Works, the Madras University may well be 
 proud that one of its Fellows has added so much to his own and 
 their reputation by his beautiful science. And the situation of 
 this building seems to me so happily chosen, so full of the high- 
 est auguries. It is almost the first, if not the very first, build- 
 ing of any consequence in this continent which catches the rays 
 of the rising sun, as if Southern India greeted the Glorious God 
 of day — fabled also of old as the God of Learning — with a build- 
 ing consecrated to his beloved pursuits. Let us hope the in- 
 tiuence of this University may be as beneficent and lasting, and 
 that, like the luminary whose advent it daily greets, it may 
 shed a never-failing stream of intellectual light over the land, 
 chasing away the darkness of ignorance and superstition. 
 
 Some twenty years ago when this University was first 
 called into existence, and for years after, it was customary on 
 these occasions to hold forth on the advantages and delights of 
 learning as an inducement to the youths of this country to come 
 forward and fill our colleges. To do so now would be, I feel, 
 an act of supererogation. There is no need for us now to go 
 into the bye-ways and hedges for guests to fill our banquets. 
 Each year sees an ever-increasing number of candidates for matri- 
 culation and graduation in Arts, but I fail to notice any increase 
 Paucity of ^^^ degrees in Medicine — a matter, I see, on which 
 Medical Gradu- our gallant and respected Director of Public In- 
 **®^- struction touched upon in his address last year. 
 
 In twenty years the faculty of medicine has produced three 
 
l878.--i)r. M. C. Furnell. l25 
 
 Doctors, half-a-dozen Bachelors, and one Licentiate in a population 
 numbering some 50,000,000 of people ! Some future Historian 
 looking at these figures might jump at the conclusion that this 
 continent, during the commencement of the 19th century, was 
 singularly fortunate as regards health, and that the fell pestilences 
 which in some other parts of the world proved so disastrous, were 
 here unknown. Yet what a fallacy such a conclusion would be ! 
 As the Principal of the Medical College, this fact is of singular 
 interest to me, and it has often been present to my mind not only 
 that the number of Native students who presented themselves 
 to study Medicine, apart from those entering the service of Gov- 
 ernment, was singularly small, but that the Brahmins practically 
 held altogether aloof. What was the cause of this ? If we turn 
 
 to the ancient History of India, we find that medi- 
 Medicme in cine^ far from being a despised science, was one of 
 
 the most honoured. Next to the vocation of Priest, 
 that of the Doctor seems to have been the most respected. 
 Nay, I am not sure it was, in the most ancient times, second even 
 to that of the Priest, for I find in your ancient books that one of 
 the fourteen " ratnas '^ or precious objects which the gods pro- 
 duced by churning the ocean after the deluge was a ''^Learned 
 Physician," In the Mahabharata is an account of this ocean churn- 
 ing for the recovery of lost treasures, and the one most desired 
 and sought for was the Ambrosia which confers life and health. 
 " The gods had failed, but when Ananta, the Serpent King, bid 
 the great snake Vasaki wind himself as a churning cord around 
 the mountain Mandara, all the gods pulled vigorously at the 
 living cord, until from the agitated floods uprose the Moon, and 
 the Goddess Lakshmi ; the white Horse and the wonderful gem 
 called Kaustubba ; 
 
 And lastly from the troubled waves, 
 
 Amidst the glorious cheering, 
 Uprose Dhanwantari the sage, 
 The lost Ambrosia bearing. 
 
 This was the famous Physician, bearing in his hand a white 
 . jug containing the coveted Ambrosia."* This 
 anwan Dhanwantari is said by some to have obtained the 
 
 Ayur Veda — the ancient Medical Record of the Hindoos — from 
 Brahma direct, by others to have been instructed in its mysteries 
 by Indra, the God of Heaven, where Dhanwantari practised 
 medicine with great success. But witnessing the ignorance 
 and misery of mankind, he descended upon earth to cure their 
 maladies and to instruct them in the means of preventing as 
 well as curing diseases. This Dhanwantari became King of 
 
 * Hindu System of Medicine by T. A. Wise. 
 
126 University of Madras. 
 
 Kasi or Banares, the most holy city of the Hindoos — a city well 
 worth the pilgrimage of any one, Hindoo or English, merely 
 to gaze upon. Here he became so famous from his many cures^ 
 that, at last, a deputation of divine sages, or Munis, waited 
 upon him to petition instruction in the divine art of Medicine. 
 " Deign Sovereign Euler/^ these sages thus addressed Dhanwan- 
 tari, " to bestow upon us the power of preventing and curing 
 the many diseases under which mankind are suffering, afflicting 
 their bodies, tormenting* their minds, and which, with the numer- 
 ous accidental and natural diseases, distress them so much that 
 they seem to be without friends. We pray that you will bestow 
 upon us a work to instruct us in the causes, the nature and cure 
 of diseases : for retaining health and for promoting the welfare 
 of the soul in another world. Like scholars we come to receive 
 the information from you.'^ The King-Doctor's answer was 
 favorable. " Your wishes shall be granted," replied Dhanwantari, 
 Sasruta ^^^ ^^® ^^ ^^® sages, Sasruta, son of Visamitra, 
 
 a contemporary of Rama, was chosen to be the per- 
 son to be instructed in medicine. The book which Sasruta, from 
 the dictation of Dhanwantari, compiled, was an abridgement of 
 the Ayur Veda, that itself being far too voluminous and heavenly 
 for the present degenerate race of mankind : but if I understand 
 my authorities correctly, Sasruta's work is still preserved, and is 
 still a high authority among good Hindoos. I will not take up 
 your time in describing the work at any length, but I wish to draw 
 your attention to this curious fact, that the third book treats of 
 Religious scru. Anatomy and gives a description of the body, 
 pies about dis- and I learn from it that your present prejudice 
 section. against dissection had no existence in those good 
 
 old times when kings and sages were doctors. Sasruta enjoins 
 that 'Hhe teacher shall seek to perfect his pupil by the appli- 
 " cation of all expedients which he may think calculated to effect 
 " his proficiency," and he gives directions for the use of instru- 
 ments. Again he writes : " Those men who, in ignorance of the 
 " human frame, venture to make it the subject of their experi- 
 " ments are the murderers of their species." Charaka, who in 
 the opinion of some is even more ancient than 
 Charaka. Sasruta, writes : " A Practitioner should know all 
 
 "the parts of a body, both external and internal, 
 " and their relative positions with regard to each other ; without 
 " such knowledge he cannot be a proper Practitioner," What 
 says Menu, your great Lawgiver : " Should a Brahmin touch a 
 " fresh human bone, he is purified by bathing, and if it be dry, 
 " by stroking a cow, or looking at the sun, having sprinkled his 
 *^ mouth duly with water." It is evident the great lawgiver 
 
1878.— Dr. M. C. Furnell. 127 
 
 passed no prohibition on the matter. I find also that in Bengal 
 the opinion of learned Pundits was given on this point in Lord 
 William Bentinck's time, and the Shastras made to declare that 
 '^ Dissection was permissible to a Brahmin seeking Medical 
 knowledge/' My own opinion had always been that this was 
 the insuperable bar to the study of our Western Science of 
 Medicine by good caste Hindoos, and I had commenced some 
 time ago a paper on this subject for submission to Government, 
 recommending that Brahmins wishing to study Medicine might 
 be excused the study of Practical Anatomy. And yet it would 
 seem that your holy Vedas hold no such prohibition, and that 
 this, like many other superstitions — and I use the word with all 
 respect — has grown up in these later and more degenerate days 
 of your religion. What a strange subject this for reflection 
 that we who pride ourselves in having quite lately overcome 
 this prejudice of humanity — for it is only in the commencement 
 of this present century the study of Anatomy has become legal 
 in Great Britain — should have been anticipated by N^atives of 
 this country some three or four hundred years ago, and that I, 
 a humble representative of the Western Aryan races, should 
 stand here trying to persuade you to go back to your old 
 ways of knowledge ! Verily ! Verily ! ! saith the Prophet, 
 " The thing that hath been, is that which shall be ; and that 
 which is done, that which shall be done ; and there is no new 
 thing under the sun.'' But we are not obliged to trust merely 
 
 to the fable legends of Hindoo Mythology for the 
 fSeign^souSies! assertion that medicine in this country is an old 
 
 and honored science. When the Greeks came to 
 India with Alexander, they found, amongst the traces of civiliza- 
 tion which raised their astonishment and admiration, the practice 
 of medicine far advanced. Thus Arrian informs us, " The Grecian 
 Physicians found no remedy against the bites of snakes ; but the 
 Indians cured those who happened to fall under that misfortune." 
 And again Nearchus informs us, " Alexander, having all the 
 most skilful Indian Physicians about his person, caused proclama- 
 tion to be made throughout the camp, that whoever might be bitten 
 by one of these snakes should forthwith repair to the Royal 
 Pavilion to be cured." This was 300 years before Christ, and 
 now in 1878, more than 2,000 years after, we have the Govern- 
 ment of India and Dr. Shortt vainly offering a reward for the 
 precious but lost knowledge ! These Physicians are also said to 
 have made other cures. *^If any among them feel themselves 
 much indisposed," says Nearchus, '* they apply to their Brahmins, 
 who, by wonderful and even more than human means, cure 
 whatever will admit of it." Not only did the Greeks derive 
 
128 VniversUy of Madras. 
 
 much information direct, during Alexander and his successor's 
 invasion of India, but from the Egyptians subsequently, and 
 they owed their knowledge to some mysterious nation of the 
 Bast, India no doubt. But our indebtedness to India can be 
 more directly traced somewhat later. When Bagdad, under the 
 Caliphs after the destruction of Alexandria, became the great 
 seat of learning, medicine was cultivated with much diligence 
 and success. Hindoo Physicians were invited to settle in Arabia, 
 and the works of Charaka, Sasruta and the treatise called Nidana 
 were translated and studied by the Arabians in the days of 
 Harun aud Mansur, A.D. 773. With the great wave of Mussul- 
 man conquest which spread along the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 Medicine and Mathematics were brought by the Arabians to Spain 
 and found a congenial home in the Saracenic Colleges of the 
 Iberian Peninsula. The Arabians were not only great Physicians, 
 but famous alchemists, and to their teachings we owe the founda- 
 tions of those sciences which have now grown to the fair 
 dimensions of Modern Medicine and Chemistry."^ They seem, 
 however, to have neglected Anatomy, and were more particularly 
 famous for the introduction of numerous Oriental remedies. 
 Rhubarb, Tamarinds, Cassia, Senna, Camphor and various other 
 gums, which, as they are entirely the products of Asia, fully 
 attest that their knowledge of remedial measures came from 
 the East. 
 
 And what is this art of Medicine, for the study of which 
 your ancestors in far off times were so famous ? 
 What is this Which your heroes and your gods cultivated so 
 a o e cine assiduously, but you deem beneath your notice ? It 
 is, I think, one of the fairest and most entrancing of the pursuits 
 which can occupy man's time. The sciences allied to Medicine — 
 Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry and Botany — are of endless 
 interest and beauty, and for this reason, that the laws which they 
 disclose are the laws of Nature ; and the crowning studies of 
 Medicine and Surgery, which they lead up to, are they not equally 
 interesting ? They bring comfort and assistance, after restored 
 health and strength, to suffering thousands of our fellow-crea- 
 tures ; and the laws of one, if properly understood and applied, 
 are capable of saving whole nations from epidemics more devas- 
 tating far than the most fatal wars. Jenner's discovery of 
 vaccination alone, has saved more lives than even the victories 
 of G-enghis Khan, aye twenty Genghis Khans, have deprived the 
 world of ; and chloroform has assuaged more pain than perhaps 
 
 * It has been said, *' Whilst the Byzantines obliterated science in Theology, 
 the Saracens illuminated it by Medicine." (Draper.) 
 
1878.— Dr. ilf . C.Furnell. 129 
 
 even the cruel Spanish Inquisition ever inflicted. I am not 
 romancing. I am making, I believe, no tropes or figures of 
 speech, but talking plain facts. I could cull from history examples 
 without number of fair cities and even provinces destroyed and 
 blotted out, from man's ignorance or neglect of what are now 
 the most obvious hygienic law. Turn to the history of the Middle 
 Ages, and we find one succession of famines and pestilences, 
 pestilences and famines, sweeping over Europe. Come down to 
 times nearer, we find in 1656, 240,000 people were destroyed by 
 a pestilence in Naples alone, and upwards of 400,000 perished 
 in the Neapolitan territories, a comparatively small place. In 
 1663, pestilence prevailed throughout Englam, culminating in 
 the great plague which carried off hundreds of thousands until 
 the fire of London, by destroying the dirty, ill-drained, and badly 
 ventilated houses, put an end to the pestilence. Now what was 
 the state of things then existing ? The celebrated and learned 
 
 Erasmus, not very long before, in a letter to a 
 
 English homes physician of Cardinal Wolsey, says of Englishmen, 
 
 Erasmus.^"^^ ° " There is a degree of uncleanliness and even filth 
 
 "of which I could have formed no conception. 
 '' The floors of the houses are commonly of clay, strewed with 
 '' rushes which are occasionally removed, but underneath lies 
 " unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments of 
 " fish, spittle, excrement of dogs, cats and everything that was 
 '' nasty.'' Was it any wonder we had pestilence and plagues ? 
 London of the present day is most probably thirty or forty times 
 the size it was then, containing nearly 4,000,000 of people, but it 
 is now one of the healthiest cities of the world, and why ? simply 
 because the people have learnt to wash, drain their houses and 
 streets, and use comparatively pure water, for much remains to 
 be done even now. But a wise regard for sanitation has borne 
 ample fruit even of late years ; and great epidemics, such as at 
 one time it was periodically visited with — and which were ascrib- 
 ed to the direct manifestation of divine wrath — have practically 
 disappeared. Am I wrong in saying that a state of things very 
 much as described by Erasmus, if not worse, obtains amongst 
 the dwelling-places of many of your towns, and bears practically 
 the same fruit ? Need we be astonished at our recurring epi- 
 demics of fever, dysentery and cholera ? Take this very plague 
 
 cholera, with which we are so familiar, for is not 
 
 India its home ? It is one of those pestilences, bred 
 of filth and dirt, which should disappear from amongst us. 
 Already is it beginning to shew chinks in its armour and has 
 ceased to be the dread, mysterious, unknown, and uncon- 
 querable enemy it was in my early days; before which man 
 17 
 
130 University of Madras. 
 
 had nothing to do, biit to fling down his arms in abject terror 
 and despair, and pray piteously to an avenging Grod to pardon 
 him his sins, and avert the dread punishment he had so richly 
 merited ! Bold science — not impious, — far from it, bold only in 
 its determined search for truth, and modest ever — has pushed 
 home some searching questions concerning water contamination, 
 and infection of different sorts, which begin to throw much light 
 on its diffusion, and will, before long, I think, make cholera visita- 
 tions in India as few and far between as they are now in Europe. 
 
 These are the fair realms of study and usefulness medicine 
 opens up to you. ^She has to do with every thing that concerns 
 man's material comfort and safety, not only to cure but to pre- 
 vent disease, and thus the very elements form subjects of its 
 investigation. Your ancestors here again seem to me to have 
 Importance forestalled modem civilization. Pure water enough 
 of pure water and ample enough for all man's wants, is the great 
 AnS't lndia^° ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ large cities in Europe, thanks to the 
 teachings of Modern Hygiene. If I am not mistaken, 
 your ancestors, especially the Brahmins, had grasped this fact 
 ages ago. The careful preservation of their own wells and tanks 
 from contact by inferior and unclean castes, the scrupulous 
 cleanliness of the vessels used in carrying and preserving water, 
 and the habit of frequent bathing enjoined as a religious observ- 
 ance, all demonstrate the great value your forefathers attached 
 to supplies of pure water. And now science, with its chemical 
 tests and tbe microscope, demonstrates as clearly as any problem 
 in Euclid can be demonstrated, — that in impure water lie the con- 
 taminating germs of fevers, cholera, dysentery and other diseases. 
 Unfortunately, you have, at least many of you, long lost the 
 value of this wisdom, and not only are your wells in many places 
 less scrupulously clean, but your habits in all large religious 
 gatherings of contaminating the streams and water-supplies, 
 tends in this hot climate to originate and spread the dreadful 
 epidemics for which India is so famous. Air as well as water 
 . falls under the immediate attention of the physi- 
 
 cian. It is more essential even that man should 
 have pure air to breathe than pure water to drink. Floating 
 in the atmosphere are myriads of contaminatijig germs against 
 which knowledge may defend us ; and simple contrivances 
 of admission or exclusion of certain winds may make all the 
 difference in this country of health or sickness in a household. 
 Food, of all sorts ; the abuse or rightful use of alcoholic drinks ; 
 _, impurities in food, their detection and methods 
 
 of removal — all fall in the present day under the 
 
I878.~l)r. M. C. FurnelL l81 
 
 province of the intelligent physician. And how usefully such 
 knowledge may be turned to the benefit of mankind I need not, 
 I am sure, remind Madras, which has not yet forgotten how 
 the bold and sagacious words of its Sanitary Commissioner 
 spoken in time saved, during the past famine, most probably 
 hundreds and thousands of lives of our poor fellow-subjects. 
 
 But can I pass over the subject of food without making some 
 allusion to the late dreadful famine which has visifc- 
 fS'li^nt^'''^' ed this land ? Pardon me the wretched platitude, 
 but without food we cease to exist; this is too self- 
 evident, but what does not seem so self-evident, although equally 
 true, is that man can, by his ingenuity and the right application of 
 science, do much to avert, if not altogether prevent, these ca- 
 lamitous visitations. I am not going to suggest we can put 
 spots on the sun, if it is really owing to the non-maculation of that 
 luminary, we are indebted to the failure of our monsoons. But 
 the sun is not an invention of to-day, and I may be allowed, 
 with the greatest respect for my friend Mr. Pogson, to say I am 
 with those who hold that that theory is not yet proven. But 
 what history indubitably teaches us is that, whereas in the dark 
 ages Europe, as I said before, was one recurring scene of pes- 
 tilences and famines, famines under improved 
 Possibilities means of cultivation have practically ceased to 
 system of Agri- ©xist. Some harvests, of course, are less plentiful 
 culture. than others, and occasionally there is partial dis- 
 
 tress, but famines such as we have had, are now, I 
 may say, unknown. In the British Isles we have had no famine 
 since 1847-48, when the potato failure caused such distress in 
 Ireland. Now what was the course pursued by the people of 
 England after this famine ? I don^t remember that they 
 troubled themselves much about spots on the sun, but spots on 
 Irish cultivation were very effectually rubbed out — the whole 
 system of agriculture was changed. Agricultural Colleges were 
 started and an amount of attention directed to the food supply 
 of the people which eventuated in almost changing the face of 
 the country. Nor must you suppose that, in the British Isles, 
 farming, as in this countrj^, is relegated to the lower classes 
 only — as 
 
 ** In ancient times the sacred plough employed 
 
 " The king and awful fathers of mankind ; 
 
 " And some, with whom compared your insect tribes 
 
 " Are but the beings of a summer's day, 
 
 " Have held the scale of Empire, ruled the storm 
 
 *' Of mighty war ! then with unwearied hand, 
 
 " Disdaining little delicacies, seized 
 
 " The plough, and greatly independent lived," 
 
132 ffniversity of Madras, 
 
 So our great nobility, our Dukes, Earls and others, even 
 Royalty itself, are many of them admirable farmers, and take 
 the liveliest practical interest in the development of all that 
 concerns the soil. Here it seems to me you have a most 
 splendid opening for the educated youths of this country, and 
 as Government has instituted an Agricultural College in Madras 
 (and if I had any voice in the matter I would make the teaching 
 of agriculture compulsory in all our Normal schools) there is 
 no excuse for some of you not following this science. Of what 
 may be done in this way two examples occur to me as I write, 
 and had I time I have no doubt numberless other instances 
 could be adduced. Thirty years ago, Wynaad was a jungle, 
 
 the home only of elephants, wild boar, sambiir 
 Wynaad. and fever. It was almost a " terra incognita," 
 
 save to the adventurous travellers who made a 
 short cut through it from the Western Coast to Mysore. It is 
 now the home of hundreds of venturesome and intelligent 
 Englishmen, who employ thousands of your fellow-countrymen 
 in the cultivation of coffee and cinchona. The dense juugles 
 are gradually being converted into fruitful plantations, and I 
 presume the value of the property may now be estimated at 
 millions ! And from cultivation fever flies ! Are there not 
 
 countless tracts of land in India waiting only 
 fcio^'^fe^Gi^fliJs^.' industry and science to be thus converted into 
 
 smiling gardens, amply repaying, as Nature always 
 generously repays those who cultivate her? How cultiva- 
 tion affects even climates and calls down as it were rain from 
 Heaven, I may cite to you the singular change which has come 
 over that tract of land through which the Suez Canal has 
 been cut. Hitherto rain was quite unknown there, but now 
 ever and again the astonished Arab is witness of what to him 
 would have been formerly a strange phenomenon, a refreshing 
 shower. Is it not possible, and even probable that well-directed 
 industry in planting forests, damming our rivers, opening up 
 ii-rigation works and making tanks, would thus beneficially 
 change our climate in Southern India, and avert our Rain 
 Famines ? 
 
 But time will not permit me to pursue the subject further. 
 T have said enough, I think, to convince you that medicine 
 is not a science which the people of India, of all people, and 
 especially the Brahmins, should despise or neglect. It originated 
 with you, and the prejudices which now debar you from its 
 study had no existence in your olden age. It is essentially a 
 study worthy of the noblest faculties of man, and one which the 
 
l878.--l)r.M. G. Furncll. l33 
 
 shrewd, patient, clear intellects of the people of this country, 
 especially the Brahmins, would master and adorn. But is there 
 not something else which keeps the bold intellects amongst you 
 from choosing medicine as a career ? I am afraid there is ; and 
 here, as a servant of Government, it behoves me to be careful 
 in what I say, but I take courage from the Viceroy ^s witty 
 figure of speech on a late occasion, and feel sure that no Eng- 
 lish Government would wish to be treated as the Parsees treat 
 their dead ; to he surrounded hy a Tower of Silence. Medicine 
 
 is not an honored calling amongst Englishmen, 
 au honored call- There is no use blinking the fact. It is the Cin- 
 ing among Eng- drolla amongst professions. It wears the poor 
 IS men. clothing ai^d does the drudgery, whilst its sisters. 
 
 Law and Divinity, and in this country Arms and the Civil Service, 
 are clad in purple and fine linen and obtain all the honors. You 
 hear it called an ^' honorable profession,^^ a ^' noble " profession, 
 but this alludes to its work not to its rewards. No .English 
 physician, ever so famous, was ever ennohhd. In this country no 
 English physician has ever been deemed worthy a seat in the 
 Legislative Council. If the English gods churned the ocean for 
 lost treasures, I am afraid it's not a '^learned Physician^' they 
 would bring up ; or if by chance they did, they would not make 
 him king of Benares; they would most probably pop him in 
 again, and go on churning, until a lawyer or a clergyman 
 came up to fill the place and be made a Chancellor or an 
 Archbishop. It would be waste of time on this occasion my 
 offering any speculations as to why this is so. I must content 
 myself with simply mentioning the fact and pointing out how, 
 in my opinion — open, I feel acutely, to the misconstruction of 
 professional jaundice — this state of things is injurious to the 
 commonwealth. In the first place it deters the men who would 
 honor and benefit medicine with their acquirements and social 
 influence, seeking a career in this most useful and intellectual 
 profession. All men of any worth are more or less ambitious 
 of distinctions, and such men avoid medicine and overcrowd 
 the ranks of other professions. You do it in this country. But 
 in other ways of even more importance it is injurious. How 
 many fair enterprises of our country have been shipwrecked, 
 because the feeble voice of medicine (feeble from its position) 
 
 has been contemptuously silenced or set aside ? 
 tePhrcrfrfira^ Many of us in this room remember miscarriage of 
 proof of the our first winter in the Crimea; how our poor 
 importance of bounded soldiers died from mere want of ordi- 
 
 medicme. ,. , i ,, • t , i • ,. 
 
 liary comiorts and attention ; and the siege or 
 Sebastapol was made a lingering sacrifice, on which a holocaust 
 
134 University of Madras. 
 
 of brave British soldiers was offered up ; simply and solely, I 
 verily believe, because after Alma the Commander-in-Chief, 
 hampered by wounded and uncared-for soldiers, was unable to 
 advance and snatch the prize their bravery had won for our 
 Queen and country. It was afterwards discovered that what 
 was wanted, and which was subsequently supplied twentyfold 
 by a generous and indignant country, had been asked for by the 
 head of the Medical Department, a Peninsular Veteran, who 
 knew well the needs of an Army on Service, but his requests 
 had been treated with scorn and neglect. Only the other day, 
 a prize Encrland has long set her heart on, and was within an 
 ace of seizing, escaped her sailors from this contemptuous treat- 
 ment of professional advice. I allud^ to the expedition to the 
 
 North Pole, which miscarried from scurvy amongst 
 
 Andtheexpe- the men, because lime juice in direct contravention 
 
 North Pole. ^ of medical advice was omitted from their rations. 
 
 But let me turn from this ungrateful feature of 
 my subject. Just as in the fairy tales, the resplendent Prince 
 appears at last with the glass slipper and elevates poor Cind- 
 rella to her proper sphere, so some far-seeing and benevolent 
 statesman, some Lord Herbert of Lea, will come and place 
 medicine in her proper place, so that not only its sons shall be 
 honored, (which is after all a secondary consideration,) but the 
 voices of its " ancients " listened to when they speak of what 
 they know, and the subjects of our Gracious Empress saved from 
 unnecessary suffering and pestilence. 
 
 There is now left to me last, but not least, the most grateful 
 Peaceful war- portion of my task. I have to congratulate you who 
 riors o£ South- have to-day been capped upon becoming members 
 ern India. q£ ^]^|g XJniversity, and I do so on behalf of our noble 
 
 Chancellor and the Senate most cordially. May your lives be 
 happy, your careers useful to yourselves and to your country, 
 and creditable to the University of which you have this day 
 become members. You stand here, to my mind, like soldiers who 
 have been dismissed their training. Arms are in their hands, 
 and they are looked forward to henceforth as the defenders and 
 warriors of their country. The arms placed in your hands are 
 the keen weapons of science ; like faithful soldiers keep them 
 ever ready and bright by use. Be the peaceful warriors of 
 Southern India, and though the combats you may go forth 
 to wage are bloodless, and there is " no glorious pomp and 
 circumstances of battle,"*^ yet are the victories, if possible, more 
 splendid, the result to your country more important. If any 
 among you take up the paths I have indicated^ medicine or 
 
1879.—Ri(jht Rev. Dr. Caldwell 135 
 
 agriculture, your foes will be pestilence and famine, and they 
 slay myriads compared to the puny efforts of man's bloodiest 
 wars. These be foemen worthy of your steel, and if there shall 
 arise amongst you some one who, by his genius and acquire- 
 ments, shall shew his countrymen how to avoid, or amply 
 mitigate these evils, he will, even should he escape decoration, 
 be amply honored in the plaudits of a grateful posterity. 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Right Rev. Dr. Caldwell.) 
 
 In promising to deliver the address to the Graduates on 
 this occasion, it appeared to me that there were two reasons why 
 any remarks I might venture to make might deserve to be 
 received with indulgence. These were, first, my known senti- 
 ments of good-will towards the Natives of India of every class, 
 and, secondly, my grey hairs, which bear witness to the more 
 than forty-one years during which 1 have endeavoured, as far 
 as lay in my power, to promote the best interests of my adopted 
 country. 
 
 Educated Natives may fairly be expected both to contribute 
 What edu- *^ *^^ enlargement of the bounds of human know- 
 cated Indians ledge in every thing that pertaios to their own 
 may do, Country and also to endeavour to exemplify in 
 
 their intercourse with society and their public duties the benefits 
 of the education they have received. The study of the history, 
 ancient literature, and archaeology of the country 
 will never reach any thing like completeness of 
 development or realise results of national importance till it is 
 systematically undertaken by educated Natives. Learned Natives 
 of Calcutta and Bombay, trained in European modes of thought 
 and vieing with Europeans in zeal for historical accuracy, have 
 already made a promising beginning in this department of 
 research. I trust that the Native scholars of the South will 
 resolve that they will not be left behind in the race. The most 
 important aid educated Natives can render to the study of the 
 history of their country is by means of a search after inscriptions, 
 many of which, hitherto unnoticed and unknown, they will find 
 inviting their attention on the walls of the temples in almost 
 every village in the interior. The only ancient Indian history 
 worthy of the name is that which has been spelled out from 
 inscriptions and coins. Popular legends and poetical myths, by 
 whatever name they are dignified, may be discarded, not only 
 
136 University of Madras, 
 
 without loss, but with positive advantage. No guide but our 
 own intelligence is better than a faithless guide. Something has 
 already been done in the direction of the search for and de- 
 cipherment of inscriptions by Europeans, though less systemati- 
 cally in Madras than in Calcutta and Bombay, but much remains 
 to be done and will always remain, till educated Natives enter 
 upon this branch of study with the zeal with which so many 
 people in Europe have devoted themselves to it. Natives possess 
 various facilities for this study which are denied to Europeans 
 living in India. They have no reason to fear the sun. They 
 can generally stop in their journeys without inconvenience and 
 examine a.ny antiquity they see ; and whilst Europeans must be 
 content with examining only the inscriptions on the outer walls 
 of temples, inscriptions in the interior also can be examined by 
 Natives. They will also be allowed to examine inscriptions on 
 copper plates in the possession of respectable Native families 
 which would not readily be allowed to pass into the hands of 
 Europeans. A humbler, but still very important branch of 
 archaeological work lies open to every educated Hindu in the 
 Tamil districts in this Presidency. Let him set himself, before 
 it is too late, to search out and discover the vernacular works 
 that are commonly supposed to be lost. The names only of many 
 Tamil works of the earlier period survive and many works must 
 have been composed at a still earlier period of which even 
 the names have been forgotten. Tamil literature seems to 
 have known no youth. Like Minerva, the goddess of learning 
 amongst the Greeks, it seems to have sprung, full-grown and 
 fully armed, from the head of Jupiter. The explanation of this 
 is that every work pertaining to, or illustrative of, the youth of 
 the language appears to have perished. Probably, however, a 
 careful search made by educated Natives in houses and mathas 
 would be rewarded by some valuable discoveries. What an ex- 
 tensive and interesting field India presents for the comparative 
 study of languages, and nowhere will ampler scope 
 loogy. -^^ found for this study than in the districts, 
 directly or indirectly, under the Madras Grovernment. The Dra- 
 vidian family, which has its chief home in this Presidency, 
 includes, according to the most recent enumeration, 14 languages 
 and 30 dialects ; in addition to which, Sanskrit, Hindustani, and 
 English claim attention. The comparative study of the languages 
 of India has remained up to this time in the hands of Europeans, 
 but it is a branch of study to which educated Natives might be 
 expected to apply themselves with special zeal, and in which, if 
 they applied themselves to it, I feel sure that they would attain 
 to special excellence. The people of India have surpassed all 
 
1S19. -^Right Rev. Dr. Caldwell 137 
 
 other peoples, ancient or modern, in the earnestness and assiduity 
 with which they have studied the grammars of their various 
 tongues, and to this must be attributed the wonderful perfection 
 several of those languages have reached as organs of thought 
 and much of the acuteness for which the Indian mind is famed. 
 But the study of the languages of their country by Indian 
 scholars has never beeome comparative and, therefore, has never 
 become scientific. It has fallen behind the scholarship of Europe 
 in grasp and breadth, and consequently in fruitf ulness in results. 
 If, however, educated Natives resolved to apply themselves to a 
 study so peculiarly suited to them, I consider it certain that 
 excellent results would soon be realised. If they began to compare 
 their vernaculars one with another, ancient forms with modern, 
 and both with Sanskrit, they would soon find that Language 
 had a history of its own, throwing light on all other histories, 
 and that instead of being the driest of subjects, it was one of 
 the richest in matters of wide human interest. A further 
 advantage of priceless value might also, it is to be hoped, be 
 realised in time in the commencement and development of a 
 good modern Vernacular Literature — a literature equal — if that 
 were possible — to the ancient literature in beauty of form, and 
 superior to it — which would be possible enough — in the value of 
 its subject-matter. A most interesting, but hitherto in India 
 
 almost untrodden, path of progress opens itself 
 Sciences^^^''''^ now to the educated Native in the study of Nature. 
 
 In this branch of research, Hindus in all ages have 
 fallen as much behind other nations as in the study of grammar 
 they have excelled them. The only branch of natural science 
 heretofore studied in India was Astronomy, and that had fallen 
 from its high position and been compelled to do menial service 
 to a silly Astrology. Several branches of natural science have 
 had a place given them of late in the curriculum of Indian Uni- 
 versity studies, and there seems reason to hope that a consider- 
 able number of educated Natives will henceforth learn to observe. 
 To see is not to observe, and to learn up and pass examinations 
 in the observation of others is not to observe. You are surround- 
 ed in the tropics with facilities and incitements to observation 
 which do not exist in Europe. All nature is constantly in a 
 state of excitement, librating between excess and defect, and 
 constantly calling upon you to observe its changes. The habit 
 of observation will prove of the greatest possible advantage to 
 the Indian student, in checking that too ready belief in authority 
 and that fondness for dreamy speculation which are so natural 
 to Natives of the tropics. It may also be expected, if maintained 
 for a sufl&cient length of time, and by a sufficient number of 
 
 18 
 
138 Unvversity of Madras, 
 
 persons, to contribute to tlie solution of many questions which 
 now appear insoluble. 
 
 It should be an anxious question with every educated 
 
 Native how he can best exemplify the benefits of 
 quefdon^^with t^e education he has received. The first answer 
 every educated that rises to the mind is that he should endeavour 
 Indian. ^^ ^^ ^^ others what has been done to himself by 
 
 labouring for the promotion of education all around. The lamp 
 of knowledge which has been placed in his hands should be held 
 aloft for the enlightenment of others. The well of knowledge 
 which has been opened in his mind should be kept sweet and 
 pure by copious communications to others of its healing waters. 
 This rule applies not only to things known, but to principles 
 also. The methods of thought and principles of action in which 
 he has been trained should be propagated. Wherever he goes, 
 in whatever situation he may be placed, the educated Native 
 will find ample scope for his efforts in the cause of enlightenment. 
 He need not go far — probably he need not pass the limits of his 
 own family circle — to find scope for carrying into effect those 
 ideas respecting the importance of female education, which in 
 theory at least seem now to be generally admitted, and which 
 seem steadily passing, especially in the great towns, from the 
 region of theory to the region of practice. There is another 
 
 department of educational work of great national 
 thf mass^sr ^^ importance which has not yet come to be regarded 
 
 by Natives of the better classes with as much 
 favour even as female education. I refer to the education of 
 the labouring poor. Here is a noble and most extensive field for 
 the exercise of that enlightened, large-hearted philanthropy 
 which it is the great ultimate aim of the higher education to 
 foster ; and if this field has generally hitherto been left unculti- 
 vated and uncared for by educated Natives — if their efforts for 
 the diffusion of the benefits of education have too generally been 
 confined within the limits of the classes to which they them- 
 selves belong — all the more credit will be due to those generous 
 spirits who break through the barrier of class exclusiveness and 
 set themselves to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 
 number. Here I must appear to diverge for a 
 
 Absence of moment to another subject, which nevertheless is 
 
 ttropSts. ' ^^^ another, but the very essence of the subject in 
 
 hand. In studying Mental Philosophy you have 
 doubtless been taught the philosophy of morals. You have 
 made your acquaintance with various theories of moral obligation 
 and doubtless some one of those tiieories has been specially 
 
1879.'-'R{ght Bev, Br, Caldwell. 189 
 
 recommended to you. But why were you taught the theory of 
 obligation ? Not surely for the gratiOcation of your cuiiosity 
 merely, but that you might be enabled to realise the loftiness of 
 the position occupied in the economy of human nature by Duty 
 and the fitness of following where Duty calls. Man^s highest 
 duty to man — his highest moral obligation — is the ' duty of 
 beneficence — the duty of doing good to others. The obligation 
 not to do evil belongs to a lower stage of morals than the 
 obligation to do good. " Thou shalt not/^ is only introductory 
 to " Thou shalt.''^ There is much high moral teaching — not 
 unmixed with teaching of a different character — in the books with 
 which some of you probably were familiar before you came in 
 contact with the moral teaching of Europe? In particular, 
 with regard to the highest development of beneficence — doing 
 good to others though it be to our own hurt, doing good to those 
 who do us evil — Indian literature is rich in maxims and illustra- 
 tions of the highest excellence. There are two great defects, 
 however, in Indian teaching on this subject. The first defect is 
 the absence of an adequate motive. The second is one which I 
 trust the educated Natives of our time will do their best to 
 remedy. That is, the absence, or at least the extreme paucity, 
 of real, not mythical, examples of this justly-lauded devotedness 
 in doing good — the absence in India of anything corresponding 
 to that long list of philanthropists whose names have made the 
 annals of England so illustrious. I now return to that branch 
 of beneficence with which I commenced — ^the education of the 
 lower classes, especially the lower classes in the rural districts, 
 and I think I may say without exaggeration that the world 
 does not present a finer sphere for turning theories of doing 
 good into practice than that which educated Natives will find 
 opening before them in every direction, if they set themselves to 
 help forward the education and elevation of the hitherto neglected 
 masses. It may safely be said that one-fourth of the rural 
 population in this part of India belongs to classes for whose 
 improvement nothing has ever yet been done, except by Euro- 
 peans. One set of rulers after another has arisen and fallen, but 
 the condition of the labouring classes has remained unchanged. 
 They themselves did not care for education. Even the wish to 
 become wiser or happier than they were at length died out. And 
 if by any chance any of them did entertain a wish to rise they 
 were precluded from rising by the prejudices of the upper 
 classes. I ask now what nobler object educated Hindus can 
 propose to themselves than that of teaching these myriads of 
 " dumb, driven cattle/' that after all they are men. Dispel their 
 ignorance, strike off their fetters, allow them to entertain some 
 
140 tfniversity of Madras, 
 
 hope of bettering their condition, and even the horrors of those 
 periodical famines^ from which they suffer more than any other 
 class, will be found to be capable of mitigation. If you do good 
 only to the members of your own class and order who can 
 requite you again, " what reward have ye V The 
 iDeneficence!^** truest beneficeuce consists in doing good to those 
 who are beneath you, who cannot requite you in 
 any way in kind, and who possibly may have sunk so low as to 
 be unable to requite you even with gratitude. But though the 
 lower classes may have sunk very low, morally as well as intel- 
 lectually, it must not for a moment be supposed that they are 
 unimproveable, as they are sometimes said to be by those who 
 do not wish them to improve. How is it that their social life is 
 much superior to that of the savages of the Andaman islands, 
 who are probably in the same condition now that the Indian 
 aborigines were originally ? Is it not because they have been 
 able to appreciate and appropriate those elements of civilisation 
 which have percolated down to them from the Aryan higher 
 classes ? The degree in which they differ from the barbarous 
 aboriginal races in other parts of the world exhibits the degree 
 in which they are capable of improvement. And if they have 
 reached the condition in which we find them without the help 
 of education — a condition which probably they reached two thou- 
 sand years ago — how much higher might they not be expected 
 to rise if they were taken by the hand and helped forward by 
 the educated classes ? I may here add, that I 
 Euligliteninent ^q not admit that there is anything contrary to 
 not proSbited casto rules in the course I recommend. There 
 "by the Sastras. are certain Sastras, it is true, in which the observ- 
 ance of the rules of one's own caste is represented 
 as virtually the highest morality; but the teaching of such 
 Sastras is neutralised by that of others, and there is no Sastra 
 in which members of the higher castes are prohibited from 
 promoting the education, the civilisation, the moral well-being 
 of the lower. The only exception to this — the prohibition of 
 Brahmans teaching the Vedas to Sudras, is an exception which 
 relates only to a particular function of a particular class. In 
 pleading that educated Natives should endevour to exemplify 
 the benefits of the education they Lave received by philanthropic 
 labours, especially by labours for the promotion of the education 
 of fche long-neglected masses, I do not forget that the time 
 of many of them will be largely occupied by their oflBcial duties. 
 A certain proportion of them, however, will doubtless elect to be 
 employed in education, and in their case official duties and philan- 
 thropic labours will lie in the same direction. The promotion 
 
1879.— BiV^^ -Kev. Dr. Caldwell, t4l 
 
 of education in various ways and amongst various classes of 
 people, in the town or district in whicli he is employed, in addi- 
 tion to the ordinary work of his own school, will be quite in 
 accordance with a good educationist's conception of his duties. 
 Without ceasing to teach he can encourage others to teach. He 
 can also with special propriety urge the uneducated classes to 
 show themselves desirous of learning. A still larger proportion 
 of educated Natives will doubtless be employed, as hitherto, so in 
 future, in the public service. I do not ask or wish such persons 
 to neglect the duties they owe to the Government they serve, 
 whose pay they receive, for the sake of unpaid philanthropic 
 labours for the benefit of the community, nor do I expect them 
 in any good work they undertake to promote it by large dona- 
 tions of money. If they resolve to content themselves with their 
 salaries and their unstained honour, they will find that they have 
 not much money to spare. What 1 may fairly ask and wish 
 them to do is to use for the good of the community whatever 
 influence they possess or may acquire. Though 
 Official influ- their salaries may be small, their influence in the 
 ence m n la. jsq-^tive Community is very great. It is an influence 
 much greater in proportion than that of any ofiicials holding 
 similar positions in England. We see from time to time in the 
 rural districts not only tanks and choultries, which are in accord- 
 ance with the ideas of charity which are traditional in India, 
 but also schools and dispensaries erected by wealthy Natives, 
 mainly through the influence of local Native officials. That 
 influence would also doubtless lead to excellent results, if it were 
 exerted, as I have recommended, in behalf of the education and 
 elevation of the labouring poor. Any advice in this direction 
 given by Europeans would probably excite only jealousy and 
 suspicion, but an enlightened, public- spirited, zealous Native 
 official might persuade the Zemindars and wealthy ryots residing 
 in his district to do almost anything he wished for the public 
 good. 
 
 It may be objected that in the remarks I have now made 
 you have heard nothing new or original. Yery true. There is 
 no originality in anything I have said. But what India requires, 
 as it appears to me, is not originality, but a firm resolution on 
 the part of each educated Native to make himself useful in the 
 sphere in which he finds himself placed, to act up to his convic- 
 tions of duty, to carry into practice those theories of obligation — 
 fhose theories, in particular, of the obligation of beneficence, of 
 the obligation of doing good to others — which have constituted 
 the highest element in the education he has received. It does 
 
142 University of Mctdms, 
 
 not mucli matter in wliat department of things, or in what direc- 
 tion, people first begin to carry their convictions of duty into 
 
 practice, provided they actually do begin some- 
 . ^ beautiful where. Duty is like the circumference of a great 
 
 circle of a sphere, such as that which girds the 
 earth, passing through both poles. Wherever you commence, 
 if only yon steadfastly go on, you will touch in succession every 
 point in the circumference, and unite at length in one majestic, 
 unbroken circuit the two poles of life, the human and the Divine. 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By His G-eacb The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — In addressing myself to the task of impressing 
 on those who have this day received their degrees, the duties 
 which they owe to the University, and to society, I would first 
 shortly notice the position of education, secondly, the influence 
 of the University thereon, and thirdly, the prospects of those 
 who have attained the rank of graduates. 
 
 .First. — As regards the present position of education : I am 
 not here speaking of the mere elementary know- 
 The present ledge of reading and writing the Native tongue, 
 cation."*^ ^ ^" ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ higher training and more extended 
 learning which should constitute an educated 
 mind and fit its recipient for guidiug and controlling others to 
 the advantage of society and the good of the State. That there 
 is an ample desire for education in this Presidency must be 
 admitted ; whether that desire springs from a thirst for know- 
 ledge, for knowledge sake, or whether it may not largely, 
 perhaps m.ore largely than is to be wished, spring from a desire 
 of gain, time only can decide ; but the desire existing, without 
 which all educational efforts would be comparatively barren and 
 futile, is that desire well directed? — so directed as to encourage 
 a sound and well-grounded knowledge, rather than a showy, but 
 superficial teaching. In the extended acquisition of the first by 
 its people, there is safety to the Commonwealth. In the spread 
 of the latter is danger. He who has acquired the first will 
 judge calmly, and weigh with care the consequences of changes 
 proposed and consider with thoughtful judgment the measures 
 to be taken or modification of laws or customs necessary to meet 
 the ever- varying phases of a nation^s life. .He will be no 
 unchanging laudator temporis acti, but he will bring the facts, and 
 experiences of bye-gone historic times to aid him in judging the 
 
1880. — Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. 143 
 
 events of the present, and the prospects of the future. In such 
 men are found strong and decided convictions, but it is among 
 such that we must look for those whose counsels should guide 
 Governments and direct and influence the people. Does then 
 the present education of this Presidency tend to produce such 
 men ? I have no doubt in answering this question in the afiirma- 
 tive and to say that although there is no doubt much of the 
 mere showy and superficial sort of learning easily recognizable, 
 pretentious in style, unsound in argument, ever displaying 
 carefully-culled phrases, gathered from the pages of a glossary, 
 not by study of the author ; frequently misused from utter 
 ignorance of the context, although there are many such yet there 
 are also a large proportion of sound and well-taught men doing 
 honor to the Presidency from which they have sprung and to 
 its University. The most powerful influence of an University 
 on learning and knowledge must ever be an in- 
 The influence direct rather than a direct influence : depending 
 of an University ^j^ ^^^q y^lue attached by the country and the 
 
 indirect rather i x .i. j. £ -/ j i Ti 
 
 than direct. people to the stamp 01 its degrees, by a careful 
 
 maintenance of its standards of test of admission, 
 at a point obtainable with certainty by reasonable ability 
 combined with fair diligence in study. It doubtless exercises a 
 direct influence, sifting out the idler and the dunce and fixing 
 a standard below which at least the affiliated and other schools 
 must not fall if they would maintain their usefulness and 
 character and retain their pupils. But in the maintenance of 
 the standards of admission and of degrees, it is upon the atten- 
 tion and ability of the Examiners in their different duties no 
 less than upon the ability of its professorial teaching that the 
 University depends, and thus the care displayed in their selec- 
 tion will ever be a mainspring of the direct influence which the 
 University exercises on the education of the Presidency, If the 
 standards are allowed to fluctuate uncertainly a depreciated 
 value will attach to the examinations, and the influence for good 
 will be more or less lessened. 
 
 What are the prospects for its graduates ? Many an able 
 man, trained to weigh facts dispassionately and 
 Prospects for able to maintjCin his opinion in argument, will be 
 Gradua es, needed to aid Government with advice and counsel. 
 
 For essential as it may be for the good, for the safety of the 
 people that executive power be wielded with promptness and 
 decision at times even perhaps with dictatorial power, restrained 
 only by the restraints of the law and the powerful influence of 
 the country's voice, so will it be yearly more and more essential 
 
144 University of Madras. 
 
 that for its advancing legislation Government shall gather to 
 its councils, in increasing numbers, men who can worthily repre- 
 sent and stoutly advocate the interests and the wants of the 
 people. For such duties are needed men, who have studied the 
 liistory, not only of their own country, but of the nations of the 
 world ; who have weighed the various causes which have made 
 Governments to fall and nations to prosper or decay and who 
 have traced in the annals of the past the dangers to be feared 
 either from encroaching despotism or unbridled liberty. In the 
 faculty of law there is apparently no need to dwell upon the 
 . nature of the prospect, for the ranks of the law 
 
 ^^' seem to swell rapidly, even perhaps too rapidly, 
 
 for the good of the people, but there are open to the graduates 
 of the law the honorable position of judges of the various courts, 
 and thus distinctions are perhaps more readily attainable in 
 • M i\- • *^^^ faculty. In the faculty of medicine the 
 
 in e erne, (Jemand is rapidly overtaking the supply. The 
 services of good men for Local Dispensaries, now numbering 
 170 in our 20 districts, are every day more appreciated in 
 the districts. Hospital accommodation, which is already being 
 supplemented in several places by special subscriptions with 
 accommodation congenial to the customs of caste privacy, must 
 be increased. The old-fashioned village doctors must give way 
 before the higher education, the skill and trained ability of the 
 graduate ; while as hospitals and dispensaries develop the 
 opportunities of medicine and surgical instruction will increase ; 
 and that skill which can only result from the experiences of 
 constant practice will increase also the benefits of an educated 
 and skilful treatment in alleviating pain and mitigating diseases 
 being naore widely spread will bring sufferers in increasing 
 numbers for relief, demand additional dispensaries and addi- 
 tional officers, and thus open a wide field for the student in 
 medicine. In the faculty of Civil Engineering, I confess I have 
 been surprised that so small a number compara- 
 in Engineer- lively appear for degrees therein. In a country 
 ' where from its climate and its circumstances, engi- 
 
 neering knowledge is essential to the management with profit 
 and safety of almost every farm where the one problem of the cul- 
 tivator is how to economise, and how best to utilise the essential 
 fertilising element of water ; to confine the streams to supply the 
 tanks, to arrest and detain the maximum quantity of the periodi- 
 cal floods, and only allow a minimum to pass away to the ocean 
 at the same time guarding against disastrous flood damage, 
 there is a field for engineering science hardly elsewhere to be 
 found. The science of irrigation should be almost indeed the 
 
1880.— Ditfce of Buckingham and Chandoa. 145 
 
 monopoly of the Indian races. But while I point to the conduct 
 of irrigation, and to hydraulic engineering as one prominent field 
 for the Indian engineer, yet it is by no means the only one. The 
 line which separates architecture from Civil Engineering is but 
 indistinctly drawn. Indeed, in all structural work the combined 
 skill of both branches is essential to perfection. Without a 
 considerable amount of engineering knowledge the architect 
 will find himself in constant difficulty, while a shapelessness 
 and absence of all grace in the outlines will mark the works of 
 an engineer devoid of architectural skill and taste. Well, now 
 
 in India, new buildings of various sorts from 
 ^^in Architec- palatial residences and courts to the humbler 
 
 buildings of an elementary school, or Tahsildar's 
 cutcherry are constantly needed. How is it that we have to 
 seek designs from European architects ? Not because the Indian 
 races by nature, are deficient in taste or skill ; we have but to 
 turn to the relics of the past, to the works of the latest age, for 
 a contradiction to such a suggestion. Whether we look at the now 
 unearthed relics of Buddhist architecture at Amaravati, at the 
 beautiful monoliths now adorning the esplanade of Pondicherry, 
 at the pillared halls of Chelembram, Srirungum and Tripatty, the 
 highly finished sculpture of the ruined temples of Humpi, 
 the grotesque phantasies of the Southern Indian carver as 
 exemplified in the still advancing aisles of the Madura temples, 
 with their vast and massive structures and granite roofs or the 
 almost ruined halls of Thirumal Naick's palace, now being I trust 
 secured from destruction. In all we see works vast in conception, 
 beautiful in outline, graceful in execution. From such models 
 at hand for instruction, architects should spring forth who 
 should hold their own in competition certainly for any Indian 
 buildings. Architects are not taught in a day, the more reason 
 for commencing study therein. The recent changes in the 
 Public Works offices, the placing of local fund expenditure 
 under the officers of the local fund boards, opens to you a large 
 field of future employment, and to my mind a more healthy field 
 for the development of the ability of professional men, than the 
 cramped field of ordinary duty in a public service. The most 
 efficient engineers of England who have made her railways, her 
 canals, her harbours, have earned their character, their position 
 in private employment and been trained in youth in hard 
 struggles for their daily bread. The harbours growing under 
 our eyes in this very port are under the guidance and on the 
 design of engineers trained equally in private work and selected 
 for their experience in marine work. The chances of independ- 
 ent employ are now opening to you, and as you rise there 
 19 
 
146 University of Madras. 
 
 should develop a healthy rivalry, not in magnitude of works or 
 in expenditure, but in their substantial nature, aptness of 
 design, and economy of cost. Such should ere long produce 
 efficient engineers, and although as in the most advanced Euro- 
 pean countries, special talent or special experience will be ever 
 sought for some great works in which a false step cannot be 
 risked, yet all ordinary work should fall to the people of the 
 country and may, I believe, do so with efficiency and economy 
 if they only seek to qualify for the duty. 
 
 Now I come to the duties which yon owe to the University 
 DutiesofGra- ^nd to the State. First, To the University which 
 duates to the has fostered your education and stamped you with 
 University and ^he mark of learning, you owe every support that 
 you can give. From the graduates must hereafter 
 be sought members of the Senate of the future. To some of 
 you therefore must in time be entrusted the guidance of Univer- 
 sity matters, in fact the maintenance of its influence. Recollect 
 then this feature in your studies, ever bear in mind that every- 
 thing which tends to exalt the status, to increase the influence 
 of the University, increases also the value of the degrees, you 
 have yourselves this day obtained. To society, to the State 
 you owe the duty of making the best use of your acquired 
 knowledge, and of the various positions in which your degrees 
 may place you. For the doctor to heal the sick, the lawyer to 
 win his client's case, the engineer to bring to a successful end the 
 work entrusted to him, no doubt may seem plain andsimple duties, 
 but each in your several faculties will find other and important 
 duties to be performed before you can really say with truth that 
 you have given to the State the best use of your talents, and 
 each will find that he may and will frequently be required by his 
 duty to act at variance with that which may seem his apparent 
 interest. The doctor's duty in a fever-stricken village is not 
 merely to cure disease in a stricken patient. He has a higher 
 duty yet which will bring no pecuniary reward, to prevent the 
 healthy from being stricken, to seek out, to remove or to eradi- 
 cate the causes of disease, and take as much or greater pride in 
 the continued health and good sanitary condition of his station 
 or village as in the number of his cures. His preventive duties 
 are due to the State as well his curative duty to his patients. 
 Then if we turn to the young lawyer struggling through with 
 difficulties to attain a practice. Let him remember while his 
 duty to his client to argue the case entrusted to him to the best 
 of his ability and to do his utmost to win his cause, yet his duty 
 to the State and to society requires that he shall set himself 
 
1881. —TAe Honorable Sir Charles Turner. Hi 
 
 steadily against any thing" approaching to corruption, to repel 
 false evidence or evidence -which he believes to be false although 
 rendered on his own side; remember that his calling, his duty, 
 is to procure justice not to foster litigation. The engineer must 
 remember that if his work be brought to a successful issue, a 
 part only of his duty to his employer is thereby performed. If 
 in carrying out that work he has allowed waste or overlooked 
 peculation he has failed in a most important duty. A careless 
 estimate, lax supervision by the engineer are as direct frauds 
 upon the employer as false accounts or the abstraction of money. 
 
 I have now pointed out some of your duties. I have pointed 
 out to you the class of men that the country needs — statesmen, 
 judges, physicians and engineers. Have we them now ? Yes ; 
 while I have held the post of Governor when statesmen or judges 
 have been needed they have been ready to my hand. And in 
 Hon'ble Sashia no^iinating theHon'ble Sashia Sastri to the Council 
 Sastri, Hon'ble of the Viceroy, in placing the Hon'ble Mr. Justice 
 Mr. Justice Mu- Muthusawmy Iyer on the Bench of our own High 
 Mr. Rimganada Court, and in adding, as I hope in a few days to do, 
 S^s*^"' the name of another learned man, Mr. Ranganadha 
 
 Sastri, who has this day completed a long and honourable service, 
 to our own Legislative Council, I know that I have advanced them 
 to no honor which was not well deserved or to a post which would 
 not be well filled. Such are the men of whom we shall hereafter 
 need many more — ^keep them in your minds as studies for your 
 emulation. This vast globe on which we live is rolling through 
 space with all its human freight bearing us all from the days that 
 are, to the days that are to be — aye, carrying us all alike whatever 
 our creed, whatever our race, from the world that is to the mys- 
 teries of the world that is to come. We cannot delay its revo- 
 lution or stay its progress, but we can take measures to ensure 
 that ever as needed there shall be men fit and trained for every 
 station, a ready supply of sound-thinking, right-minded and 
 learned men, whose councils shall strengthen Government with 
 that strength which the concurring support of the people can 
 alone give and shall guide legislation for the people's welfare. 
 
 TWENTY-FOURTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Hon. Sie Charles A. Turner, Kt., C.I.B.) 
 
 " Gentlemen, — The statutes of the University prescribe that 
 the ceremony of admission to Degrees shall conclude with an 
 
148 University of Madras. 
 
 ^address to the newly admitted graduates, inviting them to con- 
 duct themselves suitably to the position they have attained. It 
 is the pleasure of His Excellency the Chancellor to depute that 
 duty on this occasion to me. Seeing that you have served 
 faithfully an apprenticeship to this guild of learning, and now 
 present yourselves for a public recognition of your merits, it may 
 appear incongruous that you should not be allowed to depart 
 without words of advice or warning, The incongruity disappears 
 when you call to mind it is a condition of admission to member- 
 ship in this guild, that the candidate should not only produce 
 proof of his diligence in the past, but undertake obligations as 
 
 to his conduct in the future. You have pledged 
 
 The g^ga- yourselves in your life and conversation to con- 
 
 ates! ° ^ d^ct as becomes members of the University : to 
 
 the utmost of your opportunity and ability to 
 support the cause of morality and sound learning : to uphold 
 and advance social order and the well-being of your fellow-men. 
 These obligations are not the less binding on your consciences, 
 because they are ratified by no oath, nor will their infraction be 
 devoid of consequences to you. A University degree is not to 
 be regarded as a mere certificate that the graduate has under- 
 gone a certain course of instruction, or has acquired a certain 
 amount of knowledge; it is an assurance he has undertaken 
 responsibilities to society which will accord or refuse him dis- 
 tinction in proportion to the fidelity with which his obligations 
 have been observed ; not even a barren honor will any one of 
 you derive from the ceremony of to-day, if his life is undistin- 
 guished by the conscientious performance of those duties which 
 the education imparted under the auspices of this University 
 was designed at once to inculcate and enable him to discharge. 
 In an address recently delivered to the University of Calcutta, 
 
 the Vice- Chancellor, Mr. Justice Wilson, has dis- 
 Edtwation^* ^^ posed of the erroneous notion that a system of 
 
 education is to be valued only in proportion to its 
 peonniary results. "The true value of education," said he, 
 " consists not in the wordly profit it may enable you to make, but 
 in this, that it awakens the love of truth as a motive of action, 
 that it stimulates and gratifies the desire for knowledge : that 
 it calls into activity the dormant powers of the mind ; trains and 
 strengthens them by exercise ; teaches you to know the relative 
 strength and value of your several faculties, and to subordinate all 
 to the control of your judgment ; that it accustoms you to observe 
 and to reason, and so to know good from evil, the true from the 
 false, and thus leaves you stronger, wiser and better men than it 
 fonnd you.'* In the Southern as in the Northern Presidency, the 
 
1881.— TAe Honorable Sir Charles Turner, U9 
 
 schoolmaster may, I fear, sometimes complain that his lot is cast 
 
 * Among a people of children 
 Who thronged me in their cities 
 And asked, not wisdom, 
 Bat charms to charm with. 
 Bat spells to matter.' 
 
 Yet another objection is taken. The instruction imparted 
 A class of under the auspices of Universities not being cer- 
 discontented tainly productive of pecuniary results, there will 
 ^^^- be created a class of discontented naen who will 
 
 abuse their education to subvert social order. It cannot be 
 denied there have been men educated probably in our schools, 
 whose writings suggest, 
 
 * You tanght one language, and the profit on't 
 Is, I know how to curse.' 
 
 But if our education, as is asserted by the Vice-Chancellor of 
 Calcutta, and as it certainly should do, makes men stronger, 
 wiser, and better than it found them, the men who give a sem- 
 blance of foundation for the objection are, such as they are, not 
 in consequence of but m spite of the education they have 
 received. The Government of British India, conscious of the 
 integrity of its motives, and impatient of no honest criticism 
 of its measures, has gained far more than it has risked in edu- 
 cating the intelligence of the country to take an interest in, and 
 
 apprehend its measures. There are, in every Pre- 
 native^(J1nion. sidency, professional exponents of native opinion, 
 
 and gentlemen of independent position, who, in 
 virtue of the education they have received, are enabled to 
 render substantial assistance to the Government. May they long 
 
 ' survive 
 To frustrate prophecies, and raze out 
 Botten opinion.' 
 
 If the sole end of education were the intellectual benefit of 
 Expenditure *^^® individual student, and still less if it were his 
 on higher edu- pecuniary benefit, the Government would have no 
 cation justified, justification for expending on higher education a 
 larger sum than would be necessary to produce each year the 
 small supply of trained men required to fill vacancies in the 
 several departments of the public service. The justification for 
 the present expenditure by the State on such education is to be 
 found not in any pretension on the part of the State to provide 
 a remunerative career, or an intellectual training, for a select 
 few of its subjects, but in the avowed purpose, by giving, as far 
 as it can do, a thorough education to the few, to benefit, influence, 
 and elevate through the instrumentahty of the educated few 
 those^ whom higher education cannot reach. The pledges which 
 
150 Uni't)ersity of Madras. 
 
 have been demanded of you range themselves under two cate- 
 gories, according as they bind you to duties to yourselves, and 
 duties to others, and they are conformable to the aim of the 
 State in the foundation of this and of other kindred institutions. 
 To secure to yourselves the intellectual benefit resulting from 
 education, you must necessarily cultivate many faculties which 
 serve the larger purpose of rendering you useful citizens, and 
 The first im- enabling you to benefit your fellow-men. Although 
 pulse of a Stu- I know that the first impulse of many a student, 
 ^®^** when he has completed the educational test, for 
 
 which he proposes to offer himself, is to say as Prospero said, 
 * Deeper than did ever plummet sound 
 I'll drown my books.' 
 
 I also know that, when the thirst for knowledge has been 
 excited, and the irksomeness of compulsory study withdrawn, 
 there are few who do not feel, 
 
 * He that made us with such large disoonrse 
 Looking before and after, gave us not 
 That capacity and god-like reason 
 To fust in us unused.' 
 
 It is not, I believe, a rare experience that the student applies 
 himself more diligently to study after he has completed the course 
 for his degree, than he did before, and if I did not fear you 
 might find some difl&culty in mastering the peculiarity of his 
 diction, I should recommend you to give some of your leisure to 
 the study of the writings of a great man, who has lately passed 
 Thomas Car- ^^ ^^^ ^^^^* ^^ ^^ somewhat difficult to assign to 
 lyle and his Thomas Carlyle his just place in literature. He 
 Works. ^g^g g^^ idoalistic philosopher, but it is said his 
 
 philosophy does not admit of systematic exposition, and I 
 believe it to have been imperfect, because he did not fully accept 
 the only possible solution of the phenomena he observed. He 
 was a poet deeply touched with the beautiful in nature, but 
 using this power and sense only to illustrate and enforce his 
 philosophy. He was a minute investigator of the facts of history, 
 but wanting the impartial judgment of a true historian. Pre- 
 eminently he was a moralist, he employed his vast and varied 
 gifts of thought and expression, his humour, irony and pathos 
 to inculcate truths he felt to be eternal, and insist on the prac- 
 tice of virtues of which it seemed to him the nation needed 
 urgently to be reminded. It is an often mooted question how 
 far great men are formed by the age in which they live, and 
 how far they form their age. They cannot be insensible to the 
 influences which surround their youths ; and those influences, 
 if of a national character, must be operating at the same time 
 
1881.— TAe Honorahle Sir Charles Turner, 151 
 
 on thousands. The minds of men are moved unconsciously by 
 the events around them, and the more sympathetic minds are 
 the readiest to formulate their thought. At last the thought 
 finds utterance, and the first to give it voice is hailed as the 
 founder of a new philosophy. His teachings receive the imme- 
 diate assent of those who are pre-disposed for their acceptance, 
 and supported by the apparent logic of facts, convince others 
 who had theretofore reached only the stage of speculation. The 
 
 philosopher is recognised as a power. In Carlyle's 
 C^fle*^^^^ ®^ youth and middle age, the nation was passing 
 
 through a period of profound change. It was 
 his mission to convince his fellow-countrymen, neither through 
 a blind conservatism to prop up institutions which had survived 
 their utility, nor, through an unreasoning radicalism to deny 
 principles surviving the institutions by which at one time they 
 had been truly expressed. Truth and justice are eternal verities ; 
 in the long run, these will triumph not only over all that is 
 mittedly opposed to them, but over all that enjoys authority as 
 admere counterfeit of them. Government is but a means to an 
 end and even the most absolute form of Government is to be 
 approved,if for the timebeing,it alone can secure truth and justice. 
 There is a brotherhood among men and it is a universal duty to 
 recognise it ; but this does not imply an equality in the faculties 
 with which each man is endowed that he may co-operate for the 
 good of all. The equality which in fact subsists is the equal 
 dignity of all honest labour. 'All true work,' wrote Carlyle, 'is 
 sacred ; in all true work, were it but hand labour, there is some- 
 thing of divineness. Labour wide as the earth has its summit 
 in heaven.^ And again : ' There is a perennial nobleness and 
 even sacredness in work ; were he ever so benighted, forgetful 
 of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually 
 and earnestly works.^ To do his work well, the self in man must 
 be annihilated. And when the work is done, ay, and done nobly, 
 the worker is not to look for his reward here. ' The wages of 
 every noble work do yet lie in heaven or else nowhere.' The true 
 worker will not necessarily be rewarded with happiness, for what 
 is our 'whim of happiness V 'By certain valuations and averages 
 of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial 
 lot : this we fancy belongs to us by nature and of indefeasible 
 right. Simple payment of our wages, our deserts, requires 
 neither thanks nor complaint ; only such surplus as there may 
 be, do we account happiness; any defect is misery. Now, con- 
 sider that "vo have the valuation of our own merits ourselves, 
 and what a I'und of self-conceit there is in each of us, do you 
 wonder that <>he balance should so often dip the wrong way, 
 
152 University of Madras. 
 
 and many a blockhead cry, See- there — was ever worthy gentle- 
 man so used/ Nor will any political panacea procure for man 
 happiness. Man's unhappiness comes of his greatness. 'Will the 
 whole Finance Ministers, upholsterers and confectioners in 
 modern Europe, undertake in joint stock company to make one 
 shoe-black happy ? They cannot accomplish it above an hour or 
 two, for the shoe-black has a soul quite other than his stomach — 
 the shoe-black is infinite/ ' But there is in man a higher than 
 love of happiness, he can do without happiness, and in lieu 
 thereof find blessedness/ To attain this, he must devote him- 
 self to the service of truth and justice, substitute for every 
 selfish motive benevolence, and apply himself to the work he 
 
 finds at hand with manliness the Roman virtus. 
 Changes. ^°°'^ ^® cannot shut our eyes to the fact that great 
 
 social changes are in progress in this country, 
 ' The old order changeth, yielding place to new. The intercourse 
 of Europeans and Hindus in official, commercial and public life, 
 I would fain add also in social life, cannot but act and re-act on 
 those who come within its influence, and that nationality will 
 certainly be the most affected, which has least kept pace with the 
 progress of ideas. Education too opens the literary stores of 
 modern thought to a people who have been ever fertile of 
 imagination and not timid in speculation. Though the past of each 
 nationality precludes for many centuries what, were it possible, 
 may not be desirable, a complete harmony of ideas, it is certain 
 that, sooner or later, the conservatism of India must give ground 
 at all those points of the battle-field where it cannot bring up 
 to its support the eternal verities by which the fate of all 
 
 civilizations must be decided. Men's minds are 
 Carlyle. ^ ° already stirred, some with apprehension, some with 
 
 desire of change, and it may be there is even now 
 preparing himself an Indian Carlyle who, with the like intolerance 
 of the false, the like earnestness for the true, and with equal 
 fertility of thought and power of expression, will persuade his 
 countrymen to preserve all that is worthy of preservation in their 
 principles and their institutions, and to yield without regret what- 
 ever reason proves must sooner or later be surrendered. Modern 
 India has proved, by examples that are known to and honoured 
 by all in this assembly, that her sons can qualify themselves to 
 hold their own with the best of European talent in the Council 
 Chamber, on the Bench, at the Bar, and in the Mart ; the time 
 cannot be far distant when she will produce her philosopher, her 
 moralist, her reformer. Meanwhile, in the great social changes 
 that are in progress, some of the lessons of Carlyle may be as 
 useful to you as they were to your fellow-subjects, my 
 
r 
 
 1881.— T/if Honorable Sir Charles Turner. 158 
 
 countrymen. It is impossible but tbat there should be change. 
 
 Do not then by any prejudice obstruct reforms 
 
 Do not ob- commanded by truth and iustice : do not, on the 
 
 struct Retorme. ,, , ic -t* i.. 
 
 other nandj irom unreasoning desire of innovation, 
 
 abolish, in favour of some foreign fashion, institutions or customs 
 appropriate to your country, or still subserving a worthy purpose. 
 Sir Charles '^'^^® emancipation of your wives and sisters from 
 Turner's advice what is at present almost a condition of bondage is a 
 to Indians. . reform that time will surely bring about. Prepare 
 
 them by education to be at once the companions of your intellec- 
 tual life and the ornaments of your homes. Let the sanctity of 
 your hearths be secured by the example of your own continence 
 and temperance. Preserve the pristine virtue of respect for 
 parents which has survived so many centuries. If in the interests 
 of your children, or from a prudent regard for the welfare of the 
 family, it becomes necessary to dissolve community of property, be 
 ever beforehand in offering in brotherly love what can no longer 
 be claimed as of right. In your intercourse with your neighbours, 
 observe the rules of caste so far only as is demanded by a generous 
 interpretation of the tenets of the religion still imperative on your 
 conscience. In the transactions of commerce, revive the times 
 when a merchant's word was his bond and debt regarded not only 
 as a disgrace but as a sin. If you would serve yourselves or your 
 countrymen in your conversation with those whose good will you 
 desire to conciliate, seek it by the honest avowal of your convic- 
 tions rather than the unappreciated flattery of inconsiderate 
 assent; never demean yourselves by condescending to that pitiful 
 weapon of the coward, the anonymous slander of a neighbour. If, 
 after due inquiry, you have satisfied yourselves that there is an 
 injustice that calls for remedy, denounce it openly, but in terms 
 that evince just resentment and mot vindictiveness. Though you 
 may have no direct part in the administration of the State^ it is 
 within the power of any subject of our Sovereign to offer his coun- 
 sel, and it will be respected if he can show it merits respect. Deem 
 no honest work beneath you, and do whatever work you have to 
 do thoroughly ; you will rarely find that there is no work for you. 
 Whatever the nature of the labour, the market is seldom over- 
 stocked with men who are qualified and willing to do good work. 
 It is the men with the ungirt loin that can find no work. If you 
 are tempted to discontent (and at times who may not be) — the 
 irony of the moralist may recur to your memory, and set you with 
 better heart to seek and to overcome the cause. In the prosecu- 
 tion of your studies, let me give you this counsel. Believe that all 
 you know is but a tithe of what you may know ; but, while craving 
 further knowledge, do not be too ready to accept as truths infal- 
 20 
 
154 University of Madras, 
 
 lible the opinions of those who seem a little wiser than yourselves , 
 
 ' Give every man tliine ear but few thy voice, 
 Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgment.' 
 
 Advance by cautious steps in the acquisition of knowledge, lest 
 you should stray into the wrong path and hopelessly lose your 
 way ; and, as a last word of counsel, let me repeat to you a saying 
 of the present Lord Derby, that education to be worth having 
 must aim at accuracy of thought, and accuracy of expression. 
 Without accuracy of thought, your knowledge is dangerous to 
 yourselves and to others, without accuracy of expression, however 
 profitable your knowledge may be to yourselves, you may but 
 confuse the judgment of others by endeavouring to impart your 
 Make your knowledge to them. If a man sets out in the morn- 
 shadows what ing to walk from the East to the West, his shadow 
 you please. jg projected before him but constantly grows less till 
 
 at midday it disappears, and thereafter, till the sunset, his shadow 
 again lengthens, but it lengthens behind him. So is it with us, as 
 we and the works we do which are part of our substance, take our 
 ways through life. In our youths there is projected the shadow 
 of the hopes we are destii'^ed never to realise; they are the shadows 
 of ourselves, they will be noble if we are unselfish and true. In 
 our middle age, this shadow has departed with the fervid gener- 
 osity of youth, but as yet no other has appeared ; we have given 
 up too sanguine hope, but are still conscious of capacity for 
 action. But thereafter, as we plod on with steps growing 
 more and more feeble, that other shndow lengthens out behind 
 us, the memory of the opportunities we have lost or failed to 
 make the most of, the memory of what we might have done, or 
 have done better, and this too will be the shadow of ourselves. 
 It may be an ignoble shadow of anger at what we choose to 
 term our want of luck, or it nray be an ennobling shadow^ of 
 consciousness of, and contrition for, our failings. Your shadows 
 are before you, to make them what you please, aim at high and 
 unselfish ends; though you may not achieve them, the effort has 
 become apart of your very selves ; and when the shadows lengthen 
 behind you, though they be, as all men's must, shadows that tell 
 of failure, you will be able to lay this comfort to your hearts : — 
 
 * I take to witness 
 That I loved no darkness 
 Sophisticated no wisdom 
 Nursed no delusion, 
 Allowed no fear, 
 And therefore, I know . • • 
 It hath been granted me 
 Not to die wholly, not to be all enslaved 
 I feel it at this hour— the numbing cloud 
 Mounts off my soul." 
 
1882. — The Hunorahle Mr. Justice Muthusami Iyer. 155 
 
 TWENTY-FIFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable Mr. Jdstice Muthusami Iyer.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — It is the pleasure of the Chancellor that I 
 should deliver the customary address this year. By accepting 
 this honor, I have also accepted an obligation, which is, perhaps, 
 more onerous than I can hope to discharge with adequate 
 success. You will certainly miss this evening the ability, the 
 learning, and the eloquence with which graduates have been 
 addressed in former years ; but I may add that I felt, when I 
 undertook this important work, and I do still feel, that Hindu 
 members of the Senate should occasionally come forward and 
 communicate to you the opinions which they have formed from 
 observation and experience concerning your interests and duties 
 as graduates of this University. These interests and duties 
 have many sides, and may well be considered from several stand- 
 points. 
 
 In the name of the Senate, I congratulate you on the 
 success which has crowned your studies, and you carry with 
 you our best wishes for your success in life. You may justly be 
 proud of the position which you have attained amongst your 
 countrymen ; but I should be glad if, by any words of mine, I 
 could induce you to realize the responsibilities attaching to that 
 position. You all know that knowledge is power, and you may 
 have also heard that it is a wealth which increases as you bestow 
 it upon others, but I desire to impress upon your minds on this 
 solemn occasion, that it is a power which has its obligations as 
 well as its privileges, and that it is a wealth which has its duties 
 as well as its enjoyments. 
 
 The pleasures, the prizes, and the duties of University 
 culture are so many and so varied in their character. 
 Gradates. ^^ ^^^^ "'■ ^^^^ P^ss over many matters deserving of 
 your attention, and I shall, therefore, confine my 
 remarks to what this University expects from you, to what you 
 are bound to do for your country, and to a few special obligations 
 in connection with those professions which you usually follow 
 in life. 
 
 The value of your University education consists less in 
 the general knowledge which you have already acquired than 
 in the capacity to add to it which you have been taught to 
 cultivate. You should continue to study amidst the pleasures 
 and engagements of life, and carefully cultivate the habit 
 of observing men and things, in order to learn almost every 
 
l56 . tlniversity of Madras. 
 
 day of your life somefclimg that is new. You should com- 
 pare yourselves not with such of your countrymen as have not 
 had the advantages which you have, but with men of culture in 
 progressive societies. Whilst you thus endeavour to improveand 
 enrich your mind by observation and study, you should also re- 
 member that the capacity for sustained mental energy varies 
 with the attention which you pay to your physique, aud that 
 bodily health and strength, add in no small measure to the use- 
 fulness of a vigorous and well-furnished mind. It is to be re- 
 gretted that from a desire to secure University honors at a com- 
 paratively early age, Hindu parents at times allow the energies 
 of their children to be taxed beyond their strength, and you 
 should, therefore, not only set a better example in this respect 
 in after-life, but also take good care that your own growth into 
 the prime of life is like the growth of a healthy plant into a tree 
 which is rich in its blossoms and fruits. 
 
 I would next ask you to endeavour to do in all stations 
 and relations of life, what you consider to be your 
 mS'of doty^^* duty, as well in the hour of disappointment and 
 difficulty as in that of success and hope. In its 
 widest acceptation, duty includes every quality and virtue which 
 men of culture ought to cultivate and cherish, and a strong sense 
 of duty is the keynote of a high moral nature. Let neither 
 insidious flattery nor blind censurO; nor the contumely and ridicule 
 of interested prejudice or vanity, turn you aside, even when some 
 persoual risk stares you in the face, from the straight path of 
 duty ; and it is only by clinging to it with fidelity and devotion 
 that you will in the long run best help yourselves and serve 
 this University, your Sovereign, and your country. Remem- 
 ber that he who has no force of character, but who suffers 
 himself to be seduced into false principles by the necessities of 
 ambition or of self-interest, or by the partialities of relationship 
 or friendship, cannot respect himself in the sober intervals of 
 reflection, however talented he may be, and whatever success he 
 may secure for a time ; and that he who has no self-respect has 
 no right to expect that others should respect him. Remember 
 also that whilst you firmly and consistently do your duty, your 
 manner should always be modest and unostentatious, and that 
 you should studiedly avoid self-assertion in all its forms. 
 
 In connection with the several promises which you have 
 this day made and with your duty in life to the cause of progress 
 I desire to draw your attention to one improtant element of 
 success* All success in relation to national advancement will 
 depend, in the present state of the country, not so much on 
 
1882. — The llonorahle Mr. Justice Muthusami Iyer. l57 
 
 desultory individual efforts, as on the steady co-operation of 
 
 various mental energies. In the gown and hood 
 ffniences ^^^ ^^^' ^^^^^h you have been authorized to wear, you should 
 
 recognize a badge of common service in the cause 
 of your country, aud a bond of brotherhood between you and 
 those who advance the interests of civilization, and you should 
 forget all differences in caste or creed, in social position, rank or 
 wealth. Unless you learn to subordinate what is personal to 
 what is due to the public, and to sacrifice individual idiosyn- 
 crasies to the requirements of your country, you will never 
 succeed in materially aiding progress. I desire, also, to point 
 out to you that your labours on behalf of your country should 
 not be irregular and spasmodic, but that they should be steady 
 
 and consistent, and be guided and controlled by 
 Jocrw"'' organization and design. Tou should form in 
 
 different parts of this Presidency associations of 
 graduates and of men of intelligence, education and integrity 
 for discussing, considering and dealing with questions of social 
 and general interest; for it is only by meaus of organized 
 associations that you will be able to establish a basis of healthy 
 co-operation, and create an intelligent public opinion which will 
 at once command respect and attention in the country. There is 
 sufficient material in many districts for forming associations 
 such as I mention, and there is also matei'ial in the Presidency 
 Town for forming a central association which may give a con- 
 sistency and unity of purpose to the labours of the several pro- 
 vincial associations. Remember that your value to this University 
 
 consists not in the oiBficial position, or professional 
 oipies^^in\Vhn- eminence you may attain to, not in the fortune, or 
 pulses of action name you may make for yourselves, but in the 
 conduct^^^ ^* extent to which you disseminate the principles and 
 
 influences awakened in you by culture, and convert 
 them, as well in the case of others as in your own, from mere 
 general opinions into impulses of action and rules of conduct. 
 
 And let me remind you of the important duty you owe 
 to the Government, to whom you are indebted for the liberal 
 education you have received, of extending to your less fortunate 
 brethren, in such measure as your opportunities allow, the light 
 of knowledge of which you have had so considerable a share. 
 Several of you will doubtless enter the profession of teachers, 
 and as such, will be directly engaged in carrying on that noble 
 work ; but whatever may be the walk of life you may find your- 
 selves in, there will be no lack of means and opportunities for 
 cimeliorating, so far as intelligence and knowledge can do, the 
 
loS University of Madras, 
 
 condition of the lower classes of people, coming within your 
 influence. It is impossible to conceive a worthier object of life 
 for every one of us, than to endeavour to make tlie little corner 
 of the world, to which our influence extends, less miserable 
 and less ignorant than it is at present. The light of 
 knowledge imparted to you is not intended for your personal 
 benefit merely, but for diffusion all around, and the Government 
 to whom is committed the gigantic task of providing elementary 
 instruction for millions of people expect to accomplish that 
 object quite as much by creating a body of men such as you, who 
 by virtue of superior intelligence and culture, will take the 
 position of natural leaders of the people and afford material 
 help in dispelling their ignorance and securing to them the light 
 and guidance of knowledge, as by direct efforts towards that end. 
 According as you fulfil these expectations, will the system of 
 higher education, which the Government has so liberally sup- 
 ported, be judged. Already there are signs of impatience in 
 Higher Edu- Certain quarters at the tardy results produced, and 
 cation a de- opinions are expressed that Government should 
 fence. recede from the position they have taken up in 
 
 regard to higher education, and devote their means and energies to 
 providing elementary instruction to the masses. But it is forgot- 
 ten thnt 30 years have not yet elapsed since the system of liberal 
 education was inaugurated under Government auspices, and that 
 thirty years is but a brief interval in the life of a nation. Judged 
 by any fair standard, and making allowance for the slow assimi . 
 lation of the elements of Western culture into the habits and 
 ideas of a conservative people, I venture to think that no candid 
 observer can fail to note that the success hitherto achieved has 
 been remarkable. Any one who remembers the state of the country 
 thirty years ago, will easily realize to himself how much ol: intel- 
 lectual activity and of intelligent interest in public affairs has 
 • been called into existence, and how much the moral tone of the 
 educated classes has improved. I do not mean that the results 
 obtained can be compared with the state of things in European 
 countries which have had centuries of unfettered development; 
 but I assert that those results have not only not fallen short of 
 reasonable expectations, but they have also proved the wisdom of 
 the policy of which they are the outcome, and they afford 
 promise of still more brilliant results in the future if only that policy 
 be steadily pursued. While there are some who regard the system 
 as a failure, there are others again who admit its success and make 
 that very success the reason for Government disconnecting them- 
 selves with it. If the system has taken such a firm root in the 
 country, say they, and is throughly appreciated by the people, 
 
1882. — The Honorable Mr. Justice Mnthusami Iyer. 159 
 
 why then should not Government leave it to be supported by the 
 spontaneous efforts of indigenous agencies, and confine their 
 attention to providing elementary instruction for the masses. 
 Doubtless the ultimate state of things to be aimed at in regard to 
 the higher education would be a model college in the Presidency 
 town, supported by the State, forming as it were a focus of intel- 
 lectual life, nnd having on its staff professors of eminence, who 
 wonldbe in themselves the living embodiments of the highest forms 
 of culture; no expense being spared by the State to maintain 
 the instruction imparted in such an institution at the highest level 
 of attainable perfection. Such a college the ordinary laws of 
 demand and supply cannot be trusted to bring into existence. In 
 the provinces would then spring up colleges, supported by the 
 nobility and gentry, and an enlightened middle class fully alive 
 to the advantages of liberal education, and able and willing to 
 make large sacrifices for securing it to their children. These 
 colleges would necessarily be influenced by the high standard 
 maintained at the Government College, but not enslaved by it ; 
 they would provide for a variety of forms of culture, according 
 to the importance attached to the several branches of knowledge 
 or methods of instruction in the communities among whom they 
 come into existence. Admitting that this should be the final 
 aim, I must express my conviction that the day is yet distant 
 when such a state of things may be expected in this country. 
 Those who have benefited by the encouragement accorded by 
 the State to higher education hitherto, have not been the Zemin- 
 dars and the landed aristocracy of the country, so far at least as 
 this Presidency is concerned, and there is no such sharp distinc- 
 tion between the rich and the poor in this country as is said to 
 exist in European countries, and intelligence and refinement do 
 not co-exist with wealth to the extent that it does elsewhere. 
 <?t tP 'd ^^ ^^ *^ ^^ feared in the present circumstances, if 
 
 the State aid be suddenly withdrawn, any move- 
 ment to replace it out of the private wealth of the country would 
 not in most cases be successful. Higher education will have to 
 be practically left in the hands of Missionarj^ agencies in no 
 sense indigenous. I do not in the least undervalue the impor- 
 tant services which they have rendered to the cause of education. 
 They have been very useful auxiliaries to the Government, and by 
 creating a healthy rivalry between Government institutions and 
 their own, have contributed in no small degree to the success of 
 educational efforts ; and all honor to them for it. But if all 
 
 higher education is virtually committed to their 
 agencfes.^^'*^ hands, will it conduce to the variety of culture and 
 
 the adaptation to the speci-al needs of the country 
 
160 University of Madras. 
 
 upon wliich so mucli stress is laid, in recommending the with- 
 drawal of State support to higher education ? However this may 
 be, it would certainly seem anomalous that, in a country com- 
 posed of many nationalities, Hindus, Mahomedans, Budhists, we 
 should trust for the provision for higher education wliicli lias 
 sucli an important influence on national progress, not to 
 indigenous agencies wliicli there is reason to fear will take time 
 to come into existence, not to the private wealth of the country, 
 a considerable proportion of which still remains to be brought 
 under the influence of culture, but to the benefactions of 
 charitable men in England and foreign countries contri- 
 buted for a special purpose, and to their willingness to permit 
 such benefactions to be applied for the purpose of secular 
 education. Apart from other objections, such a system will be 
 without the guarantee of permanence and stability which is essen- 
 tial to a scheme of national education. After all, I find that the 
 State expenditure on Government Colleges or on higher education 
 in this Presidency after deducting the portion of it which will 
 have to be incurred under any circumstances, and the portion 
 which is recouped by fees, donations, &c., amounts to a lakh and 
 a quarter, or at most a lakh and a half, certainly not an extra- 
 vagant figure, considering the importance of the object. It is 
 earnestly hoped that the decision of the Education Commission 
 with regard to this important question, which is looked forward 
 to with anxious interest by the entire native community, and in 
 regard to which I have only endeavoured to set forth their views, 
 will be in accordance with their sentiments. But whatever may 
 be the decision, gentlemen, your duty is plain. That the State 
 should help those who cannot help themselves, and that those 
 who help themselves should do so, are propositions, the truth of 
 which cannot be denied ; and you will fail in your duty to your- 
 selves and your countrymen if you do not steadily keep them in 
 view and do not prepare gradually to find ways and means for 
 giving a permanency to the system of higher education in this 
 country, and to rest it eventually on the basis of national endow- 
 ments. The Trustees of Patcheappah^s charities have set a 
 laudable example in this direction, and it is my earnest hope that 
 as education continues to spread, and as the aristocracy and wealth 
 of the country begin to be sufliciently influenced by the light 
 
 of culture, the day will arrive when national col- 
 leS*^°^^ ^°^' leges will take the place of Government colleges. 
 
 In this connection it is peculiarly gratifying to me to 
 note that since the Local Fund and Municipal Boards were 
 organized in this Presidency, those bodies have done much for 
 aiding primary education. 1 also find that higher education is 
 
1882. — The Honorable Mr. Justice MuthusamiTyer. 161 
 
 already assisting primary education, first .by supplying a cheap 
 agency competent to take up the management of primary schools, 
 and next by producing men who start primary schools as a pro- 
 fession. I would ask you and all the educated men in this 
 country to revive in villages the old healthy spirit according to 
 which the school-master, supported by each village, was a part 
 of the ancient village organisation, and to encourage, as your 
 means and opportunities permit, the application of a larger share 
 of the private wealth of the country in the interests of edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Whilst on the subject of national education, I would say a 
 
 word in connection with female education. You 
 cation!*^^ ^^^' ^^® peculiarly fitted for organizing and developing 
 
 the system of home-teaching in this Presidency. 
 Without it the education of the women of this country cannot 
 be suflS.ciently liberal, for, from one cause or another girls are 
 withdrawn from schools a little too soon. All of you should 
 endeavour to secure the benefit of home- teaching to such young 
 women as may come under your protection and guardianship, 
 and I have no doubt that the prejudice against it will wear away 
 in the same manner in which it was worn away in relation to 
 girls receiving any education at all. During that anxious inter- 
 val of time which must exist between the commencement of pro- 
 gress, and the introduction of practical reforms, it is no small 
 gain for men whose views are liberal and who are anxious to do 
 something for their country, to be sustained and encouraged by 
 
 enlightened home-influences. After the close of 
 Eittope!*^* ^ your college career, you should travel at least 
 
 through India and acquire some practical know- 
 ledge of the country in which you live and of the various peoples 
 that inhabit it. I would advise those of you who can afford to 
 pay a visit to Europe to do so and add to your knowledge the 
 benefit of that social education which residence in civilized 
 countries for a time, with a view to self -improvement, is likely 
 to ensure. While I urge you to further progress, let me advise 
 you not to merit the reproach that the knowledge of Indian 
 students is only book-knowledge, and that their observation 
 does not extend beyond the precincts of their village or town or 
 district. 
 
 Graduates in Arts, — 
 
 You will find soon, if you do not already know, that the time in 
 which you live is the transitional period, or what I have already 
 characterized as the anxious interval in the history of progress, 
 21 
 
162 University of Madras. 
 
 How long it will- continue, and which of you will come to 
 the front, is more than I can say, but I may 
 Bevival of ver- state that it is incumbent on you all at such a time 
 ture. ' *o ^^^ t^G diffusion of knowledge and the revival 
 
 of literature which must precede the inauguration 
 of lasting reform in every progressive society. Your duty in 
 this direction consists in paying special attention to the develop- 
 ment of the vernacular prose literature, and in infusing into it 
 the elements of modern culture, and in presenting to the public 
 through the medium of the vernacular the mechanism and the 
 advantages of a progressive social system as contrasted with an 
 imperfect social structure which confines progress within pre- 
 scribed limits. In the later stages of the history of the vernacular 
 literature in this country, it was corrupted by a desire for writing 
 verses and by a preference to a style which the learned alone could 
 understand ; and the inevitable result was the partial exclusion of 
 the middle classes from the light and the benefit of such knowledge 
 as existed in the country. It is therefore a source of particular 
 gratification to me to find that, during the last ten years, there 
 have issued from the Press about 800 original works and 400 
 translations besides 3,500 re-publications of old authors. These 
 figures show something like literary activity, and I would ask 
 you to co-operate with those who are already in the field and add 
 to the number of really original publications and useful trans- 
 lations, and to see that you gain a step in advance every year in 
 the development and enrichment of the vernacular literature. I 
 would ask you to remember at this very early stage of your 
 career in life that the usefulness to your country of the liberal 
 education you have received consists not in writing bad manuals 
 in English, but in writing good vernacular books on the models 
 furnished by English authors. Whilst on this subject I must 
 allude to a matter which has not hitherto attracted the attention 
 it deserves. The study of Sanscrit and the revival of Sanscrit 
 literature are of importance to you, not simply because Sanscrit 
 is your classical language,, but also because it contains the key to 
 the history, the philosophy and the principles which lie behind and 
 sustain the outer forms and visible signs of your social and family 
 life. Whatever has hitherto been done towards the revival of 
 Sanscrit learning, has been done principally in Europe, and not in 
 this country. But as you examine the structure of Sanscrit as a 
 language, its capacity for brevity and expansion, the facilities it 
 affords for translating new notions into idioms suited to the country, 
 and the classic modes in which it has been handled by such men as 
 Yalmeeki, Kalidas and Bhava Buti and others, you will cease to 
 ridicule the tradition which speaks of it as the language of the Gods. 
 
1882. — The Honorable Mr. Justice Muthusami Iyer, 163 
 
 Again, social progress is, and must be, if I may so call it, 
 a continuous development. The development in 
 8y^m. ^°°^^ ^® P^^^ offers to you a rich inheritance, though 
 it is also attended with peculiar dangers. In the 
 great mass of general principles underlying the social system 
 in this country, and many of which are the products of exigen- 
 cies felt in archaic and other stirring times of which we can 
 now have but an imperfect notion, there will assuredly be a 
 mixture of error which may operate on men's minds with the 
 traditional power of immemorial prescription, and may, from 
 the very reverence due to their age, easily obtain dominion over 
 you. It would be folly either to abandon from indolence or 
 self-complacency the advantage of your position and to build up 
 an entirely new social system even if it were possible to do so, or to 
 accept what is as the best that can be had on the authority of pre- 
 scription. To avoid the danger it is necessary to examine anew 
 the whole body of what has descended to you from the past, and 
 to question and trace each element to its origin. The proper 
 spirit in which such work should be undertaken, is, to borrow 
 from a philosophic jurist, one of intellectual freedom, of inde- 
 pendence of all authority, but this sense of freedom should not 
 degenerate into arrogant dogmatism, but should be tempered 
 by that feeling of humility which would result from an unbiased 
 contemplation of your limited individual powers. Thus, gentle- 
 men, the revision of the labors of the past, in order to gradually 
 eliminate what is unsuited to the requirements of modern culture 
 and appropriate what is suited to them as your permanent posses- 
 sion, is necessary to enable you to deal with the great problems of 
 social life which will confront you before India is regenerated. In 
 calling your attention to the revival of Sanscrit literature and 
 philosophy in connexion with progress, I desire that you should 
 recognise it as a means whereby you may improve the vernacular 
 literature, and I may say -that until this work of revision is taken 
 in hand by the graduates of the University, and until the results of 
 their research and criticism are presented to the reading public 
 through the vernacular medium, it would be premature to talk of 
 regenerated India or of carrying the people with you when you sug- 
 gest changes for the improvement of your social system. To such 
 of you as may have a predilection for natural and physical science, 
 I have to say a word. It is a general complaint in the country that 
 the knowledge which you pick up at school is neither augmented 
 nor even kept up, and that it is scarcely used in furthering the ad- 
 vancement of the people. The only reason I can imagine for this 
 comparative neglect is, that it is, perhaps, not found to be directly 
 instrumental in securing , success in the professions which you 
 
164 tiniversity of Madras. 
 
 ordinarily choose. But depend upon it, gentlemen^ a diffusion of 
 this brancli of knowledge is not only a powerful and effective 
 means of correcting error, but will also materially add to the 
 wealth of the country. 
 
 Great manufacturing industries have yet to come into 
 
 existence in Southern India, and as a people, 
 
 Singular apa- Hindus have done little or nothing towards the 
 
 thy of Indians. t ,• c • ± j.v, - ° j. j; 
 
 application of science to the improvement oi agri- 
 culture and of the productiveness of the soil. There are again 
 other resources of the country which require to be developed, 
 and which, wherever they are partially developed, are not 
 developed with the aid of indigenous capital or skill. Gentlemen, 
 there is a singular apathy in this respect ; and nothing that is 
 worth mentioning has been done during the last 30 years that 
 the system of liberal education has been in existence. I for one 
 should rejoice if you would bear this in mind when you select your 
 profession, and if those among you who may come to own landed 
 property or possess capital, would utilize science so as to augment 
 your own wealth and open the way to new industrial enterprize and 
 new sources of wealth to the country. Even those whose 
 pursuits may be chiefly literary, may aid progress by translating 
 into the languages of the people practical treatises on natural 
 science, and thereby enabling their countrymen to study nature 
 as she is, without seeing a monster dragon in eclipses, or signs 
 of approaching national calamities in meteors, comets and earth- 
 quakes. 
 
 Graduates in Medicine, — 
 
 The profession you elect to follow is second to none in 
 its dignity or in its usefulness to the people, and as, in this country, 
 it is not so crowded as other professions are, it is also likely 
 to prove lucrative. Your professional knowledge and skill will, 
 on the one hand, enable you to drive quacks out of practice, 
 whilst your knowledge of the habits of the people and your 
 sympathy with them will secure you, on the other, a cordial 
 reception in native homes. There is no other profession in 
 which professional skill is so readily and generally appreciated 
 and professional service so gratefully remembered. There is an 
 impression in certain quarters of Hindu society that the medicinal 
 properties of Indian plants are not either fully studied or utilized 
 in the treatment of Hindu patients, and you will, perhaps, do 
 well to refute this impression by a careful study of Indian Botany, 
 and, if necessary, also of indigenous treatises in Sanscrit, on 
 medicine, and I am sure that your labours in this direction, if 
 any, will meet with substantial reward. 
 
1882. — The Honorable Mr, Justice Muthusami Iyer. 165 
 
 Graduates in Civil Engineering,— 
 
 The profession to which you belong is of considerable impor- 
 tance to an agricultural community like the Hindus. Though I 
 cannot speak to you with any pretension to authority on matters 
 professional^ still I may be allowed to say that there are several 
 districts in this Presidency which owe their prosperity to im- 
 portant irrigation works and to their maintenance in good repair. 
 Let those works which you may construct be cheap and durable, 
 and try, as far as your opportunities allow, to suggest schemes for 
 developing the resources of the country ; and to check pecula- 
 tion and fraud. Let me entreat you not to despise, in the exer- 
 cise of your profession, whatever is good and beautiful in the 
 ancient architecture of the country. Eemember that you repre- 
 sent a profession which presents to the public view the triumphs 
 which Art gains over Nature, and which often strike the imagina- 
 tion and excite admiration, and that your career in life should, 
 therefore, some time or other, leave a mark on your country 
 worthy of the profession to which you belong. 
 
 Graduates in Law, — 
 
 The profession which you have chosen is one of the 
 most honorable, but at the same time you should not forget 
 that it is a profession crowded with men of merit, that competi- 
 tion is very keen and professional success difficult to secure 
 without years of close application to study, and a careful 
 cultivation of the habit of speaking with simplicity, readiness 
 
 and precision. You should remember, if you desire 
 and an'jSrtf^*'^ to rise to professional eminence, that law is both 
 
 a science and an art, and that your success, whether 
 at the bar or on the bench, will depend on the clearness with 
 which you understand the principles of the science, and on the 
 readiness with which you will pass through a complicated mass 
 of facts, in the midst of animated and often eloquent addresses, 
 taking in as it were by intuition each fact, referring it to its 
 appropriate principle, and estimating its legal value within a 
 given time. The study of law, it has been well said, is in its 
 higher sense, the study of the philosophy of social life. The art 
 you have to practise is one of the noblest ; its object is the pro- 
 tection of human interest in all the relations of life, and the 
 methods by which rules of decision are deduced must satisfy at 
 
 once the requirements of legal science and of sub- 
 LS^em''''''''^ stantial justice. In the practice of this art, you 
 
 should also remember that you owe special obliga- 
 tions to the cause of truth and justicor Those of you who may 
 enter the bar ought never to forget that the knowledge you 
 
1^6 University of Mai/ras, 
 
 acquire by virtue of your relation to your clients is their exclusive 
 property, and should never be used for unworthy ends. In 
 identifying yourselves with your clients for purposes of advocacy, 
 you should never lose sight of the fact, even in the heat of 
 debate and amidst the prospect of defeat, that you belong to an 
 honourable profession, and that you should never say or do aught 
 that is inconsistent with its dignity. Try always to prevent 
 fraud upon justice, and steadily keep in view what one of your 
 own ancient Law-givers has said. The Court of Justice, says 
 Manu, is a sacred temple, the Judges presiding over it are, 
 though men, humble instruments in the hands of an unseen 
 deity who influences their judgments in the interests of truth, 
 and those who enter this holy edifice with unholy thoughts or 
 desecrate it with unworthy actions, are traitors to their God and 
 
 country. Those of you who may rise to the Bench 
 th^udge!^^ °^ should recollect that the power you may be called 
 
 upon to exercise in the name of your Sovereign is, 
 
 according to another of your ancestors, a power divine. You 
 
 should never be hasty or impulsive, and thereby shut out even the 
 
 faintest ray of light from forensic discussion. You should never 
 
 J.. . heed any appeal to your passion or frailty, and never 
 
 allow your attention to stray from the legal points of 
 a case either amidst violent declamation or pathetic appeals, and 
 always see before you pronounce your decision that the responsi- 
 bility rests not with you individually, but either with the Law- 
 
 ^ver or with the science of jurisprudence. You 
 ^S^udy of Hindu gi^ould not Continue to learn Hindu Law, as is 
 
 usually the case> solely from English translations. 
 Sanscrit manuscripts are fast dying out in the country, and you 
 should hasten to eompare, criticise and publish critical editions of 
 your Smrities, Upasmrities, and Digests, and so much of your cere- 
 monial law as is necessary to their elucidation. Some of you 
 should also publish treatises on the relations of life and on their 
 aims and scope as recognized at different periods, carefully 
 noting the successive changes due to new social necessities, and 
 thus compile an authentic history of the past as ^ipplied by 
 legal literature. Before the bar becomes a power in India, you 
 will have to divide yourselves into two classes of labourers, and 
 bring into existence two schools of thought, the historic and the 
 critical school. I must also note that the Native bar, as it exists 
 at present, is without an organization and therefore, without 
 much power for good. The time has come for the formation of 
 
 a Yakil's association which may, in the course of 
 sodatioS^'*' ^^" ^^^^) ^^® ^P ^ position analogous to the Inns of 
 
 Court in England, and thereby bring the whole 
 
1882. — The Honorable Mr. Justice Muthusami Iyer. 167 
 
 body of legal practitioners in the country under wholesome pro- 
 fessional control. This association should always stand forward 
 as a public body ever ready and competent to aid the legislature 
 with its opinion and advice, and the administration of justice by 
 throwing light on the usag^es of the people. It should always 
 endeavour to guard and preserve the supremacy of law in the 
 country, and realize the fact that the empire of law is the key- 
 stone of liberty, of intellectual and material wealth, and of what- 
 ever is dear and precious to man in this life- To those of you 
 who may enter the Government service, I shall say a word. 
 You must remember that you should learn to obey before you 
 aspire to command. You must go through a considerable amount 
 of what you may call drudgery, for no one who has not some 
 time or other given attention to details is fit to lay down with 
 any pretension to authority, general rules bearing on the adminis- 
 tration of the country. It is your good fortune that you 
 live under a Government which offers several brilliant prizes to 
 those of you who may prove themselves capable of sustaining 
 great responsibilities and in the extended sphere of usefulness 
 which is year after year being widened by our Gracious Sovereign, 
 you may have to work side by side with men of English culture 
 who combine in them whatever is great and good in English 
 society, literature and philosophy. If you will only rise equal 
 to the occasion, and add to culture persevering industry and a 
 constant desire to learn and improve, I may say that you will 
 find that there is nothing in this life which is beyond the reach 
 of cultivated intelligence, well-directed industry and honest 
 devotion to duty. I must now conclude. This day marks an 
 epoch in your life, for, it is the day from which you are to enter 
 the battle of life, and your conduct is to be guided and controlled 
 by your own judgment and conscience. It is also the day from 
 which you are to compete with men before Judges who will 
 value your worth not by your good intentions or abortive 
 efforts, but by the actual results of your work and conduct in 
 life in relation to the requirements of your profession and country. 
 The prizes you have to seek consist no longer in books, medals 
 and scholarships, but consist in the gains and honors of literary 
 and professional merit, in the pleasures of an enlightened home; 
 in the rewards of a virtuous and an honorable career in life, and, 
 above all, in the distinction and fame which await those who 
 seek to raise the level of their country in intellectual and moral 
 advancement. How far you will be able to look back to this 
 day in the evening of life with satisfaction and pride, will depend 
 on yourselves and on the way in which you will work and conduct 
 yourselves, and on the aims and ends by which you will direct 
 
168 University of Madras. 
 
 and sustain your energies. Eemember througli life your teachers 
 to whom you owe so much. Let your thought and action be 
 
 always guided by a profound feeling of loyalty to 
 loyalty?^ ^^ ^^^ gracious Sovereign and to the British nation to 
 
 whom you owe a debt of gratitude, which you can 
 never adequately repay. Look to the past and compare it with 
 the present, and say to what else you owe, if not to the British 
 rule, the era of peace, of progress, of freedom and of material 
 prosperity which has set in. G-entlemen, as surely as I stand 
 here, the day will come, though you and I may not live to see it, 
 when some one in this country will tell his grateful countrymen 
 in prose or verse how the two branches of the Aryan race once 
 dwelt together in their ancient Caspian home, how they separated, 
 how centuries of separation enstranged them from each other, 
 how each in its turn aided civilization, how they again met in 
 India under Grod^s Providence, in what stirring words of Royal 
 love and wisdom the Mission of England in India, viz., that she 
 would not only rule India well but also raise her in civilization, 
 was announced, what alternations of hope and fear chequered 
 the path of progress, how the grandest of all spectacles, and the 
 noblest of all triumphs, that of one nation raising another in 
 civilization, was eventually realized and achieved by England in 
 India. Meanwhile, gentlemen, toil on. Rely on yourselves for 
 success in life. Let constant industry, honest devotion to duty, 
 simplicity of character, and unflinching integrity of conduct 
 and a modest estimate of your worth be your ladder to eminence. 
 Take care, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are fortunate 
 or otherwise, that you are always gentlemen, and remember for 
 the sake of your own happiness both in prosperity and adversity 
 that it is mind that makes " a Heaven of hell and a hell of 
 Do notdena- Heaven,^' Never denationalize yourselves, never 
 tionalize your- blush to own that you are Hindus, and never barter 
 s®^^®^- the influence which you possess among your coun- 
 
 trymen and which you may exercise for their good, for the petty 
 vanities of dress or taste. Remember what an eminent English 
 statesman once said, ' Before all things and above all things I 
 am an English gentleman.'^ Be gentlemen, in the sense in 
 which the great statesman used the word, and take with you as 
 words of farewell the following advice of the greatest of English 
 poets : 
 
 ** Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee j 
 Oorraption wins not more than honesty; 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
 To silence envions tongues ; be just and fear not ; 
 Let all the ends thou aimst at be thy country's, 
 Thy Gtod's and truth's. 
 
1883.— TTifi Honorable D. F. Garmichael 169 
 
 TWENTY-SIXTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable D. F. Garmichael.) 
 
 Gentlemen, Graduates of 1883, — I now rise to discharge the 
 duty, which the Right Hon'ble the Chancellor has entrusted to 
 me, of delivering the annual address, in this the last year of my 
 service amongst a people I have known so long and have (if you 
 will believe me) loved so well. With the exception of two dis- 
 tinguished educational officers, who still labor in our midst, and 
 who were created fellows by the Act of Incorporation in 1857, 
 I am, I think, the oldest member of this University now in India. 
 In the year following the Incorporation Act, there was, so far as 
 I recollect, no addition made to the Senate; in 1859, or four and 
 twenty years ago, I was the last of five appointed to it by 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan, whom I had the honor of serving as his 
 Private Secretary. 
 
 I am to exhort you, gentlemen, " to conduct yourselves 
 suitably unto the position, to which by the degrees conferred 
 upon you, you have attained.^' Can I doubt that you will do so ? 
 
 The knowledge you have acquired during long years of 
 study, has called into daily exercise your perse- 
 study^^^^ ° verance, your watchfulness, and self-control. These 
 habits must have excluded a host of follies and 
 vices. In the morning of life, when the blandishments of passion 
 take the reason prisoner, these habits, I persuade myself, have 
 sustained and invigorated your mind, have imparted a freshness 
 and a healthful tone to its enjoyments and fitted it for the more 
 arduous purposes of your work in the world. 
 
 And, my young friends, the knowledge you have gained is 
 to be prized not only for the qualities and serene pleasures which 
 it directly tends to excite, but also for the material blessings 
 which it confers upon society. Look back to the days of the 
 old system of education, under which the students of British India 
 were delivered up to the Moulvi and the Pandit, and you will 
 admit that it is possible for knowledge, when wisdom has not 
 guided her impulses, and false systems have arrested her progress, 
 to damp the ardour of invention, to repress the nobler energies 
 of the understanding, and to result in moral apathy and a stag- 
 nant civilisation. 
 
 Let me tell you how education in India was emancipated. 
 
 How Bduca- ^^ ^^ ^^^ exactly seventy years ago that Parliament 
 
 tion was emanci- directed the East India Company to set apart a 
 
 pated m India. ^^^ q£ rupees a year " for the revival and promotion 
 
 of literature, and the encouragement of the learned natives of 
 
 22 
 
170 University of Madras, 
 
 India and for tlie introduction of a knowledge of tlie sciences 
 among the inhabitants of the British territories." Such was the 
 general apathy on the subject amongst Indian administrations, 
 that nothing was done, nothing attempted, till ten years had 
 expired. At the end of that time a General Committee of Public 
 instruction was formed in Calcutta, whose first step in the 
 direction of progress — as they supposed it to be — was the estab- 
 lishment of a Sanskrit College in that city, in addition to the 
 Sanskrit College established thirty years previously at Benares. 
 
 That enlightened Brahman, Ram Mohan Roy, 
 ^Eam Mohan yjgorously protested, pointing out that it was 
 
 '^ English literature and science '^ that the people, 
 when left to themselves, desired for their sons, as was manifested 
 in the foundation, by the zemindars and merchants of Bengal, 
 of the Hindu College of Calcutta for such pursuits in the 
 year 1816. To Sanskrit literature and its more diligent culti- 
 vation. Ram Mohan Roy, himself an eminent scholar and the 
 translator into English of the Upanishads or speculative portion 
 of the Vedas, was willing to give every reasonable encourage- 
 ment, but if the improvement of the native population was the 
 object of the Government, let it promote, he entreated, a more 
 liberal and enlightened system of education. 
 
 What a Government College was in those 
 aW^°^^^^*^^' ^^y^ *^® journal of Bishop Heber at Benares in 
 the same year shall tell us : — 
 
 '^ The Vidyalaya is divided into a number of classes, who learn 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic (in the Hindu manner), Persi-an, 
 Hindu Law and sacred literature, Sanskrit, astronomy according 
 to the Ptolemaic system and astrology ! There are 200 scholars ; 
 the. astronomical lecturer produced a terrestrial globe, divided 
 according to their system and elevated to the meridian of Benares. 
 Mount Meru he indentified with the North Pole, and under the 
 Southern Pole he supposed the tortoise to stand on which the 
 earth rests. The southern hemisphere he apprehended to be 
 uninhabitable; but on the concave surface in the interior of the 
 globe he placed Patalam or hell. He then shewed me how the 
 sun went round the earth once every day and how by a different 
 but equally continuous motion he visited the signs of the zodiac." 
 
 Well — yet another ten years drag on, and the question is 
 still undecided whether the people of India, whose mother- 
 tongues are generally poor and rude, should have the means of 
 pursuing higher studies by acquiring the Arabic and Sanskrit 
 languages or the English. In 1835 that question was settled 
 as it now stands, by the advocacy of one, who, having already 
 
1883.— TAe Honorable D. F. Carmichael. 171 
 
 embellished the literature of Europe, came to its aid when doubt- 
 ing Orientalists weighed its claims with the literature of Asia. 
 I allude to Macaulay, then the legal member of the Governor- 
 GeneraVs Council. Listen to- his glowing eulogy on the claims 
 of his own language and be thankful for the glorious heritage 
 which his pen secured for you : — 
 
 " It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the 
 West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the 
 noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of 
 every species of eloquence ; with historical compositions, which 
 considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, 
 and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruc- 
 tion, have never been equalled; with just and lively representa- 
 tions of human life and human nature ; with the most profound 
 speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence 
 and trade ; with full and coiTect information respecting every 
 experimental science, which tends to preserve the health, to 
 increase the comfort or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever 
 knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual 
 wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created 
 and hoarded in the course of ninety generations.^' 
 
 The next twenty years witnessed considerable advancement, 
 including in our presidency the advent of Mr. Powell from 
 Cambridge and the establishment of the High School, which 
 nurtured so many distinguished men. Towards the close of 
 the same period the sanction of the Court of Directors was 
 received for the creation of Universities. Then came the Rebel- 
 lion of 1857 ; the fate of Universities, the fate of Public Instruc- 
 tion in India trembled in the balance ; but Lord Canning was 
 firm ; he felt that it was not liberal education, but the want of 
 it that had raised the storm. Like Columbus, in spite of the 
 mutiny of his crew and the remonstrances of some of his lieuten- 
 ants, he refused to delay, much less to turn back from his course ; 
 but, unlike Columbus, he was not amongst the sea weed nor were 
 the birds fluttering over his head ; with the eye of faith he pierced 
 the gloom and discerned the haven where he would be. I 
 recollect that his assent to the Act establishing our own Univer- 
 sity was given on the 5th September 1857, a time when the 
 seige of Delhi still proceeded under the most disadvantageous 
 conditions. 
 
 It was in 1859 that the degree of Bachelor of Arts was for 
 
 the first time conferred on students educated in 
 
 The^rate of ^j^-g presidency. Taking the five quinquennial 
 
 periods that may be counted from 1859 to the 
 
172 University of Madras- 
 
 present year, I find that the rate of success has been uniformly 
 about fifty per cent, of the whole. In the professional degrees the 
 rate of success has fluctuated to a remarkable extent^ as is too 
 well known, for instance, to recent candidates for the degree in 
 law. Having worked with and watched the work of men, some 
 of whom are proficients of the pre-University High School and 
 others are Graduates of the University, I gratefully acknow- 
 ledge that I have found both classes equally efiicient and 
 equally honorable. The proficients in their day had an advan- 
 tage which graduates cannot share. They were so few in 
 number that there was a perfect scramble amongst the heads of 
 departments to secure them. Once caught, they were rapidly 
 promoted to be Tahsildars, Deputy Collectors and District Mun- 
 siffs. Now — so strong is the general competition — that a Bache- 
 lor of Arts is often very glad to get a clerkship on four or five 
 pagodas a month, in which situation he may languish without 
 advancement, for years. But there is more than this to account 
 for the poor prospects of graduates. They would be far more 
 numerous and far better remunerated, but for a direct check, 
 which I trust will be shortly removed, after the consideration 
 which it is about to receive from the Governor in Council. It 
 is the admission of men, without any connection with the Uni- 
 versity beyond the Matriculation — sometimes not even that — 
 to the Special Test, by passing which the candidates become 
 qualified to hold the more important oflBces in the country. 
 This system has been injurious to education, the University, 
 and the public service itself. Look at the hundreds and hun- 
 dreds of young men, who annually matriculate or pass what is best 
 known as the Uncovenanted Civil Service Examination. What 
 becomes of them? Do they go on to F.A., and B.A., and 
 B.L. ? Not at all ; they have now reached the goal of their 
 miserable ambition as students; they take a petty post as a 
 copyist and set to work to cram, in their scanty hours of 
 leisure, the Special Tests for the Judicial and Revenue De- 
 partments. Now, a Matriculate has just begun his educa- 
 tion, and of what value to the State is the occupation of the 
 higher appointments by half-educated men ? I would say to 
 those, who are satisfied to stop at the Matriculation 
 Hewers of stage, that they shall get no further than petty 
 ers of water. ^" clerkships, that they shall remain " hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water.^^ They may cram the 
 Special Tests in time, but it is not good for the country that 
 any but really educated men should become Magistrates, Tahsil- 
 dars, and Munsiffs, Now that the University has stood and 
 prospered for a quarter of a century, it is surely high time that 
 
1883.-— T/je Honorable D. F. Carmichael. 173 
 
 wo promoted to the more responsible offices in the public service 
 none but those who have taken complete advantage of the 
 education now offered to all ; each high official would then be a 
 beacon on a hill, whence should radiate the glorious influences of 
 Western civilisation. There are some twelve hundred gra- 
 duates in Arts of this University; yet there are only two or three 
 per cent, of the number holding responsible offices in the general 
 administration. 
 
 What becomes of our graduates ? The Educational Depart- 
 ment readily absorbs some of them ; others join 
 The distribu- the Native Bar, and the remainder, wherever they 
 ates. ° ^^ ^' go to, are not to be found in the higher ranks of 
 the public service. And yet it is just there that 
 they should be found. Those who take their notions from 
 England, can have no conception what an immensely powerful 
 engine, either for good or evil, an Asiatic Government is. Time 
 will bring its changes, but in India we know that the Grovernment 
 is everything ; its establishments are on the largest scale, and 
 nearly the whole rental of the country passes into its coffers. 
 The mercantile, medical, sacerdotal and other professions, which 
 absorb the greater part of our English youth of the middle class, 
 are either held in comparatively low esteem, or are confined, at 
 present, to particular castes : and except when he becomes a 
 pleader, almost the only idea which a liberally educated native 
 has of rising in life is by attaching himself to the public service. 
 In the early years of British rule in India, the system of Govern- 
 ment was based on the principle of doing every thing by European 
 agency ; the wheels became clogged ; more than half of the 
 business of the country remained unperformed, and 
 Agency ^ ^^ at last it became necessary to abandon a plan, which, 
 after a fair trial, had completely broken down ; sub- 
 stituting in its stead the present system of transacting the public 
 business by native agency under European superintendence. 
 
 Having opened such preferment to the natives, is it not the 
 duty, the plain policy of the Government to see that the men 
 whom it appoints to be interpreters between itself and the rude 
 millions whom it governs, shall come from a class which, if Indian 
 in blood and color, shall be English in taste, in opinions, in 
 morals and in intellect ? And down the rolls of the Native public 
 service amongst the subordinate Judges I find a single graduate 
 only; one in the first grade of Munsifs; one in the second; a 
 few in the third class, as many as fourteen ; while the Deputy 
 Collectors, and other high revenue officials, who are Bachelors of 
 A.rts, can be counted on the fingers. 
 
174 University of Madras. 
 
 We have been hearing lately, gentlemen, of a coming 
 Explode inno- Convocation of Graduates to be incorporated for 
 vations of your the very reasonable purpose of considering matters 
 Vedas. affecting the well-being of the University and 
 
 making suggestions to the Senate regarding them. Would to 
 heaven we could see another Convocation consisting of those 
 amongst you — an immense majority they are who are Hindus — 
 formed for the more reasonable and beneficent purpose of explod- 
 ing the innovations in the ritual and usages of your sacred Vedas, 
 which however brought in, have now unhappily, for centuries 
 prevailed ; innovations involving the degradation of the female 
 sex, ruin to the moral virtues and the intellectual energies of the 
 man, and the hopeless postponement of national advancement and 
 domestic felicity. Already I seem to see a handwriting on the 
 wall, that the end of this and other old superstitions is at hand. 
 Shall they be driven not by the winter storm in its overwhelm- 
 ing fury, or shall they be removed by the gentle and peaceable 
 means, which an united body of educated men, actuated by the 
 purest patriotism, should well know how to use ? How long will 
 you hang back undecided and desponding ? Whom and what 
 do you fear, you who have sworn to-day, as far as in you lies, to 
 support and promote the cause of morality, and to advance the 
 well-being of your fellow men ? Take courage as you take this 
 solemn pledge, given in the presence of an august University 
 which then and not till then decorated you with the insignia of 
 the order to which you have so worthily attained. G-raduates, 
 farewell ! May happiness and prosperity be yours in your course 
 through the world. But however onerous and important your 
 work in life may be, let the pleasures which arise from intel- 
 lectual pursuits return to you at every vacant interval. The 
 great reformer of philosophy has beautifully declared, that in all 
 other pleasures, after they be used, " their verdure departeth, 
 which showeth that they be deceits of pleasures ; '' but in these, 
 " satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangable.^' 
 These indeed are the only pleasures, which, fraught with un- 
 alterable delight and interest, outlive the fervent years of youth, 
 and grow still stronger in the decay of age. 
 
 TWENTY-SEVENTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honorable W. R. Cornish, F.R.C.S., CLE.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — By the statutes of this University in regard to 
 the form of procedure in conferring Degrees, it is enjoined that 
 the Chancellor shall appoint a member of the Senate to deliver 
 an address to the graduates, '^exhorting them to conduct them- 
 
1884.— r/ie Honorable W. R. Cornish. 175 
 
 selves suitably unto the position to which, by the Degree conferred 
 upon them, they have attained/' The duty of addressing you 
 on the present occasion has fallen to myself. In some respects 
 I could have wished that the task had been assigned to som6 
 one more closely connected than I am with the great educational 
 work which this University tests, and confirms with the seal of 
 its approval. But I do not forget that the Senate of this Uni- 
 versity comprises representatives of all professions and callings, 
 and that the Chancellor, in his discretion, may see fit to name 
 any member thereof to offer you counsel, and in the name of the 
 Senate, wish you " God speed '' in your various paths of life. 
 The presence here of an unusually large number of graduates in 
 Arts, on whom Degrees have this day been conferred, testifies 
 to the fact that the regulations of this University are no hindrance 
 to higher education. Year by year, the tests become more 
 efficient and practical, and a Degree in Arts, Law, Medicine, or 
 Engineering is not granted until the candidate has shown a com- 
 petent knowledge of the subjects in which he is examined. On 
 looking over the history of the Madras University, 
 paS^years. ""^ ^^^^^ ^^^ formation in 1857, I find that, including 
 the graduates of the present year, 1,345 have 
 passed the examination for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, 32 
 have graduated as Master of Arts, 213 have obtained Degrees 
 in Law, 34 in Medicine, and 29 in Engineering. These results 
 are, on the whole, satisfactory, though I should have been better 
 pleased with them, if they had shown a larger proportion of the 
 educated youths of the country devoting their energies to Medicine 
 and Civil Engineering. In regard to Medical Degrees, I have 
 no doubt whatever, that the local authorities who now largely 
 employ Medical men for the charge of Hospitals and Dispen- 
 saries, will ere long insist on the possession of a University 
 Degree by those whom they employ, and that the proportion of 
 Medical graduates, from this and other causes, will steadily 
 increase. I am not without hope also that the recent activity in 
 railway extension and other public works of magnitude in many 
 parts of India, may cause a demand for the services of more 
 local graduates in Engineering. 
 
 The Madras University, in common with other Indian Uni- 
 versities, is now empowered by an Act passed by the Legislative 
 Council of the Government of India, to confer the Honorary 
 Degree of Doctor of Laws on any person of eminence or distinc- 
 tion, who may be recommended by the Syndicate, and approved 
 by the Senate. In this respect the Indian Universities are now 
 in the enjoyment of powers similar to those possessed by the 
 
176 University of Madras. 
 
 older Universities of Europe, and I have no doubt that when 
 these powers are used by the governing bodies they will be 
 employed wisely, and in the true interest of the Indian Univer- 
 sities. 
 
 Referring once more to the statistics of the Madras Univer- 
 sity, I find that the higher education is still mainly 
 P^^H^^h^*- I'^stricted to that class of the community which 
 Education.^ ^ foi* ages past, has been noted for its intellectual 
 endowment. Of the 1,349 Bachelors in Arts, 899 
 come from the Brahman community, which community represeo'ts 
 only one twenty-sixth part of the Hindu population, ^ The 
 remaining twenty -five parts of the Hindu people have furnished 
 only 252 Bachelors in Arts, — a fact which shows that the higher 
 education has permeated but slightly the lives of the greater 
 numbers of the people. Native Christians have obtained Degrees 
 to the number of 117, and these results speak highly for the 
 educational advantages of the class. The number of East Indian 
 graduates is 55, of Europeans 17, and of Mahomedans 7. These 
 facts in regard to the classes of the population furnishing gradu- 
 ates of the University, are full of significance. They show us 
 that certain sections of the population have a desire for, and 
 appreciation of learning, while other classes have not yet felt 
 the need of it. In this connection it is important to note that 
 the large Mahomedan population of this Presidency (numbering 
 nearly two millions of persons,) is represented by only seven 
 graduates, four of whom obtained Degrees in 1883. Amongst 
 the graduates of the present year there are no Mahomedans, 
 and I mention the fact with regret, that so important a section 
 of the community should allow themselves to be left so far 
 behind, in the higher education encouraged by the University. 
 
 To the graduates whose student life ends with the ceremonial 
 of this day, I would offer a few remarks of general 
 th^selTeT ^^^*^ application. Your college work and set tasks are 
 ended. You stand upon the threshold of your 
 respective careers, whether your labors are devoted to State 
 service, to the special professions of Law, Medicine, or Engi- 
 neering, or to any of the numerous callings whereby the material 
 resources of the country are increased, to your own profit, and 
 the benefit of the country at large. In what spirit do you con- 
 template this new departure in your lives ? Has the mental 
 training and discipline of your student life developed in you a 
 love of knowledge for its own sake, irrespective of its utility in 
 fitting you to pass examinations and thereby to enter upon the 
 occupations you have chosen ? Has the insight you have 
 
1884.--r/<« Honorable W. R, Cornish. Ill 
 
 obtained into the several branches of knowledge, created in your 
 hearts a reverence for learning, and a desii'e to add to your 
 knowledge, day by day and year by year, and to expend your 
 best energies in the pursuit of truth ? If you can answer " yes " 
 to these questions, 1 can assure you that your labors, thus far, 
 have not been wasted^ and that you begin the working years of 
 your lives under circumstances most favorable to success and 
 future distinction. A quaint poet* of the seventeenth century 
 has embodied his estimate of men's motives in seeking education 
 in these lines : — 
 
 " Yet some seeke knowledge, meerely to be knoime 
 And idle ouriositie that is ! 
 
 Some but to sell, not freely to bestow j 
 
 These gaine, and spend both time and wealth amiste, \ 
 
 Some to build others, which is Charity, 
 
 But these to build themselves, who wise men be." 
 
 If the education you have received has been acquired in a spirit 
 of love and humility, you will profit by all opportunities of im- 
 parting your knowledge to others, and, in the words of the poet, 
 you will be amongst the number of the *' wise men*^ who seek 
 to " build themselves/' 
 
 In Literature, Art, and Science, " the old order changeth. 
 Preserve hab- yielding place to new '' with such rapid strides, that 
 its of mental unless a man remains a zealous student throughout 
 discipline. i^ig yHq, he must be left behind in the branches of 
 
 knowledge which are needful to his professional usefulness. Let 
 me then advise you to maintain, both in the near and distant 
 future, those babits of mental discipline which have enabled 
 you to obtain Degrees in this University. In every life, no 
 matter how it may be engrossed by professional duty, and care 
 for the things of the moment, some leisure must fall, which you 
 may pass in absolute idleness, and mental vacuity, or in storing 
 your minds with the wisdom of the past, or in following the 
 ramifications of modem thought. The careful and critical study 
 of classical works relating to history, poetry, philosophy, and 
 any branch of science of which you have mastered the principles, 
 will prove the most effectual remedy against that mental hebe- 
 tude, which is apt to overtake us, when we have attained, as we 
 think, the summit of our ambition. And while urging yon to 
 
 a familiar acquaintance with the thoughts of emi- 
 booWm.'"^'^^ nent men of all ages and climes, I would not have 
 
 you neglectful of modern ways of thought, as repre- 
 sented by current literature, and the periodical and newspaper 
 press. A man to be of use in his generation must not be a mere 
 
 * Lord Brooke — " Certaine Learned and Elegant Worhes" 1633, 
 
 d3 
 
178 University of Madras* 
 
 bookworm, fattening liis memory witt obsolete and forgotten 
 lore, but he must^ live in the present, and whet the edge of his 
 intellect by friction against modern minds, and the more he 
 studies modern literature, and especially the literature devoted 
 to a record of scientific thought and progress, the more capable 
 will he be of forming a true estimate of the extent of his own 
 knowledge and deficiencies for the work appointed him to do. 
 
 Most of you, graduates in Arts, have after due consideration, 
 probably formed some schemes in respect to your 
 ww'ek^offi^? f^^^re means of livelihood. Some will doubtless 
 devote their lives to the education and training 
 of the young, and surely, no noble career can present itself to 
 those having inclination and aptitude for such work, than the 
 influencing for good the character of the infant generation, 
 which shall in due order be the manhood of the next. " The 
 child '' being *' father to the man," see to it that your teaching 
 and personal example shall always be employed to encourage 
 and develop the finer instincts of humanity, and to keep down 
 all that is ignoble and base, in the tender minds subjected to 
 your leading. Others of you will no doubt aspire to serve the 
 State in various capacities. This is a reasonable object of ambi- 
 tion, and although the State cannot undertake to find work for 
 all those who are qualified to do it, there must always be a field 
 in State service for the highest intelligence the country can 
 produce. One caution I may give in regard to this sphere of 
 labor. I advise you to be content with modest beginnings, and for 
 this reason, that the higher offices in State service are only to be 
 approached by those who have gained departmental experience. 
 Remember that in the varied service of the St^ate each depart- 
 ment has its own special work, and that mere general culture 
 and intelligence, as implied by your University Degree, will not 
 enable you to dispense with the special training required for your 
 special departmental duties. You may be inclined to consider it a 
 grievance that men of greater departmental experience, but of 
 less culture than yourselves, are preferred before you ; but you 
 should seek to prove to your official superiors that your scholastic 
 training has enabled you to discharge your special duties with 
 greater aptitude and ability ; and having so done you may safely 
 leave your claims to advancement in the hands of those who have 
 the best means of judging of your actual and relative merit. 
 
 I am old enough to remember the time when no educational 
 
 AdTMiages of ^^^^ ^^® imposed on candidates for the Uncove- 
 
 employing Uni- nanted Service, and I have watched the develop- 
 
 T«ttty men. j^^|. ^f ^^^ system, introduced iuto this Presidency 
 
1884.— T/ie Hmorahle W. B. Cornish 179 
 
 by Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1859^ and increased in stringency 
 from time to time, >?nth great interest, and am satisfied that the 
 wider employment of graduates and undergraduates in the public 
 departments of the State has resulted in better work, and in a 
 distinctly higher tone of the public service. These results might 
 have been anticipated, but the fact that the character of the ser- 
 vice has been manifestly improved by the enforcement of general 
 and special tests of competency, will undoubtedly encourage the 
 State to maintain, and increase, rather than relax, the stringency 
 • of the tests now accepted. 
 
 I have advised you to be modest in the estimation of your 
 
 own value, and to be content with beginning life 
 
 Sound mental on the lower ruuffs of the official ladder. If you 
 
 and moral train- i m'j. i j • i. -i. j j. 
 
 ing. possess ability, zeal, and integrity, advancement 
 
 and promotion must follow, as surely as the night 
 follows the day, because every department of the State has an 
 interest in being well served, and efficiency in lower grades ia 
 the best passport to the higher. But let it be borne in mind 
 that the State cannot create offices because graduates abound, 
 and that when the State service, and the learned professions 
 have drawn their supplies of educated labor, there will still 
 remain a number of graduates, who, of choice or necessity, will 
 have to seek elsewhere for occupations suited to their circum- 
 stances. Whether you betake yourselves to trade, commerce, 
 agriculture, or industrial handicrafts, there are vast and unex- 
 plored fields before you, which, so long as you enter upon them 
 discreetly, prudently, and honorably, will afford you the means 
 of living and enjoyment, and opportunities of demonstrating to 
 vour countrymen, that a sound, mental and moral training is the 
 oest of all preparations, for any and every pursuit in life. 
 
 Education in India, as you know, is a very one-sided affair, 
 insomuch that until very recently, it was confined 
 . "^F^^Ed*^^ ^ *^® male sex alone, and at the present moment, 
 tional system. " ^be education of the female sex is pursued under 
 grave disadvantages. The truest friends of the 
 people of India cannot but entertain serious misgivings as to the 
 outcome of a system which practically excludes one sex from 
 tbe advantages of mental training and discipline ; and having 
 the opportunity granted me of speaking, I cannot pass over 
 this grave fault in your educational system in silence. The 
 influence of a mother on her offspring is most powerful and far- 
 reaching. Her physical and mental characteristics pass to the 
 fruit of her womb, and her children learn of her instinctively, 
 before they are capable of speech or intelligent thought. It is 
 
180 University of Mad/ras. 
 
 the opinion of eminent men who have studied the subject that 
 the transmission of certain mental and physical attributes of a 
 race is more commonly influenced by the mother than the father ; 
 and the simple fact that nearly all the men of high eminence in 
 Science, Art, and other pursuits, now living, have descended 
 from mothers of more than average mental vigor and capacity, 
 should be enough to cause us to ponder whether the Indian 
 system is a wise one, or suited to the development of the highest 
 Educated man intellectual power of the people. The gulf be- 
 and uncultured tween the educated man and uncultured woman is 
 woman. ^^^^ wide, and, if the views of scientists are true, 
 
 there is some danger that the descendants of unions in which 
 there is great disparity of mental development may favor the 
 mother rather than the father, and that the intellectual powers of 
 the males of succeeding generations may be of the feminine or 
 childlike type, never ripening into the fulness of the higher 
 order of manhood. The late Charles Darwin thought that a 
 similar arrest of mental development followed, when there was 
 great disparity in the ages of father and mother ; the offspring, 
 according to his observations, generally showing the child-type 
 of intellect throughout the period of mature life. 
 
 So strongly have the disadvantages of the lop-sided system 
 of culture prevailing in India appeared to me, that I have often 
 thought, and said, that given the position of a Dictator, and with 
 full command of the State purse-strings^ I would spend no public 
 money on education, other than the primary teaching of both 
 sexes, and the higher training of the future wives and mothers 
 of India, until the existing disparity between the culture of the 
 two sexes had in a great degree ceased. But, gentlemen, so 
 heroic a treatment of the subject is unnecessary. I am delighted 
 to acknowledge that you have already recognised the evil, and 
 that every graduate of this University is doing his best, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, to cure it. Kindly give me your atten- 
 tion to the following figures. Twenty years ago the number 
 
 of girls " under instruction'^ in this Presidency 
 caioS^^ ^^°- was 3,763. In 1873-74 the numbers were 17,113. 
 
 Nine years later, in 1882-83, the female pupils 
 had increased to 43i671. Thus, in the space of nineteen years, 
 the female pupils in school had increased by about 40,000, and 
 last year, they exceeded, by more than ten times, the numbers at 
 school in the ofl&cial year 1863-64. These results appear to me 
 to prove, that an important revolution in native thought, as to 
 the position of women, is actually in progress in our very midst, 
 and, seeing that the extension of fenaale education has proceeded 
 
ISQi.—The Emorahle W. R. Cornish. 181 
 
 step by step, witli the dispersion of the graduates and under- 
 graduates of this University throughout the land, I cannot 
 dispossess myself of the belief that there is a close connection 
 a necessary between the two phenomena. I believe that the 
 consequence of training and education of the women of India 
 man's culture. ^g ^ necessary consequence of your own cul- 
 ture. You will not rest satisfied until the female members of 
 your families are able to meet you on a common intellectual 
 level. Man's imperfect nature craves for sympathy in his toils, 
 aspirations, doubts, and anguish, and where shall he find the 
 sympathy and loving help for which his soul earns, if not 
 amongst the women of his family, who know his strength and 
 his weakness, and love him none the less for his imperfections ? 
 The need of intellectual companionship in the home is a power- 
 ful motor, impelling you to set the educational system of women 
 on a satisfactory basis. But this is not the only force at work. 
 A stronger one, probably, is the natural desire of women not to 
 be left on a confessedly lower level than yourselves, to say 
 nothing of your own honest convictions that educated woman is 
 best fitted by her counsel, sympathy, and encouragement, to 
 strengthen your own efforts in mental and moral advancement. 
 These forces are silently, but most surely, and irresistibly, 
 influencing thought and conduct. Every graduate who leaves 
 these walls, if he is himself imbued with the true spirit of learn- 
 ing, of necessity becomes an advocate of female education. 
 
 The difficulties before you in putting your desires into 
 practice are neither few nor unimportant, but I doubt not that 
 the women upon whom the spirit of knowledge and wisdom has 
 already descended, will be your strongest supporters in those 
 domestic reforms which may favor the sound teaching of useful 
 knowledge to the females of India. Tour most ancient law- 
 giver, though his ideas of woman's fitness for learning were not 
 in accord with modern thought, forcibly impresses upon you the 
 obligation of doing honor to woman. He says, " "Where females 
 are honored, there the Deities are pleased, but where they are 
 dishonored, there all religious acts become fruitless,"* and again 
 ^' where female relations are made miserable, the family of him 
 who makes them so, very soon wholly perishes, but where they 
 are not unhappy, the family always increases.'' How can you 
 honor and add to the happiness of your womankind better than 
 by making them partakers of your intellectual pursuits, as well 
 as the sharers in your domestic joys and sorrows ? 
 
 It is expected that wherever your duties may call you, you 
 • Majiay»— Dbarma Sutra, Chapter III. 
 
l82 Vnwersity of Madras. 
 
 "will take an intelligent interest in tlie management of local 
 affairs. The extension of the principal of Local Government, 
 in accordance with the views of the Viceroy, will give to all 
 graduates of the University, either as electors, or representa- 
 tives of their fellow-citizens in local assemblies, the necessary 
 opportunities of showing their capacity in leading public opinion 
 or in administration. You will forgive me, if I remind you that 
 
 a careful study of the social conditions of the 
 Boi^^nd^o^. community amongst whom your lot may be cast 
 
 is absolutely essential, if you would play a useful 
 part in local administration. In the Census Report of this 
 Presidency, published in 1883, you will find a vast number of 
 hard facts and stubborn figures, over which you may ponder with 
 the greatest advantage. These facts relate not only to the country 
 as a whole, but to every inhabited village and town. They 
 bring before yon the numbers, sexes and ages of the people, 
 their civil and conjugal condition, their degree of education, 
 language, religion, caste, or nationality, and occupations. Your 
 first duty should be to make yourselves thoroughly acquainted 
 with the actual condition of the people in these respects, 
 as without such knowledge your personal influence and activity 
 may be employed in wrong directions, and become positively 
 mischievous, instead of beneficial. It is one of the unavoidable 
 A blemish of bleniishes of the caste system peculiar to this 
 the caste sys- country, that men's interests should tend to gravi- 
 ^°** tate almost wholly towards the family, the clan, 
 
 or caste ; but, to be useful and impartial in the adminis- 
 tration of local affairs, you must widen your sympathies, 
 and look mainly to the common good of those who make you 
 their mouth-piece. It may be well to caution you that the gift 
 of fluent speech is, in itself, but a poor provision for one engaged 
 in local government. What you want is accurate knowledge, 
 and a fixed determination to do justice to all classes of your local 
 community. 
 
 In every town or village, you will find work to be done, 
 
 which shall benefit your fellow-men. The insanitary conditions 
 
 abounding everywhere, and which are directly, or indirectly, the 
 
 cause of much preventible suffering and mortality, call for your 
 
 thoughtful attention as to the most practicable means of dealing 
 
 with them. It is fitting that men on whom this 
 
 ^^^■iTrmB Ij'^iiiversity has conferred Degrees should at all 
 
 times take a leading part in reforms that may tend 
 
 to make a community more healthy, happy, and prosperous. The 
 
 care of the public health should be your first consideration, for a 
 
1884.— The Honorable W. R. Cornish. 183 
 
 aiokly community, or one in which the bread-winners are cut off 
 in the prime of their days, must always be miserable and 
 impoverished. And when the people shall have been shown the 
 importance of cleanly habits as affecting their health, you may 
 well direct their attention to some other customs which have an 
 important bearing on their happiness and prosperity. Look for 
 Profuse ex- instance at the custom, so universal, of profuse ex- 
 penditure on penditure on the occasion of marriages and family 
 marriage. ceremonial. The wealthy may indulge in such a 
 
 custom without hurt to their estate, but see how pernicious is the 
 example to the lower classes, when a poor man, apeing his rich 
 brother, does not hesitate to sell himself, and all belonging to 
 him, into life-long slavery, for the price of a wedding feast ! 
 The light-heartedness with which people, otherwise thrifty and 
 self-denying, will incur overwhelming debts, sanctioned by cus- 
 tom and usage, is a matter that strikes strangers to your country- 
 men with astonishment, and you may well use your personal 
 influence in discouraging habits which lie at the root of three- 
 fourths of the chronic poverty of the Indian people. In these 
 and other matters, in which you would be an example to your 
 fellow-men, remember the advice of the poet : — 
 " Be useful where thou livesfc, that they may 
 Both want, and wish thy pleasing presence still. 
 Kindness, good parts, great places are the way 
 To compass this. Find ont men's wants and will 
 And meet them there. All worldly joys go less. 
 To the one joy of doing kindnesses." 
 
 And in battling against customs injurious to health, material 
 prosperity and morals, I may remind you in the words of John 
 Milton that 
 
 ** Peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than "War." 
 
 Indian philosophers of old were remarkable for the two excellent 
 qualities of "plain living^' and "high thinking.'^ We live now 
 in the days of a higher civilization, and in an age when men 
 spend much of their substance in luxury, or on the non-essentials 
 of existence. I would not have you depart from the simple 
 habits, inherited from a long line of ancestors, and which the 
 experience of countless generations has proved to be best suited 
 to the inhabitants of tropical lands. Food and clothing must 
 
 vary in different countries, as climate and other 
 
 Alcohol and conditions vary, but in adhering to the simplicity 
 
 tiS*to\ealth. " of life practised by your forefathers, you will have 
 
 the sanction and approval of some of the most 
 eminent of modern scientists, who have come to the conclusion, 
 hat alcoholic drinks and strong meats are not essential to 
 
184 University of Madras. 
 
 health, life, or mental and physical vigor, while the abuse of 
 strong drinks, at any rate, has proved a curse- to the Northern 
 peoples. I would have you, in the words of the poet, 
 
 " Keep all thy native good, and naturalize 
 All foreign of that name ; but scorn their ill." 
 
 The simplicity of your habits in eating and drinking, which 
 climatic considerations have imposed* upon you, has had the 
 advantage of enabling you to solve a problem which still troubles 
 and perplexes more advanced nations. I allude to the mainten- 
 ance of the poor. India, to its credit be it said. 
 The mainten- ]ias needed no poor law. The obligation to feed 
 poor. ^ * *^® poor, and more unfortunate members of a family 
 has always been regarded as a sacred duty by its 
 principal members. The simplicity of your domestic life has 
 enabled even the poorest members of society to fulfil these obli- 
 gations, and I can vouch for the fact that they are fulfilled 
 except when great natural calamity causes a failure of the food 
 supplies, and there is no bread to give to him that asketh. 
 During the great famine of 1876-77 there were not wanting 
 critics, (chiefly of the carping order) who protested that the 
 wise and humane policy of the Madras Government in State 
 relief would result in the chronic pauperisation of the industrial 
 classes. The prophecy was a cruel libel on the toilers and 
 workers of your countrymen, and women, and has been completely 
 falsified, for the broad truth remains, that immediately on the 
 cessation of the food scarcity, the people everywhere resumed 
 their normal habits of providing for the necessities of their 
 dependants, and for years past the State has incurred no 
 expenditure in the relief of Indian paupers. Having seen the 
 people of the land in times of prosperity, and also 
 f the^ndian?* bowed down in adversity, under the influence of a 
 terrible national calamity, let me add that I enter- 
 tain a profound and lasting respect for their many virtues, and a 
 high admiration of their keen sense of self-respect. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, before concluding, I must add yet a 
 few last words. Time will not suflfice me to touch upon a variety 
 of subjects of deep and vital import, but I should like you to 
 understand that your educational training, ending with the 
 ceremonial of to-day, has been conducted with the view of 
 making you better and stronger men, physically, morally, and 
 
 intellectually. If that training has been success- 
 li^ofiSiie*^^ ful, your future lives will prove. As you have 
 
 living examples of graduates of former years, many 
 of wkom I am pleased to see around me, leading noble, pure. 
 
1884>.—The Honorable W. R. Cornish. 185 
 
 and honorable lives, filling the highest stations in State service, 
 and in the learned professions, with the unqualified approbation 
 and respect of all who know them, so we hope you will serve 
 as examples worthy of imitation to those who come after you, 
 and become men of light and leading in your generation. If 
 you bear in mind that no man can live wholly for himself, that 
 in your daily lives duty should take the place of inclination, that 
 self-sacrifice should be the law of your being, and that selfish 
 objects and motives should find no response in your hearts, you 
 will have risen to a high conception of your responsibilities, in 
 connection with the days that may be in store for you. In George 
 Herbert's words, once more, 
 
 " Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high, 
 So shalt tlioa humble and magnanimous be ; 
 Sink not in spirit : who aimeth at the sky 
 Shoots higher much, than he that means a tree." 
 
 But it will happen to you, as to all of us, that intellectual culture 
 or scientific research alone will not satisfy your 
 he?p^^^*^™* spiritual cravings for deeper knowledge of the 
 mysteries for life. This University, very properly, 
 does not deal with theological questions, but leaves every man 
 free to worship his Creator, and to seek His help and guidance 
 in the manner that seems best in accord with his hereditary 
 training or honest convictions, but this much I may say, that 
 your education will have been but of small benefit to you, if it 
 has not strengthened and expanded your views of the Divine 
 Government of the Universe. H. E. the Viceroy, in opening a 
 Science Hall in Calcutta, a few days ago, concluded his address 
 in words which express my meaning so fully that I cannot do 
 better than repeat them. Lord Ripon is reported to have said : — 
 ^'When the widest generalizations of science are reached, and 
 its loftiest discoveries are mastered, there will still remain, above 
 r.nd beyond them, all those mysteries of life which prove to us 
 that the utmost knowledge of the outward universe will never 
 solve the greatest problem of life, and that we must look else- 
 where for that help which is to enable us to fulfil our work on 
 earth, for the glory of Him who is the Ruler, not only of the 
 world around us, but of the hearts and spirits of men." 
 
 I have nothing to add to these noble and touching words of 
 one of the truest friends of the people of India, except that it 
 remains for all of us to seek the Divine help we need, in earnest 
 prayer, and spiritual communion with the Most High. 
 
 " For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Botfh for themselves, and those who ct^ll them friend." ' 
 
 24 
 
186 University of Madras. 
 
 TWENTY-EIGHTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By The Honoeablb P. O'SuLLiY^tN.) 
 
 Gentlemen, — I have been deputed by His Excellency, tlio 
 Chancellor, to address a few words to you on behalf of the 
 Senate ; to congratulate you upon the diplomas you have just 
 obtained, to measure the prospects before you, and to indicate 
 the course you should take, the better to enable you to fulfil 
 and keep the promises you have made. I do heartily con- 
 gratulate you upon the success which you have gained, and 
 upon your adoption as sons of the University of Madras. That 
 What success success implies the possession by you of qualities 
 in examina- which give no Small assurance of fitness for the 
 tions implies. yarious callings to which you are destined. Apart 
 from special studies to qualify yourselves for particular avoca- 
 tions, you must have applied yourselves with ardour and earnest- 
 ness to the acquisition of knowledge, and you have given proof 
 that you are sufiiciently intelligent to use and apply the know- 
 ledge so acquired. You have proved that you are capable of 
 sustained application to scholastic work, that yon have an 
 aptitude for intellectual studies and are not unwilling to have 
 your knowledge examined and tested. You have measured 
 yourselves with your equals in age, and have reason to be satis- 
 fied with the result. You have shewn that you can subject 
 your inclination to discipline and control. You will go into the 
 world with advantages of intellectual and moral preparatory 
 equipment which ought to prove serviceable in your future 
 career; but in order to maintain your vantage ground you will 
 need to shew that you are equal to the constantly recurring 
 demands upon your mental powers and resources which active 
 employments require. You will be frequently confronted with 
 practical difficulties which you must meet and overcome, and 
 as your experience will grow with your responsibilities, you will 
 gradually acquire the requisite skill and confidence to enable 
 you to discharge the several duties which will devolve upon 
 you, as others before you have done. 
 
 It is frequently said the number of persons trained under 
 the auspices of this University exceeds the num- 
 grSaa^!^ °^ ber of suitable employments within their reach. 
 vSo far as I can judge, this is not more true as 
 regards this University than most other Universities. In Eng- 
 land the commercial value of a University Degree is not highly 
 appraised. The number of persons who have graduated in the 
 
1885.— TAe Eonorahle P. 0' Sullivan. 187 
 
 University of Madras, since its foundation in 1857, not including 
 the accessions of to-day, is about 1,355, which gives an annual 
 average of not more than 50. Only twenty-seven persons took 
 degrees in medicine during that period. It may be true that 
 many persons are not yet prepared to employ a high class of 
 medical advisers, and that the great bulk of the people cannot 
 afford to do so. It is also found that practitioners in the 
 Subordinate Medical Department under Government are resorted 
 to for advice in the various localities where they perform 
 their duties. Making all reasonable allowance for these impedi- 
 ments, it is evident that, under more favourable conditions, 
 a greatly increased number of persons of high attainments 
 ought to be in practice in various parts of the country to minis- 
 ter to the ailments of a population numbering upwards of thirty 
 millions. It may, I think, be expected that the extension of the 
 area of education, the increase in material prosperity which has 
 begun, and is likely to continue, the development of agricultural, 
 manufacturing and commercial industries and the increasing 
 wants of the people, who are entering upon a higher phase of 
 civilisation, will open careers for an increasing number of the 
 educational classes. There is also a growing tendency to re- 
 strict the conditions upon which the right of access to some of 
 the professions is founded, and the Government of Madras is 
 disposed to reserve some at least of the more important public 
 offices for graduates. After May of this year no persons will be 
 permitted to appear for the Tests in the Revenue Higher Grade 
 who have not passed the First in Arts Examination, or who 
 are not graduates of an Indian University, except persons now 
 in the service of Government who will be allowed to appear for. 
 examination in the Revenue Test Higher grade up to and includ- 
 ing the year 1889. And it is the declared policy of the British 
 Government, of whatever party, Tory or Liberal, Whig or 
 Radical, to avail itself of the services of natives of this country 
 to a greater extent in future than it has or perhaps could have 
 done in the past. If you take these circumstances into con- 
 sideration — and many others might be mentioned leading to the 
 same conclusion — I think yon will have no reason to regret that 
 upon merely practical grounds you have elected to pass into the 
 world of work and action through the portals of the University. 
 
 You will each of you adopt some profession or calling. 
 
 Whatever that calling may be, you should devote 
 tailr*^^^ *^ ^®' to it your highest powers and best energies. Do 
 
 not consider mere details unworthy of your atten- 
 tion. There are few occupations which do not require a close 
 
188 University of Madras. 
 
 and intimate acquaintance vritli details which it is needful 
 to master in order to be prepared for the unexpected which 
 so frequently happens. The Duke of Wellington said he had 
 passed a considerable part of his life guessing what was on the 
 other side of a hill. In the exercise of your callings you should 
 bear yourselves with fidelity to those who employ you, with 
 candour and consideration to those who are associated with you, 
 and with integrity to all, always maintaining a high standard of 
 honour and rectitude, and always disdaining by unworthy acts 
 to obtain advantages for yourselves to push yourselves forward 
 in the general struggle. A habit of introspection will enable you 
 to perceive wherein you have deviated, and help you to keep in 
 the prescribed course. 
 
 It is unlikely, even if it be desirable, that you should be 
 
 indifferent as to the political and social results of 
 
 Offer sound public measures submitted for general considera- 
 
 G^emmenfc and ^i^n. It is not Only the desire but also the interest 
 
 the people. of the Government that the people should be well 
 
 governed, and that they should be contented, happy 
 and prosperous. This is also your interest and your wish, and the 
 Government is therefore entitled to rely upon the assistance 
 and co-operation of all enlightened men, and especially of such 
 as have received a high educational training, in its efforts to 
 promote good administration. All the best efforts of all classes 
 are needed to render the resources of the country sufficient for 
 the expanding wants of the population, to prevent the recurrence 
 of famine, to mitigate the rigours of epidemics, to conserve 
 .the public health, and to promote civilizing influences. Your 
 duty will be, whenever fitting opportunity offers, to give honest 
 and sound advice, so far as your knowledge and observation 
 enable you to do, to the Government as well as to your fellow- 
 countrymen. It is important on the one hand, that the Govern- 
 ment should be informed of the wants and feelings of the 
 people, and, on the other, that the intentions of the Government 
 should be fairly and truthfully represented to the governed. In 
 dealing with political questions there is always the danger of 
 being misled by words and phrases and of allowing them to 
 exercise an undue influence. You should endeavour to get at 
 
 the root and substance of the matter in controversy 
 and^Bee cSar^* ^^'^^ ^™^® *^ time. Endeavour, to use the words 
 
 of an eminent living writer, '^ to think straight and 
 see clear,'" and, having formed your opinion after a careful exer- 
 cise of your judgment, abide by that opinion until you see 
 reason to change it. 
 
1885.— 27ie Eoncyrabh P. 0' Sullivan. l89 
 
 Kecent legislation has conferred large powers upon local 
 bodies. If these powers are exercised in an en- 
 ofYocafbo'diet lightened spirit the problem of Local Self-Govern- 
 ment will be, in a great measure, settled, but the 
 difficulties in the way are so numerous and formidable tliat 
 nothing short of the strenuous and zealous exertions of the 
 intelligent and wealthy classes of the community, acting in concert 
 for the public welfare, will render Local Government an imme- 
 diate success. If the duties now entrusted to Municipal and 
 District Boards are performed in a satisfactory way, doubtless 
 other and larger powers will be added, and the governing 
 authorities will be left at liberty to devote more attention than 
 they can now do to other departments of administration. In the 
 development of education the Local Boards have taken a warm 
 and increasing interest. There were in the year 1883-84 about 
 106,000 pupils receiving education in schools maintained in Muni- 
 cipalities in this Presidency, and about 342,000 pupils under 
 Local Fund Boards. 
 
 There are three questions which at present excite consider- 
 able attention in the Hindu commuuity in this 
 ta^quesSr P^^* ^^ India, namely, the education of females, 
 the education of the poorer classes, and the re- 
 marriage of widows. Female education has, in recent years, 
 made noteworthy progress in this Presidency, and 
 Femal« Bdn- something has been done towards educating the 
 poor. There is no difference of opinion, I believe, 
 as to the expediency of these reforms, and what is henceforth 
 wanted is more energetic action. The number of Hindu girls who 
 attended the various Schools in the Madras Presidency for the 
 year 1883-84 was, in round numbers, 47,000 ; of these 31,000 were 
 Hindus and nearly 2,000 Mahomedans. Upon the re-marriage 
 question there are strong differences of opinion ; 
 widbws*^^^ ®^ there is the party of reform which is desirous of 
 removing all impediments, social and legal, to the 
 marriage of widows ; and there is the party of resistance, which 
 is opposed to change and adheres to the old ways. It is esti- 
 mated that upwards of twenty millions of human beings are 
 directly concerned in the settlement of the marriage question. 
 They are now, by the pressure of prevailing opinion and usage, 
 doomed to an ungenial, if not an ascetic existence, from which 
 many Hindus would wish to save them. The party of reform 
 includes many of the most distinguished Native gentlemen in 
 the Presidency ; a large if not preponderating proportion of the 
 educated class support it, and some of the most eminent of 
 
190 University of Madras. 
 
 graduates of ttis University have placed themselves at the head 
 of the movement for reform. The matter is undergoing discus- 
 sion and examination and time, which finally determines the 
 result of examinations and discussions, seems to have already 
 taken part with the innovators. Many other questions will, no 
 doubt, engage your attention from time to time as you advance 
 
 in life. If you take the part which, from your 
 fo?doi^^good.^ education and antecedents, may be expected, you 
 
 will have numerous opportunities of rendering 
 valuable services to your countrymen, many of whom will be 
 glad to be guided by your counsel and example. A group of 
 earnest, educated, high-minded men working in union for the 
 advancement of the people and enforcing upon all classes pru- 
 dence, thrift, uprightness and fair dealing in the conduct of 
 their affairs, would exercise an influence for good upon the 
 people beyond what is possible, I believe, in most other countries 
 by like means. Some of you will probably, in the course of 
 time, attain to positions of power and influence ; as your power 
 extends so will your responsibilities. If your lives are pure 
 and your aims lofty, you will find not only admirers but 
 imitators ; and you will thus contribute to raise the general 
 standard of morality and civilization. Such of you as may not 
 be destined to keep pace with your contemporaries in the race 
 for distinction will nevertheless be called upon to discharge 
 honourable and useful functions, and a good example set by you 
 is not likely to be disregarded. Some of you will probably 
 devote yourselves to the education of youth, — an occupation 
 which demands the highest qualifications and the successful 
 exercise of which will be attended with feelings of satisfaction 
 and pleasure exceeding those to be derived from most other 
 callings. Many of your predecessors, past graduates of this 
 University, have, I believe, amply fulfilled the expectations 
 which had been formed respecting them. The improvements in 
 the social, economical and political condition of the people which 
 have taken place during the last twenty years maj^, to some 
 extent at least, be traced to their labours. Some of them have 
 given much time, sometimes snatched from professional and 
 official work, to the discharge of Municipal and other local 
 duties, and a still greater number have taken a creditable part 
 in social movements designed to promote the general happiness. 
 Many of them have, directly and indirectly, contributed to the 
 formation of a public opinion which is, on the wliole, directed 
 to moderate, wise and wholesome purposes. But a vast deal 
 remains to be done to improve the condition of the people. To 
 accomplish this, railways and other means of communication will 
 
1886. — Rt. Eon, Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, 191 
 
 have to b© made anl extended, irrigation works constructed, 
 agricult»ral and manufacturing products stimulated, and faci- 
 lities provided for exporting the produce of the country. All 
 efforts in this direction will, I doubt not, have your sympathy 
 and support. 
 
 Whatever your future lot may be, do not be nnmindful that 
 The reputa- ^^® reputation of the University, no less than your 
 tion of the Uni- own and that of your relatives and friends, is involved 
 varsity. jjj your behaviour. Be careful to do nothing tend- 
 
 ing to tarnish that reputation or to lower the good name which 
 you have hitherto maiutained. It is not in the ordinary course 
 of events likely that you can all attain to eminence or distinction, 
 but it is within the power of all of you to be useful^ faithful 
 and trustworthy in your respective callings in life. 
 
 TWENTY-NINTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Tbe Right Honorable Mountstuart Elphinstonb 
 Grant Duff, CLE., F.R,S.) 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — My first duty is to congratulate 
 upon their degrees those students who have just been admitted 
 u> them, and to express a hope that they will keep the promises 
 which they have this day made. 
 
 My second duty is, in accordance with custom, to address 
 some observations to them and to this assembly. 
 Ind^s.^^*'***^ ^ have, however, a very great deal to say. It is 
 the only opportunity I have had, or shall have, 
 before I bid farewell to India, of directly addressing a class 
 which, although at present far from numerous, only 46 out of a 
 million"^ in the population of this, the most educated of the 
 Presidencies, is growing, and ought steadily to grow, in impor- 
 tance, — a class which nothing but mistakes on its own part, 
 aided by amentia and dementia in some other quarters, can pre- 
 vent being an instrument of infinite good to Southern India- 
 Having then a very great deal to say, I cannot possibly put 
 it into the brief limits of an address, to which even the most 
 indulgent of you could listen on a hot March afternoon. 
 
 I will accordingly merely read a paragraph or two for form's 
 sake, and let my reflections find their way to you, not by the ear, 
 but by the eye. 
 
 * 38 out of a million of the population if we add Mysore and Travancore, 
 from which States we draw a great number of our graduates. 
 
192 University of Madras. 
 
 And first I would ask, — 
 
 Now that you have got your degrees, what do you propose 
 to do? 
 
 Some of you will go into the service of Government. The 
 service of Government is a very creditable calling, 
 Ser^ce and we to whom the administration is at present 
 
 confided have given practical proofs of our desire 
 to see the number of graduates in the service of Government con- 
 siderably increased. 
 
 Still, Government employment can only absorb a very limited 
 number of you. Few things are more disastrous for a country, 
 and few more flagitious in a Government, than to create places 
 wholesale, to meet the wishes of aspirants to an income. 
 
 But some of you will say ' some places already existing but 
 virtually closed to natives, will be opened to them. ' Undoubt- 
 edly they will. The policy as to that was laid down by your, 
 and my, masters long ago. We hear much childish chatter in 
 favour of going faster, and not less unwise, though happily, 
 fewer, utterances in favour of going more slowy in that direction, 
 but all such have not the slightest effect upon the progress of 
 events. The thoughtful opinions of thoughtful men who have 
 studied the subject, and whose characters guarantee their good 
 faith, are and always will be treated very differently — as you 
 may have gathered from the Viceroy's speech at the Pier— the 
 other day. 
 
 The main object of the Indian, as of every other civilized 
 Government, must be to get for the country which it governs 
 the best possible administration at the cheapest rate. To that 
 object all minor considerations, such as questions of race or 
 colour, must be subordinated. 
 
 But the problem in this country is an infinitely difficult one, 
 and we have got a very little way towards solving 
 A difaoult -^^ when we have merely made general allegations 
 to the effect that native labour is cheaper than 
 European, or that many more natives are fitted to take some con- 
 siderable part in the Government than was the case thirty years 
 ago, nor do we get a bit further by declaiming about the excel- 
 lent work which the old Haileybury Civil Service, and the new 
 Competitive Civil Service have done for this country. "We must 
 have many more good natives in office, and we must have a far 
 higher average of statesmanlike acquirement than we have ever 
 yet had in the Covenanted Civil Service, though we may very 
 possibly a good deal diminish its numbers. But if you want 
 
1886.— ii;^. Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. 103 
 
 men of mature, trained, ability, and of a much higher order of 
 merit than the very fair average of merit we have got, what 
 you want must be paid for, and it is a costly article. These, 
 and a thousand other considerations, which cross each other, and 
 complicate the problem, will have to engage the anxious atten- 
 tion, first of the joint Committee of the Lords and Commons, 
 secondly oi: the Executive and Legislative authorities in England 
 and in India. 
 
 We may assume, however, quite safely that more appoint- 
 ments, and, especially, more of the better appointments will be 
 o-radually opened to natives, but, after all, the number of good 
 appointments in this country or continent is, and will continue 
 to be, surprisingly few. The overwhelming majority of appoint- 
 ments under Government is already in the possession of natives, 
 and I do not think the rapid infiltration of natives, even into 
 the Civil Service, has yet attracted sufficiently the attention of 
 the public. If you deduct from the small balance of offices prac- 
 tically closed to natives those which must belong to Europeans, 
 not in virtue of their being the descendants of conquerors, but 
 in virtue of that education of ages, which has made the Aryan of 
 the West what he is, the number of new appointments to be 
 opened will be as nothing to those, who will desire to occupy 
 them. I know there are people who say — "No doubt for the 
 time, every race in India including the Aryans of the East, 
 requires the guidance of the Aryans of the West, but a day will 
 soon come when that will not be so.'' I think the best answer I 
 ever knew made to that statement, was made by a very remarka- 
 ble man, himself a native of India, and belonging to one of 
 your most ancient religions, who observed to me : " I often hear 
 talk of that kind among my countrymen, but when I remark 
 how short are the strides in advance, which are made by the 
 East, compared to those which are made simultaneously by the 
 West, I am reminded of the man who said : — ' In two years I 
 shall be as old as my elder brother !' " 
 
 Even, however, if this were not so, if one could see 
 dimly on the horizon a time when India could obtain almost any 
 of its present advantages, without importing into its administra- 
 tion a large proportion of trained ability from Europe, the 
 numbers of those of you who could find valuable Government 
 situations would be not very enormous. 
 
 It will be interesting to observe what proportion of the 
 appointments vacated by the Aryans of the West, passes into 
 the hands of the Aryans of the East, and what proportion falls 
 to the natives of the country properly so-called — men whose 
 
194 University of Madras. 
 
 ancestors were here, as it would seem, before the two branches 
 of the Aryan race parted on the highlands of Central Asia. 
 
 Before I pass from the subject of Government employment, 
 I should like to observe that there is a branch of 
 wrhiine ' the lower education, in which you, gentlemen, who 
 
 represent the higher education are not quite so 
 proficient as could be desired. One of your Examiners lately 
 informed me that, out of ninety-three papers recently sent up to 
 him, ninety would have been rejected at South Kensington, as 
 being too badly written. To candidates for Grovernment employ- 
 ment, this is a matter of life and death. We don^t want men in 
 our offices, however good their degrees may be, who do not write 
 large, clear, legible hands. In England, ever since the days of 
 Lord Palmerston, this accomplishment has been considered one 
 of first-rate importance in our public offices, and it is mere 
 common sense that it should be so considered. 
 
 But what is to become of the unsuccessful candidate3 for 
 Government employment ? Education will absorb a respectable, 
 and an ever-increasing, contingent, while the Bar will also 
 absorb a good many. 
 
 Many of you seem to have a quite peculiar turn for law, and, 
 as law in this country tends to conform itself always more and 
 more, not only to written reason, but to intelligibly expressed 
 written reason, the greater becomes its educative power over the 
 community. The calm pressure of our Codes will do, I think, 
 much for India, which saints and sages have failed to do. *' Quid 
 leges sine moribus ? " said the Latin poet, but there is a sense in 
 which the converse is true : " Quid mores sine legihus ?'^ 
 
 I should like to see many more of you turn your attention 
 to civil engineering, and, especially, as I think my 
 _ Civil Engineer- predecessor, the Duke of Buckingham, advised 
 you, to hydraulic engineering. If ever there was 
 a region of the world, in which it was expedient to manage to 
 perfection the supply of that element, which pardons no mistakes, 
 it is the Presidency of Madras, and the adjoining Province of 
 Mysore. I have heard it estimated by one entitled to speak with 
 authority, that there are some ninety thousand tanks in Southern 
 India, and, as we know well here, a tank in this country often 
 means what a lake does in the language of the West. We have 
 tanks, which recall the Virgilian phrase : 
 
 " Fluctibns et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino." 
 That seems strange to Englishmen who have not visited India, 
 and who, remembering a saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, think of 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon. Mountstaart Elphinsfone Grant Duff. 195 
 
 a tank as a little reservoir to supply a cottage with drinking 
 water ! 
 
 Then it is impossible to urge too strongly the claims upon 
 The Medical J^^ ^^ *^® Medical sciences, and of the Medical 
 sciences and the art. When Surgeon-General Furnell spoke wise 
 Medical art. words on that subject in this pLice eight years ago, 
 there was not a single Brahmin practising Medicine in Southern 
 India. It is gratifying to know that there are now seven, of 
 whom three are graduates, while four have passed their examina- 
 tions, so that a beginning has been made; but we want the 
 present numbers multiplied over and over again. We ought 
 indeed to have many hundred trained men, and women, doctors, 
 in this Presidency. That however is a '^ Counsel of perfection." 
 It may well be that the times are not ripe for adding very 
 'hugely to our highly trained Medical practitioners ; but a class 
 is wanted — imperatively wanted — of men and women, who have 
 a certain tincture of European science, and who, accepting the 
 methods of the Vythians, wherever they are sensible, and even 
 Avherever they are harmless, should push them aside only when 
 they are distinctly and obviously mischievous. Who but you 
 can, if you do not furnish, at least promote, the creation of this 
 most useful band of intermediaries, and who has a right to 
 advise you so to do, if not the grandson of the author of the 
 Materia Indie a P 
 
 Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas, the admirable saying two 
 hundred years ago of Menage to Balzac, would, if it were taken 
 to heart, do more good to India, aye, and to England, than half 
 the winged words, which the most distinguished orators have 
 uttered in our days. 
 
 There are a thousand ways in which your co-operation 
 might aid the Government to do things which no 
 
 W.*^'^^*"'"''"^ Government can do by itself . The annual mor- 
 tality in this Presidency, for example, from fever 
 
 alone, is very considerably over two hundred thousand. It 
 
 distances the mortality from cholera, even in the worst cholera 
 
 years. 
 
 Well, a great many of these lives could be quite certainly 
 The virtue of saved by the use of the cinchona alkaloids, and 
 cmchona alka- what is more, a prodigious number of other lives, 
 loids. which are not absolutely destroyed by fever, might 
 
 be made much happier and more useful, if only you would devote 
 yourselves, when occasion serves, to spreading a knowledge of 
 the virtues of the cinchona alkaloids amongst your less educated 
 
196 tinwersity of Madras. 
 
 neighbours. The Government will soon be in a position to 
 furaisli the most admirable febrifuge at a fabulously cheap rate, 
 but who is to persuade the people ? Who but you ? 
 
 Then there is conservancy and its kindred practices. There 
 are numbers of you who understand why we Euro- 
 tion?**^ sanita- pe^ug ^^.g gQ anxious to improve the town and 
 village sanitation of India, but improvement walks 
 with lagging feet, for want of non-official missionaries of sanita- 
 tion, up and down the land. What greater benefit could its most 
 educated class confer, than to spread the elementary principles of 
 sound views on these questions which are vital in more senses 
 than one ? 
 
 But to return to my inquiry — What is to become of those 
 of you, who do not get employment under Government ? Well, 
 there is agriculture. 
 
 I am glad to see many indirect results of the expenditure 
 
 A • itn ^* Saidapet beginning to show themselves ; but 
 
 gn u re. j g^^Q^^^ ^-j^^ ^^ g^^ ^ much larger portion of 
 
 the educated intelligence of South India directed towards the 
 land, and engaged in what is, alike from its historical asso- 
 ciations and from the nature of things, one of the most dignified 
 of all occupations, far more dignified, for example, than all 
 but the higher grades of scriptory labour. Speaking the other 
 day at Shiyali, I said : " I am particularly glad to have made 
 to-day the acquaintance of Mr. Krishnasawmy Mudaliyar, with 
 whose name and good work I have long been familiar. I only 
 wish we had two or three such men in every taluk in the 
 Madras Presidency." 
 
 How then do we stand ? There is Government employ- 
 " A vast num. ^^nt, Education, the Bar, Civil Engineering, the 
 ber of other Medical profession. Agriculture. All these are 
 callings." admirable things; but a country in which its 
 
 educated class does not devote itself to a vast number of other 
 callings, is quite unfit to keep its place abreast of other countries. 
 It is with a view partly to draw into the stream of progress 
 classes not now reached by almost any of our educational agen- 
 cies, and partly to direct into profitable channels a considerable 
 amount of activity and intelligence, which now strains forward 
 to a University degree, and finds it, when acquired, the barrenest 
 of barren honours, that my honorable colleagues and I have set 
 on foot the large scheme of technical and industrial education, 
 which has lately been brought before the notice of the South 
 Indian public. 
 
1886. — Rt, lion, Mounistuari Elphinatone Grant Duff. 197 
 
 Putting aside the sciences and their various sub-divisions, 
 upon which there will be examinations as a 
 cltiou"^^*^ ^^^ matter of course, there will be examinations 
 on such practical subjects as earth- work, road- 
 work and railway work, bridge-making, drawing, painting 
 and design, modelling, wood, and copper-plate, engraving 
 and etching, carriage-building, boot, and shoe-making, jeweller's 
 work, tobacco-manufacturing, dress-making, lace-making, bread- 
 making, and a great variety of other subjects. For every 
 one oE these — sixty-six, or thereabouts in all, — a most careful 
 syllabus, explaining what has to be studied and how to study it, 
 has been drawn up by experienced persons, the greatest care 
 being taken that both the theory and practice of each subject 
 shall be mastered. In the cookery examination, for example, not 
 only will a knowledge of the theory be fully tested by written 
 papers, and viva voce, but the candidate will be obliged to prepare, 
 cook, dish-up, and serve, a complete dinner for four persons, under 
 the immediate supervision of the Examiners. In instituting these 
 examinations, we have not been thinking of the extension of 
 knowledge and the enlargement of the mind. That belongs to the 
 University. We have been thinking of science viewed in its 
 application to manufactures and industries. We do not want, 
 however, to go to the other extreme, and to train up mere rule- 
 of- thumb workers. We desire that every art, however humble, 
 shall be exercised in due subordination to the particular science, 
 or sciences, within whose domain it falls. Certificates of various 
 kinds, diplomas, prizes and scholarships will be assigned to the 
 successful candidates in the various examinations, according to 
 the rules laid down in the official notification. 
 
 It is to be hoped that the students of all the higher branches 
 — such as applied mechanics, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, 
 forestry — will possess that amount of general education which 
 is implied by passing at least the Matriculation Examination of 
 this University, not to say the First in Arts, but a great many 
 youths whom nature never meant for University studies, will, it 
 is hoped, turn aside from a road that can lead to nothing but 
 grievous disappointment, and devote themselves to highly honour- 
 able and lucrative careers. I could wish that this scheme, 
 and the commercial teaching inaugurated by Mr. Adam of 
 Patcheappa's College, while being useful to every class of the 
 community, might be specially useful to the Mahommedans, who, 
 while they shew in this Presidency, a considerable turn for trade, 
 show also a curious indisposition to book-learning. Of the 1,349 
 Bachelors of Arts, whom we had in 1884, Dr. Cornish told us. 
 
lO^ tfniversiiy of Madras. 
 
 some of you will remember, that 899 were Bralimins^ whilst our 
 large Mahommedan population^ nearly two millions strong, gave 
 us only seven graduates. And yet the Brahmins are a mere 
 fraction, one twenty-sixth part of the Hindu population of the 
 Presidency, about 1,122,000 in all ! 
 
 What this country wants above all things is material pros- 
 perity — the mother of all other prosperity in our 
 perity!""^^^^^" imperfect world. The Government, over "which I 
 preside, has steadily pushed in this direction. 
 How well the real leaders of the people, the clear-headed prac- 
 tical men of business know it, was made clear to me during my 
 first two years here, when I visited every district, from Tinnevelly 
 to the Chilka lake, and heard their own ideas from their own lips. 
 But even in a country which has had such a history as this, and 
 where the sphere of Government is so wide, it is very little that 
 a Government can do towards creating material prosperity. It 
 can show the way to wealth. It can strike the fetters off industry. 
 It can improve communications. It can educate. It can set its 
 face, as a flint, against all the impostors, who would derogate 
 from the sacred simplicity of Free Trade, " the international 
 law of the Almighty,*' as it has been well called. 
 
 It is, however, the educated, or relatively educated, people 
 Baise India ^^ ^^® land, that must drag South India, as they 
 ftromthe slough have dragged England, originally an incomparably 
 of poverty. poorer country, out of the slough of poverty. 
 
 Less and less, I am afraid, must you look to the English 
 Capitalist. The persons who write and declaim 
 Look less to in favour of large political changes in India, pro- 
 itSbt.^'^^^^" d"^ce no effect upon the Government, but they do 
 produce, and, I fear, they will evermore and more 
 produce, an effect upon the English Capitalist, who, if he once 
 were to get into his head that the i-eal opinion of India is repre- 
 sented by some persons, who profess to represent it, would as 
 soon think of lending to her as to Honduras. 
 
 This is a danger which you will have to face. I am sorry 
 for it, for India sorely needs great supplies of capital, borrowed 
 in the cheapest market. Yet if the chatter about the " tribute,'' 
 paid by India to England, gets loud enough really to catch the 
 ear of the British investor, adieu to cheap capital for India. 
 She will then have to do everything she wants out of her own 
 poor savings. 
 
 That is one of the many reasons for which I would urge 
 more and more of you to become manufacturers; agriculturists 
 
1886.— R^. Hon. Mountstnart Blfhinstone Grant Duff, 199 
 
 and producers of exchangeable articles, to devote yourselves in 
 short to careers, by which men and countries grow rich. 
 
 The economic problems of India with its rapidly increasing 
 population and the absolute certainty, that although, here and 
 there, savings might be made by the use of less costly agencies, 
 and so forth, there is very little after all to be done in that way, 
 are of the very gravest kind. They can only be solved by 
 largely increased receipts, and whence are the largely increased 
 receipts to come, if the most educated men of the country do 
 not put their shoulder to the wheel, and add greatly to the 
 wealth out of which the people are to be supported. Tinker 
 aud fidget as much as you will over forms of administration, the 
 elementary truth remains that you can't get bloodout of a stone. 
 II: India, or any other country under heaven, is to be really 
 well-governed, it must be rich. 
 
 But to proceed gn our quest of occupation for graduates — 
 
 Politics, in their journalistic form, may give occu- 
 
 No Indian pation to a few of you, but you are too far removed 
 
 the name.^^' from the great centres of the world, to treat with 
 
 much advantage of general politics. To one who 
 
 has lived in the midst of them, it is indeed astounding to see the 
 
 sort of heroism, with which some people charge into the middle 
 
 of the most difficult and complicated subjects, on the authority 
 
 of a telegram, which does not even pretend to do more than 
 
 reflect the morning's gossip of this, or that, European capital, 
 
 thousands and thousands of miles away. ^^ Oh ! '' but some 
 
 will observe, '^ there are Indian politics.'' The answer to that 
 
 observation is, that there is in India but scant material for any 
 
 politics, worthy of the name. 
 
 What has given its great importance to political life in 
 ' England and some other countries, is that they 
 
 in England have been the pioneers of the world's progress in 
 
 a great many matters of vast importance, connected 
 with men's daily lives. They have had by endless debate, 
 sometimes in the Council chamber, sometimes in Parliaments, 
 often in the field, to work out the solution of a thousand puzzles, 
 one more difficult than the other. 
 
 You might easily have had to do the same, if no Europeans 
 had ever landed upon these shores. In that case 
 would be in the JO" would probably have had a long period of 
 absence of Enro- ever-increasing turbulence, then a slow process of 
 ^^'^^^- re-construction, which would have gone on, say, a 
 
 thousand years, and brought you at last very possibly to about 
 
200 University of Madras. 
 
 the same position^ with regard to a variety of things, at which 
 you have arrived now, — having been transported thither by an 
 enchanter's wand. There are some who think that it would be 
 better for India, in the end, if that had been so, and if, to para- 
 phrase the famous words of Medea, the trees had been never 
 felled, which were formed into the bark of Vasco da Gama. 
 Possibly, they are right : at least, I cannot contradict them, 
 being no proficient in the terribly difficult, and not very profita- 
 ble, science of Hypothetics. Mark this, however, that if the 
 rough hand of the conqueror had never intervened, at least the 
 present generation would not now be thinking the thoughts, 
 which fill the minds of the graduates of this University. 
 
 The British Government in India for the last two generations 
 
 has been mainly engaged in giving to you, ready- 
 
 ^J^j^u ^^^^^ made, nearly every result of our Ions: political 
 
 protits by Eng- , i j- . t^i ii 
 
 lishrule. struggles and experiments. It has only been 
 
 restrained from giving you more, by a consider- 
 ation for your own feelings and ideas. 
 
 There is nothing you can ask from your rulers, in the way 
 of such results, that I can think of, which they would not will- 
 ingly give you to-morrow. Already, in some ways, they have 
 given you more than they have ever given themselves. I need 
 only point to your Codes. 
 
 All the wisest men in England would give sucli as these to 
 England to-morrow ; but the force of prejudice and interest in 
 certain quarters has been always too strong. The highest intel- 
 ligence of the nation has not yet been able to lift the question 
 of codification out of the field of politics ; the field, that is, of 
 clamour and of strife. 
 
 Few profounder remarks have ever been made about poli- 
 tics, than one which was made by an eminent American, a citizen 
 of the Great Republic : *^ We shall one day learn to supersede 
 politics by education.'* 
 
 All sane persons in England rejoice, as one subject after 
 another passes out of politics, and becomes the 
 The Parlia- common property of both political parties. The 
 tem. ^^^ ^^^" glory of what is known as the Liberal party in 
 that country is, that so very many things, which 
 it has championed at various times, have now passed from being 
 contested truths, into accepted truisms. The glory of the Con- 
 servative party is that, although it has again and again opposed 
 those truths, '' including " in its opposition to them every argu- 
 ment that could reasonably be adduced, and marshalling against 
 
Ig8^. — Ht, Eon. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. 201 
 
 them every interest that could possibly be alarmed, it has hardly 
 ever dreamt of seriously questioning them, when they had once 
 become embodied in Acts of Parliament. 
 
 When some misguided persons, however, insist that instead 
 of obtaining every result of our long political struggles for the 
 asking, — nay, not for the asking, we don't insist upon that 
 but for the hinting a wish to have them, — you should be quite 
 gratuitously cursed with all the clumsy machinery, which grim 
 necessity, not choice, has obliged us to use, we may be permitted 
 to smile, and to say to ourselves : " Is this all that these gentle- 
 men have learned from the history taught in our colleges and 
 schools ? '* Is he to be called advanced, and intelligent, who 
 says '^ What we want, is not the meal but the mill ? ^' 
 
 I am the last person to undervalue politics. I have lived 
 amidst the exciting struggles of politics all my days, but politics 
 are only a dignified pursuit, as long as great questions of prin- 
 ciple are open for discussion. When all these are settled, they 
 cease to be dignified. 
 
 England is the classic land of Parliamentary discussion, but 
 even there. Parliament has only shown itself an admirable 
 instrument, when broad issues were before the country. No one 
 who has had his finger on the pulse of the machine, will say that 
 it is a good, or anything but a detestable, instrument for the 
 working out of schemes, which are good or bad, not according 
 to tiie general conceptions, on which they are based, but accord- 
 ing to the applicability to circumstances of a thousand detailed 
 provisions. 
 
 Parliaments in fact are splendid instruments to remove 
 mountains, but of very imperfect utility for the picking up of pins. 
 
 There is, however, outside the sphere of anything that can 
 properly be called politics, a perfect world of labour, deeply 
 exciting and interesting, lying ready for you. 
 
 Your foreign rulers have wisely shrunk from interfering, 
 except on the rarest occasions, with your religious 
 Social^uatoms^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ social customs, but I am assured that 
 the new ideas, which you are acquiring, have ren- 
 dered many of you much dissatisfied with not a few of your 
 time-honoured institutions. It has indeed been urged upon me 
 by some fervent reformers that I should espouse their side upon 
 this or that question, relating to marriage, and so forth. I have 
 taken uncommonly good care to do nothing of the sort. That 
 immense field, that world of labour, is for you, and not for us. 
 There you have gigantic questions to debate and settle, while 
 26 
 
202 University of Madras. 
 
 we look on sympatlietically and respectfully^ but leaving you 
 absolutely to yourselves, so long as you do not appeal to the 
 " arm of flesh/* When you do that^ I hope we shall always let 
 it»be seen very clearly, that we do not mean to permit any one, 
 small or great, to disturb with impunity the Pax Britannica. 
 So long, however, as there is no physical violence, nor infliction 
 of civil inconveniences, we shall watch all the changes that may 
 occur — and they may well be immense — in the same spirit in 
 which we read of the gradual supersession of paganism by 
 Christianity, of serfage by freedom, of blind ecclesiastical 
 authority by the liberty of intellect, having our own opinions 
 about it all, but by no means inclined, even if it were possible, 
 to rush into the fight. 
 
 The first sphere of labour then, outside the professions and 
 other money-getting pursuits, which I would venture to suggest 
 to you, is the bringing into harmony of your new thoughts, 
 derived from us, and your old thoughts, derived from your 
 ancestors, or from the non-European conquerors who have, 
 at various times, settled down in India. In that field, you 
 may become great and original. If I ventured to express 
 an opinion on a matter quite small, when compared with many 
 others you have to settle, I would say that he who could 
 persuade his countrymen to give up their, to us, astounding 
 expenditure on marriages, would do more for South India than 
 any Government could do in a decade, but these questions 
 are, as I said, for you. In the field of social reform, you may 
 produce men as great as some of our political reformers of the 
 West, but you will never produce anything great, by learning 
 our political phraseology, and then applying it to circumstances 
 entirely different. 
 
 I can quite understand those who say : '^ You Europeans 
 should never have come to pour your new wine into our old 
 bottles." lean well understand those who say "Pour away, 
 the sooner our old bad bottles burst, the better." 
 
 I wish as a British ofl&cial to be absolutely neutral between 
 these parties, but I cannot understand how any one who wishes 
 for the good of India, should dream of desiring that any portion 
 of the intelligence of the country should go dancing after this or 
 that pseudo-political will-o'-the-wisp, while the mightiest social 
 and religious questions, that have been debated for the last 
 fifteen hundred years, are asking more and more loudly for an 
 answer. 
 
 I re-read recently the grave and wise address, which was 
 delivered to you four years ago by Mr, Muttuswami Aiyar. 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. 203 
 
 We hear mucli talk about '' leading the people of India/' 
 
 and all manner of crack-brained or interested 
 
 peo5r(ff India^" quacks, European and others, will be increasingly 
 
 ready to "lead'' them by books^ speeches, and 
 
 anonymous articles. 
 
 My advice to the people of India is, to be led by those of 
 their own race, who, being men of ripe experience and proved 
 ability,- have imbibed what is best of the wisdom that Europe 
 can teach, without breaking away from all their old moorings, 
 and I could not mention any name which better illustrates the 
 kind of leading, to which I should commend them, than that of 
 the distinguished Judge I have just mentioned. 
 
 One of the many important subjects, to which he urged you 
 to attend, addressing you with an authority to 
 womm^^'''' ""^ which no European could aspire, was the home- 
 teaching of women. " Without it,'' he said, "the 
 education of the women of this country cannot be sufficiently 
 liberal, for, from one cause or another, girls are withdrawn from 
 schools a little too soon.* All of you should endeavour to secure 
 the benefit of home-teaching to such young women as may come 
 under your protection and guardianship, and I have no doubt 
 that the prejudice against it will wear away in the same manner 
 in which it has worn away in relation to girls receiving any 
 education at all." I remember walking one day with an emi- 
 nent Italian in the streets of a European capital, when a very 
 useless person, bearing a great historic name, who had had 
 a distinguished father, and a bad mother, passed us : " Les races 
 se feminisent " — Races tend to take after the women — said my 
 companion. The late Surgeon-General, addressing you in 1884, 
 made some suggestive remarks on this subject. There is, he 
 said, considerable danger, if there is great disparity in mental 
 development between the father and the mother, that the intellec- 
 tual powers of the ofEspring will rathor follow the mother's than 
 the father's type. 
 
 I should like to see the educational advance of South India 
 more uniform — I should like to see both female and 
 IbS^octme^^ primary education moving a little quicker. Nothing 
 is more keenly interesting to those Europeans 
 in this countiy, whose duty it is to think, not of gaining cheap 
 applause by repeating favourite Shibboleths, but by doing the 
 best they can for your welfare, than to see the way in which 
 practices and ideas, which are separated in the evolution of 
 humanity by thousands of years, jostle each other in your society. 
 I have received, within a few hours, two documents, one setting 
 
204 University of Madras, 
 
 forth the advantages of introducing into India the most brand- 
 new political machinery, and the other a petition fron a con- 
 demned criminal, who asked for mercy, on the ground that he 
 had been persuaded by the banker of his village, the Sir John 
 Lubbock, in fact, of the locality, that the wife of his victim was 
 in the habit of turning into a tigress, had already eaten his 
 sister, and was about to eat his buffaloes. 
 
 Such contrasts, and they are very numerous, coming in the 
 ordinary course of business, are apt to make a man who acts 
 under a sense of responsibility remember the saying, that the 
 rulers here are like men bound to make their watches keep true 
 time in two longitudes at once. " If they go too fast," says Sir 
 Henry Maine in his famous Rede lecture, ^^ there will be no 
 security : if they go too slow, there will be no improvement/' 
 
 Again, Mr. Muttuswami Aiyar advised you to travel in India, 
 and, if possible, to, go to Europe. I may be per- 
 Go to Europe, jjjjtted, without presumption, to do the same ; but 
 I would caution you against one mistaken opinion, which I have 
 observed that some natives of India have picked up in England. 
 They have been led to imagine that Englishmen at home were 
 more kindly and friendly than Englishmen in this country : but 
 you should recollect that, in England, a native of India is a rarity ; 
 in provincial circles one of the rarest of rarities. He comes only 
 as a guest, and is treated as a guest. Here, whatever may be 
 his merits, he is not a rarity, and he is not a guest. 
 
 Then, I have sometimes met with the idea that the English 
 democracy would be more favourable to the native of India than 
 the English aristocracy, or the English bourgeoise, which ruled 
 from 1832 to 1868, had been. 
 
 I would not, if I were you, attach too much weight to that 
 idea. Our English Demos has many virtues, but 
 DOTaos "^^^^"^ he is, when his path is crossed, about the most 
 formidable personage on the surface of this planet. 
 India never crossed his path but once, and, even then, his 
 attention was happily distracted by his being given the Great 
 Company to toss. If he had quite understood that the movement 
 of 1857 was directed, not against an institution, but against /itm, 
 many things might have taken a worse turn than they did. How- 
 ever that may be, avoid touching our home political controversies, 
 even with your little finger. Keep India sedulously away from 
 any contact with English parties. '^ Have a care how you fan 
 the flame,'' as a wise man said, in words that turned out to be 
 too terribly prophetic ; ^^have a care how you try to extinguish 
 it, for it may easily burn your fingers ! " 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Buff, 205 
 
 I "have sometimes smiled to see sagacious advice given you 
 by some of your own people outside this Presidency, as to the 
 expediency of using both Conservatives and Liberals for the good 
 of India, without allowing yourselves to be entangled in our con- 
 tentions. Even so I have thought does the prudent and reflec- 
 tive moth propose to use the candle. 
 
 Though, however, I think that for you to meddle with our 
 home politics is to reap the whirlwind, while to 
 
 .elf^'gZ'S'me'Sf Pl'^y at politics ^^^^ i« to Ploigl" the saDd, I 
 trust that a great many of you will find most 
 honorable and useful spheres of activity, in connection with 
 the recent development of local self-government in this Presi- 
 dency — the mother, I think, I may say, of local self-government 
 in its modern Indian form . I cannot tell you how anxious I am 
 to see this strike deep root amongst your people, but it can only 
 do so if your most educated men bend their minds to the often 
 tiresome, but always supremely important, tasks of multiplying 
 roads and schools, spreading vaccination, seeing after rest-houses 
 for travellers, planting avenue trees, or, to put all in one phrase, 
 '^in extending civilization," for it is in these and such things, not 
 in the institutions that catch the eye, and get written about in 
 the ordinary histories, that civilization consists. Large parts 
 even of the island of Great Britain were hardly civilized in the 
 year 1800, and even in our own time Mr, Disraeli wrote of civiliza- 
 tion, as being confined to England, France, and the course of a 
 single river, meaning, thereby, the Ehine. The remark required 
 modification, but had much truth in if. The object of all who 
 work local self-government should be to extend what he meant 
 by civilization all over South India. 
 
 Let every man try to make his town or village the best 
 drained, the best educated, the cleanest and the healthiest in the 
 District, with the hardest and best shaded roads. Such work is 
 not political in the sense in which that word is usually employ- 
 ed, but it is of untold importance to the Folis, the community. 
 
 G-et wealth, get material civilization. These- are the two 
 maxims, which I wish to impress upon you in this 
 Ci^^^n.^^ part of my address. You will soon se*^e that I do 
 not consider that man lives by bread alone, or that 
 even widely diffused physical well-being is the last word of 
 human progress. There is probably no one who ever addressed 
 you, who holds more distinctly an opposite opinion ; but it is 
 madness not to recognize the limitations of existence, or to 
 try to leap over our own shadows. All schemes of world- 
 bettering by raising the condition of the masses, and spreading 
 
206 University of Madras. 
 
 property amongst them, will either lead to terrible disaster, 
 or be inoperative, until the amount of property, that is, of 
 desirable things in the world, is vastly, colossally, increased. 
 To attempt to do that without strictly following the laws 
 of political economy, the laws which deal with the wealth of 
 nations, is like surveying, in defiance, or contempt, of the laws of 
 geometry. It may well be that India, through all the ages, may 
 possess a large number of philosophers, who do not concern 
 themselves with material things at all, and that that spirit is 
 widely extended amongst its people. Even in the bustling eager 
 West we have had thousands of such in all the ages. We have 
 thousands now, whose inmost aspirations could not be better 
 expressed than in the words of St Augustine, I think, *' amare, 
 ire, sibi perire, O ad Deum pervenire I " 
 
 In our countries such people are the very salt of the earth, 
 and I am not at all concerned to deny that they may be the 
 same in Asia ; but few of you belong, I should think, to that 
 category. You have for good or evil drunk the fevering wine 
 of modern European thought, and understand what we, in the 
 West, mean by progress. My appeal to you is in favour of 
 your devoting yourselves to what is undoubtedly real progress, 
 so far as it goes, not to its hollow counterfeit. But some of 
 you have no turn for taking part in religious or social discus- 
 sions, or for engaging in any form of active and stirring labour. 
 
 To such, the first question I would put, is this : 
 KtSi^wj^*' ''Are you satisfied with what you are doing for 
 
 your own literature ? How many of you, whether 
 speaking Tamil, Telugu, Malay alam, Can arose, Tulu, or any 
 other tongue, are doing anything, or seriously proposing to do 
 anything, to add to the literature of those languages, or any of 
 them ? " I do not refer to books of information that you may 
 have published in those languages, books merely imparting a 
 little of the knowledge of the West— they are good in their own 
 way — but to books containing something that is at once new and 
 striking, books adding, if it be only by one verse or one para- 
 graph, to the things already existing in the world, which are 
 acknowledged jto be beautiful, or to be at once new, and true. 
 Some of you, however, will object : " But who is sufficient for these 
 things ? How many are there, who can add even one sentence, 
 worthy to live, to the literature of the world, or one new fact to the 
 sum of human knowledge ?" More, I suspect, than is generally 
 believed. Who made your excellent Tamil proverbs ? Who found 
 out the virtues of many of your common weeds ? But pass that by. 
 Men may, however, lead most worthy, and honorable lives. 
 
1886.'—Bt. Eon. Mountstuart Elphwstone Grant Duf, 207 
 
 devoted to science and to literature, without the making either 
 of books or discoveries. There are few more dignified occupa- 
 tions than indulging to the uttermost what has been well called 
 " la grande curiosite " : and no one can do that, however recluse 
 may be his turn, without making himself a fountain-head of 
 wisdom in his own immediate neighbourhood. This University 
 will not have done anything like its fair share of work till 
 South India too has many Actons. A native gentleman of posi- 
 tion, at Vizagapatam, devotes himself to astronomy, and, much 
 to his credit^ supports an Observatory. The Maharajah of 
 Vizianagram, forward in all good works, is, as one who bears 
 his title well may be, an assiduous student of Sanskrit, but the 
 great names of the land have not yet begun to take the place 
 they should do, either in the accumulation, or in the encourage- 
 ment, of learning. How many of you are seeking to obtain a 
 large and scholarly knowledge of the vernaculars of South 
 India ? A distinguished European savant, intimately acquainted 
 with Northern India, wrote to me lately : ^^ I am going to 
 the Orientalist Congress at Venice in September. Could you 
 find me a Dravidian pundit, a man thoroughly individual and 
 quite unlihe an Aryan pundit ? '' I have made what enquiry I 
 could, and I think I could as easily send to Venice a live 
 Megatherium or a live Pterodactyl. Surely this should not be 
 so. In the "West, we have hundreds and hundreds of men, 
 who are producing literature of a high order ; and hundreds 
 and hundreds more, who are great scholars, pundits of profound 
 learning, German, French, English and what not, who do not 
 produce much, but whose powers of acquisition are marvellous. 
 I want to know whether there are many such, or any such, 
 amongst you, and if not, whether you do not think it highly 
 desirable that the class should be called into existence ? This 
 duty of doing something for your literature is doubly incumbent 
 upon such of you, as are of pure Dravidian race — a race not 
 nearly so numerously represented amongst our graduates as it 
 should be, but comprising some twenty-nine millions of the 
 inhabitants of this Presidency . 
 
 It seems probable that you Dravidians had already made 
 very considerable advances in the arts of life and in govern- 
 ment at a remote period, by your own strength. Then came 
 the Aryans of the East. They gave you a great impulse. 
 After a vast interval of time, these were followed by the Aryans 
 of the West. These last are beginning to give, both to you 
 and to the Aryans of the East, an infinitely greater impulse, 
 but the last thing which any sensible man amongst them desires 
 
208 Universiiy of Madras. 
 
 is, tliat you shoald cease to be yourselves. The fact is we 
 cannot afford to forego tlie co-operation of any race, whicli is 
 fit to take part in the work of civilized man. 
 
 Your remote connections, the aborigines of Australia, showed 
 themselves incapable of doing so, and are disappearing fast. 
 
 You, on the other hand, increase, multiply, and prosper, 
 in contact with the highest civilization known. 
 
 It is now as certain, as anything in the future can be, that, 
 two hundred years hence, the race and language of Shakespeare, 
 Burke and Byron will have beaten all other races and languages 
 in the struggle for existence, but, good things as are our race 
 and language, I, for one, should be very sorry to lose from the 
 concert of humanity many other voices, and I should like to see 
 the millions of Dravidians, who inhabit South India, taking all 
 the good they can get from us, without ceasing to move on their 
 old lines. 
 
 Like all Scotchmen, I am proud of my little coun- 
 try, of its history, and of the work it is doing in the world. But 
 I should as soon wish you to look at the world through Scottish 
 spectacles, or to desire for yourselves the things which Scotch- 
 men desire for themselves, as, standing this March morning in 
 the lovely gardens of Guindy, I should have wished to give 
 you in exchange for your climate that ^^ hunger of the North 
 wind" which " bites our peaks into barrenness." 
 
 Mr. Foalkes, the Chaplain of Coimbatore, has drawn up a 
 very instructive analysis of the Catalogue of books registered in 
 Madras in 1 884. From this, we learn, amongst other things, 
 that 744 books were registered during that period. Of these, 374 
 treated of religion, 189 were educational, and 181 miscellaneous. 
 It would be interesting, though I fear impossible, to have a fur- 
 ther analysis with a view to learn how far the higher education 
 which our University has been promoting, has influenced this 
 literature. The second field th,en, outside the professions and 
 callings in which I wish to invite you to labour, is the field of 
 literature. There are, however, many other fields. 
 
 There is for example the field of Art. It would be very 
 gratifying to see more of you turn your attention 
 ^^e field of ^j^ ^^^^ direction. South India is not, and never 
 has been, pre-eminently artistic. But one cannot 
 go to the school presided over by Mr. Havell, any more than visit 
 temples like Chidambaram or Madura, without seeing that there 
 is a large amount of artistic ability here, which, under wise guid- 
 ance, and I would add under wise restraint, may produce even 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon. Mountstuart Elphinatone Grant Duff, 209 
 
 more beautiful objects than your marvellous " pillared halls. '^ 
 In a speech delivered at St. Matthias' Schools last January, 
 my wife called attention to the endless models for pictures and 
 statues, which are to be seen in Madras every day, and else- 
 where she urged the formation of a school for figure-drawing. 
 The advantages which you have here over us Northerns, whose 
 ghastly climate so often requires us to go about muffled to the 
 chin, are very obvious, and I would fain hope that the day may 
 come, when we shall see such a school arise. 
 
 About architecture, I am less hopeful. There was an epoch 
 when, in India, as in Europe, architecture was 
 the universal language. That was the time with 
 us, which ^' lighted with white lines of cloister the glades of the 
 Alpine pine, and raised into ordered spires the wild rocks of 
 the Norman sea.'^ As, however, Victor Hugo has admirably 
 pointed out, the inoffensive looking art of printing killed all 
 that.^ Architecture has remained, and will, in the nature of 
 things, ever remain, a useful and, in many of its applica- 
 tions, an elegant, art, but never again, amidst the complicated 
 wants of modern life, can so expensive a method of rendering 
 thought take anything like its old position in the world. Foolish 
 Englishmen have often railed against their countrymen for not 
 raising buildings in India like those of some of their 
 predecessors, but I should like to know what would be said if 
 any Indian ruler, even with the certainty of producing a building 
 as beautiful as the Taj, suggested callingjit into existence. Great 
 works of that kind are amongst the most glorious possessions of 
 Nations, but they imply, amidst many other things, either 
 forced labour on the most gigantic scale, or the turning of 
 almost all human energy towards the expression of thought in 
 architecture. Shah Jehan was a very small ruler indeed, com- 
 pared to the Viceroy of India in the year 1886, but just imagine 
 Lord Bufferings proposing to spend three crores, seventeen lakhs, 
 forty-eight thousand and twenty-six rupees upon another Taj ! 
 
 I have very imperfect sympathy with the lamentations 
 that are sometimes heard, as to the disappearance of some Indian 
 arts and manufactures. They have often only disappeared 
 because Manchester, or some other European town, can serve 
 the Indian customer both cheaper and better, but I would wish 
 to watch jealously over the preservation of all those Indian arts 
 and manufactures, which are exceptionally good, and I would 
 fain see wealthy English and native gentlemen forming them- 
 selves into societies for the express purpose of keeping alive 
 
 • See the brilliant Chapter in Notre Damie de Paris entitled Ceci tuera Cela. 
 27 
 
210 Vniversity of Madras, 
 
 eYQYj single art, wliich Sir George Birdwood would say was 
 thoroughly first-rate, thus fulfilling, and probably fulfilling much 
 better, the function, which used to be performed more than it is 
 now, by the various native courts. 
 
 A man who pays for the calling into existence of such a 
 piece of ironwork as that elephant goad, which we have in the 
 Museum here, does a positively virtuous action. In this field, 
 as in many other fields, you have much to learn from other parts 
 of India ; above all from what is in some respects the most 
 delightful part of a glorious country — Kajpootana. 
 
 I hope the time will come when there will be a great deal 
 more migration within India, transfer of population 
 po'^uiatkm ^^ from districts where it overflows to too-sparsely 
 populated regions, transfer of customs and transfer 
 of thought. These are all things which you should manage for 
 yourselves without interference from Europeans, for you only 
 can manage them well. All that the European can do is to 
 point out where improvements can be made, where, for example, 
 the graceful usages of one part of India may supersede with 
 advantage the ungraceful usages of another, and so all advance 
 by a process of indigenous growth, different from, but by no 
 means necessarily inferior, nay often distinctly superior, to 
 European works and ways. 
 
 You will have work to do, not only in advancing and regu- 
 lating progress, but in taking care that you do not lose precious 
 possessions, which you have received from your ancestors. Xo 
 intelligent European can study your society without 
 it?merit8?"^*^' seeing that you have a great many things which 
 other, and in some respects, much more advanced, 
 societies, may well envy. I may instance your simplicity of 
 life, your charity, your domestic union which dispenses with the 
 necessary but outrageously clumsy Poor-law of England, the 
 healthful and charming costume of your women, and, in many 
 parts of the country, of your men also. These are only a few of 
 many points in which you are superior, and which may well one day 
 be menaced by an injudicious following of European models. I 
 would have you, as to many of these things, be third-thoughted, 
 rather than second-thoughted, to use a happy phrase of Cole- 
 ridge's ; I would have you " prove all things '' in your ancient 
 traditions, but by all means likewise " hold fast that which is 
 good.'' 
 
 ' When History has become really studied amongst you, and 
 it is, after all, the highest of studies, you will, while rejecting 
 the exaggerations and dreams of those who claim for the 
 
1886. — Bt, Hon. Mountstuart Elphdnstone Grant Duff, 211 
 
 ancestors of the Aryan conquerors, or colonizers of North India, 
 a thousand virtues which they had not, be led to cling more 
 and more to what is really good in your own past, and to rest 
 wherever you do not see a proved necessity for change, "in 
 the statutes of the land that gave you birth." 
 
 There is one argument for beginning to produce something 
 valuable and distinctive, which the Chancellor of this University 
 has a special right to urge. It is indeed his bounden duty to 
 ask you to rescue your University from its critics. 
 
 We have a maxim in our sacred books which is in conso- 
 nance with your own Ethics, a subject to which the Cooral shows 
 that you gave attention in very remote times ; " Freely ye have 
 received, freely give.'^ 
 
 You have been drinking now for a generation at the foun- 
 tains of European knowledge. It is time you should begin to 
 give Europe something in return. The very smallest additions 
 to the stores of the Western men of learning, coming from thfe 
 people of Southern India, will be, I am sure, not only thankfully, 
 but rapturously, received. 
 
 At present, they say to us : " You show us your machinery-7- 
 your University, your schools, and much else. You are obviously 
 spending a great deal of money upon what you describe as the 
 ^ Higher education,* but where are your results ? If you tell us, 
 that you get better Government officials, and that you have even 
 taught some young men to abuse you in very fair English, in the 
 newspapers, we reply, that is all very well if it assists or amuses 
 you, but how does it help usj how does it add to the stock of 
 the world's knowledge ? We freely grant that your English 
 Orientalists and other men of science have done much, but there 
 must be something wrong in the turn you have given to your 
 higher education, if you have not succeeded m creating a desire 
 on the part of the people of South India to learn, and to tell, 
 more about themselves, and the country in which they live.'' 
 
 I confess that, when criticisms of that kind are made upon 
 our work, I know not what to answer, unless it be to plead the 
 hideousness of the anarchy and misrule, which preceded the firm 
 establishment of English power in this part of India. With 
 every year, however, that plea gets less valid. Will you not 
 begin to help us to meet our critics, by telling Europe something 
 worth knowing, which it does not already know ? 
 
 Is that impossible ? Has South India nothing of interest 
 to tell ? Surely the European workers have not exhausted all 
 
212 ttniversity of Madras. 
 
 its material facts. I will not believe for a moment that they 
 have. It is, indeed, perfectly manifest that they have not. 
 '' The fields are white to the harvest." 
 
 I will take only a few subjects, and first there is Ethnology. 
 
 Are yon Dra vidians autochthones ? Very certainly you have 
 much more reason to call yourselves so, than any Greek ever 
 had, but are you ? and, if not, how otherwise ? There is a great 
 amount of knowledge concerning you, collected in Dr. Macleane's 
 most remarkable Manual of the Administration of the Presidency 
 — a book so valuable, that it is a gratification to me to think 
 that its composition synchronized with my term of office in this 
 country, but, again and again, the cables break off short. If 
 any one can pick up those cables from the bottom of the sea of 
 oblivion, surely it should be one of yourselves. 
 
 The Aryans of the West, by close study of the sacred lan- 
 guages of the Aryans of the East, have learned, not only a 
 great deal about their own early history, but have been able to 
 tell the Aryans of the East almost everything that these last 
 know about their own history. 
 
 Why should not you, Dravidians, after learning the scien- 
 tific methods of the West, apply them to your own languages ? 
 Study your own languages comparatively, as Bishop Caldwell 
 advised you years ago. He was a wise man who said : ^' There 
 is perhaps more to be learned from human language than from 
 anything that has been written in it." 
 
 Why again, if we want some one to decipher your own 
 inscriptions, must we send thousands and thousands of miles 
 away, and hunt up some scholar in the valley of the Danube ? 
 
 Then there is the question of the characters which you use 
 in writing. Are you sure that you are giving your vernaculars 
 a fair chance, supposing that is, you intend to retain them, as I 
 presume you do ? Languages which have a frightfully difficult 
 character, and one which is exceptionally expensive to print, are 
 at a great disadvantage in the battle of life. 
 
 I suppose there is no insuperable difficulty in simplifying 
 your characters. The Jesuits used, three hundred years ago, a 
 form of Roman character for writing Goncany, but now-a-days, 
 these are changes which, if they are made at all, must be made 
 by the people most concerned. 
 
 And if you do not take the lead, who will ? 
 
1886. — Bt. Hon. Mountstuart ^Jlphinstone Grant l)uff, 21*^ 
 
 Then, there are the Religions of Southern India. How 
 little is known of these ! I do not speak of those 
 Southern India! religions, which came to India with the races who 
 dwelt behind the great range, nor of those religions 
 which have been brought by conquerors or traders, from beyond 
 the sea. There are numerous gaps in our knowledge, even of 
 some of the most recently introduced of these, to be filled up, 
 as, for instance, with regard to the so-called Syrian Christians 
 of Malabar, and the Jews of Cochin. We have not even yet 
 recovered the thread, by which they are to be connected with 
 the great web of human history. Why do not some of our 
 (christian Graduates, of whom we have so large a number, try to 
 do this ? Far more dij0B.cult, however, and much larger are the 
 problems connected with the early religions of this part of India, 
 which still form an important ingredient in the system of belief, 
 even of many who have been greatly affected by Vedic, and other 
 Aryan influences, but which, in many districts, have survived, I 
 apprehend, with little alteration, for uncounted ages. 
 
 To the sciences of Comparative Philology and of Comparative 
 Religion, one of the most gifted men who ever landed on the 
 shores of India, I mean Sir Henry Maine, is on the way to add 
 a third science, for which neither he nor any one else has exactly 
 found a name, but which may be described as the early history 
 of institutions as observed chiefly in India. I grudge, however, 
 a little, though it is inevitable, that Aryan institutions, the 
 institutions of early conquerors, should engross so much atten- 
 tion. I want the non-Aryan people of the South to tell us 
 something about their institutions, which go back to a period, 
 as compared with which the hoariest Indo- Aryan antiquity is as 
 the news in Renter's latest telegram. 
 
 Has any one studied the Village Life of the South ? Are 
 there no facts to be collected from a careful examination of it, 
 which would be useful to some future Sir Henry Maine ? If 
 there are, surely you should be the people to collect them. 
 
 It makes one who has a strong feeling for South India, a 
 little sad to read such a book as Professor Max Miiller^s India, 
 what can it teach us ? and to see how very little it has to do with 
 India, south of the Yindhyan range. The Vedas, and all that is 
 connected with them, belong to a world, not so far outside the 
 limits of your India as is the literature of the Western Aryans ; 
 but, still, outside them. I should like to see the pre-Sanskrit 
 element amongst you asserting itself rather more, and showing 
 what it could do to help on the general work of humanity. 
 
 The constant putting forward of Sanskrit literature, as if it 
 
214 University of Madras. 
 
 were pre-eminently Indian, should stir the national pride of 
 some of you Tamil, Telugu, Canarese. You have less to do 
 with Sanskrit than we English have. Ruffianly Europeans have 
 sometimes been known to speak of natives of India as '' Niggers," 
 but they did not like the proud speakers, or writers, of Sanskrit 
 speak of the people of the South as legions of monkeys. It was 
 these Sanskrit speakers, not Europeans, who lumped up the 
 Southern races as Rakshasas — demons. It was they who deli- 
 berately grounded all social distinctions upon Varna, colour. 
 
 Close observation, and Sir Henry Maine's method, may 
 make your Dravidian institutions tell many a strange story. 
 
 Then, there are your old manuscripts. What great facili- 
 ties you have for collecting these, which the European scholar, 
 even with all the power of Government behind him, has not got. 
 
 But I hear certain of you, who have been drinking deep 
 from the fountains of Mill, or Bain, or Herbert Spencer, murmur : 
 ** Why should we collect our old books ? Your new books are 
 better, our old books are trash." 
 
 To that, I reply, first, " Who has a right to say that, till 
 they have been examined ? " and, secondly, by repeating a ques- 
 tion which I remember hearing Panizzi, the great Librarian, 
 ask, long years ago, in the bow window of Brooks's, not a little, 
 I think, to the surprise of his audience '^ Trash ; 
 ■Jl^^h"^^^ what is trash ?" The idea was new to me then, but I 
 have learnt since that there is nothing, or next-to- 
 nothing, in the shape of literature, when it is dealt with by the 
 chemistry of genius, which may not fill up some gap, and make 
 light where, a moment before, there was darkness. 
 
 Then, there are coins. You will say, that the dynasties of 
 Southern India have but little to do with the great 
 ncien oins. ^^g^jj^g^ ^f history. Well, it seems so, with our 
 present knowledge, and it may always be so ; but here it is, just 
 as with your manuscripts, you cannot tell till they have been 
 examined, and who have such facilities for collecting them, as 
 you ? There is hardly a bazaar in the country, where you could 
 not come upon coins, which might be of real interest to the 
 European student, which a European student himself might 
 never be allowed to see. Such an one was lately in one of our 
 towns, and found the greatest possible difficulty, although he 
 was a man of importance, in seeing anything. At last he pro- 
 duced a Rama Tunka from his pocket, and it at once acted as a 
 spell. Each one of you has, in his language and nationality, a 
 Rama Tunka in his pocket. 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon, Mountstuart El/phinstone Grant Duff, 215 
 
 Then, to us who have been trained in that veneration for 
 the past which we, bold innovators as we are, in our maturer 
 years are all trained in, cannot understand the extraordinary 
 ignorance which prevails in every corner of this country about 
 its own objects of interest, its ancient buildings, ruins, pillars, 
 and so forth. 
 
 Two instances of this have recently much amused me. I 
 went to the great Jain temples on Mount Abu, and tried to 
 extract from the people on the spot something about them, other 
 than the two or three well-known facts. Then, still more 
 recently, I went to the very remarkable Mahommedan shrine at 
 Ncigore, near Negapatam. The Jain temples were very old, the 
 Nagore shrine was comparatively modern, but not one answer, 
 which conveyed any certain idea, could I obtain at either, from 
 the very courteous gentlemen who took care of them. Is not 
 this all wrong ? Should not the history and antiquities of your 
 own country be one of your chief studies ? In these researches, 
 no reasonable man would wish to employ any one but a native 
 of India, if only he could find an adequately instructed person 
 who cared one anna about them. 
 
 I dare say, when your researches have been made, the 
 result will not be very gigantic. There is not recoverable proba- 
 bly from the Dravidian past, anything as valuable as that which 
 has been found in the East Aryan past, and the value of the 
 literary performances which Sanskrit embalms, considered merely 
 in themselves, and not as the key to much of human history 
 that was till lately unknown, has perhaps been overrated by 
 those who went through the toil that was necessary to secure the 
 prize. 
 
 Still, it is your manifest duty to recover for the world all 
 that is recoverable of your early days. The real golden age for 
 you, as for others, is not in the past, but in the future. Yet it 
 will be all the more golden, when it comes, if you exhume, for 
 use in it, every scrap of buried treasure you can find in your 
 long Past. 
 
 Another branch of Archaeology, the pre-historic, has hardly 
 excited any attention in this Presidency, and yet the best 
 authorities consider that there are many important secrets to be 
 revealed by the surface deposits of your hills and plains. 
 
 The Madras Grovernment, under the advice of Professor 
 Huxley, and through the instrumentality of that very distinguished 
 Geologist, Mr. Bruce Foote, assisted by his highly intelligent 
 son, have made a commencement of researches in the Kurnoo] 
 
216 University of Madras, 
 
 District, but I am assured by Mr. Bruce Foote that there are, in 
 all directions, vestiges of the antique life of the inhabitants of 
 South India, ready to reward the intelligent explorer. 
 
 Why should not some of you take a part in this work ? 
 
 It might, amongst other things, lead you to the study of 
 geology. True it is that a portion, though only a portion, of our 
 districts has been surveyed by the geological experts of the 
 Government of India, but there is room for a whole army of 
 workers to follow in their track, and to glean much that is valu- 
 able, as well scientifically, as economically. 
 
 Then there is mineralogy. We know as yet next-to-nothing 
 of the mineral resources of South India. Witness 
 Mineralogy. ^-j^^ crazy rush there was a few years ago into gold- 
 mining speculations. Witness the very likely just as foolish 
 sacrifice of properties, which had been acquired at absurd prices. 
 
 You ought to know all about the mineral contents of your 
 soil, and who is to find this out except yourselves ? All told, 
 there may be 85,000* persons in this Presidency of all degrees, 
 more or less of English birth, but the population of the Presi- 
 dency is about 31,000,000. 
 
 We can do nothing but show you the way to begin. With 
 a view to do this, the Government has just imported a miner- 
 alogical surveyor. We want, however, in order to get the work 
 done properly, not units but legions. 
 
 Then the Fauna of the Presidency is still far from fully 
 worked out, even in its higher orders. There are still 
 th'^¥ ^idenc°^ discoveries to be made, if not among the m^-mmals, 
 certainly amongst the birds, the reptiles, and the 
 fish, while, when you get below these, you pass gradually into 
 less and less known regions. A serious study of the insects of 
 South India would probably result in discoveries of very direct 
 importance to its inhabitants, and the investigation of the 
 humbler oceanic life around our coasts has been hardly com- 
 menced. I trust a great impulse to Natural History will be given 
 by the recent importation of Mr. Thurston, Mr. Bourne, and Mr. 
 Henderson, But they and other able Europeans, and scores and 
 scores of educated natives, will have to work for a couple of 
 generations, before the Madras University can be said to have 
 done its duty in investigating its own special zoological pro- 
 vince. 
 
 There is yet no handbook of the insects of South India, and 
 
 * We have four persons speaking our two Kolarian languages, Sowrah and 
 Gradabha, for every one who speaks English. 
 
1886. — Rt. Hon, Mountaluart Elphinaione Grant Duf/: 217 
 
 sorely is such a handbook wanted. Researches amongst the 
 lower forms of insect life will probably do much to add to the 
 comfort of human life, as well as to the wealth of the country. 
 
 When Dr. Bidie pointed out that the coffee borer did not 
 thrive in coffee cultivated under shade, he did what I should 
 like to see some of you doing. He made the results of the 
 higher education directly contributory to human well-being. 
 „. „, What is true of the Fauna is true of the Flora. 
 
 Most of the phanerogamic plants of the Presidency 
 are doubtless known to science, but I remember Colonel 
 Beddome telling me that he thought it quite possible that, even 
 so near our summer capital as the Sispara forests, there might 
 still be trees, which had not been examined. 
 
 A great many of you will be wanted to take part in the 
 thorough scientific survey of the Flora of the Presidency, of 
 which we are laying the foundation in the Botanical Department, 
 recently established under the admirable guidance of Kew and 
 of Mr. Lawson, and a great many more will be wanted for the 
 economic survey, which must bring into notice every fact, con- 
 cerning the uses of your plants, which the long experience of 
 your ancestors has (amidst much that is not fact but imagina- 
 tion) hived carefully up. 
 
 When we remember, however, that, below the phanero- 
 gamic plants, there is another great vegetable world which has 
 hardly been investigated here at all, and which has quite cer- 
 tainly secrets of great, not to say portentous, importance to 
 reveal, especially in relation to disease, you will see how wide a 
 field is opened to you in this one department of research. Nor 
 must you forget that for those of you who have no special turn 
 for original research, there is an honorable career open, in 
 imparting to your countrymen what it concerns them to know, 
 about the labours of their scientific men. The educated youth 
 of South India will not even have begun to fulfil his proper 
 function in this respect, till there are two or three ardent native 
 naturalists in every corner of the country. 
 
 There is no want of aptitude amongst you for these studies, 
 so dignified and so repaying in point of happiness. I could 
 mention the names of several native friends of mine, who shew 
 a great turn for them, but I do not think they are graduates. 
 
 The weakest part of our system of higher education has, up 
 to this time, been that which is concerned with the science of 
 observation, but the men I have just mentioned bring into the 
 Presidency the latest ipethods and results of the most renowned 
 schools in Europe. 
 
218 Viiivermty of Madras, 
 
 - 
 
 I doubt not that they will have a pretty tough battle to 
 fight, before they get into the minds of the teachers, to say 
 nothing of the pupils, that no science, which is not derived from 
 direct contact with nature, is good for anything. What is 
 wanted amongst our Indian youth is not a knowledge of what 
 books or Professors say about natural objects, but what those 
 natural objects say about themselves. In tbis, as in many other 
 departments of life, the function of the middleman always tends 
 to become disproportionately great. We want to bring your 
 minds into the closest possible relations with the producers 
 ol: impressions, that is to say, with the things, which you 
 see and touch. No middleman should be employed, when the 
 first difficulties are surmounted, but your own senses. 
 
 The yearly Flower-show in Madras furnishes agreeable evi- 
 dence that the taste for horticulture, if not for botany, has taken 
 some hold amongst the wealthier natives. I trust this taste may 
 go on spreading, for it is at once an indication of advancing 
 civilization, and an agency for advancing it further. 
 
 I might go on to speak of other sciences and other pursuits, 
 but I hope I have said enough to show you how many directions 
 there are, in which our graduates may usefully employ them- 
 selves, not only may, but must, if South India is to prosper. 
 
 It is not by their political machinery that Western countries 
 have prospered, even where that machinery has been well con- 
 trived. It has been much more by ten thousand influences, 
 trade, mining, manufactures, inventions, universities, books, 
 learned societies, and what not, combining, in one or two excep- 
 tionally favoured countries, with well-contrived political institu- 
 tions. Before the knowledge, which we bring you ready-made, 
 can have its perfect work, your national life must be enriched in 
 a vast number of ways, of which I am afraid many of you have 
 not even begun to think. I trust I may succeed in making you 
 think about them, or some of them, for there is a great amount 
 for the most educated class in Southern India to do, before they 
 have got for their country that sort of recognition which they 
 ought to get, for what is undoubtedly one of the oldest lands in 
 the universe. 
 
 We have in the Madras Presidency very few rocks of even 
 the secondary fomiations; for a large part of its surface is 
 covered by masses of crystalline gneiss, which was looking very 
 much as it does now, aeons and aeons before the greater part of 
 England rose from beneath the waves. 
 
 And the immense majority of its inhabitants, although they 
 certainly cannot say that they are as old as the rocks of the 
 
1886.— JB^. Hon. Mowitstuart Elfhinatone Grant Duff, 219 
 
 Nilgiris^ would, at least^ if they did so, come very much nearer 
 the mark, than did the great French family, of whom it was 
 said '^ noble as the Barrases, old as the rocks of Provence." 
 
 It is not only an ancient, but a lovely, land in which the lot 
 of most of you is cast. There is hardly a district in the Presi- 
 dency, which does not contain scenery which people in Europo 
 would go hundreds of miles to see, and of which the globe-trotter, 
 pursuing his way over *' the bare stony wolds of the Deccan," 
 and the monotonous plains so common in Northern India, little 
 dreams. Such a land well deserves that the best efforts of its 
 inhabitants should be given, first, to make the most of its 
 resources, and, secondly, to illustrate it by leading therein lives 
 which may be useful to the world at large. 
 
 Let me recapitulate. Some of those, who now enter the 
 University, should not enter it at all. They can 
 tion. "'^P**^^^ never be useful to themselves, their families, or 
 their country, except through callings by which 
 they can early, and speedily, accumulate money. Others should 
 enter it, pass the Matriculation, and the First in Arts Examina- 
 tions, but, after that, branch off to some of the more difficult 
 money-getting pursuits. 
 
 There remain the graduates, to whom I have been chiefly 
 addressing myself, and we have seen together how many employ- 
 ments there are, amongst which it is desirable that they should 
 scatter themselves, instead of trusting to the fragile reed of 
 Government employment. 
 
 So much for the lower functions of the University: for 
 what the Germans well call its " bread-studies." I have shown 
 you, however, that above these is a whole range of occupations, 
 adapted to the leisure hours of the busy men amongst you, and 
 all the hours of such of you, (a class which will, I trust, increase) 
 as having this world's goods, need not trouble yourselves with 
 money-getting. 
 
 I have further pointed out that these occupations are of two 
 kinds : those suited to men whose disposition inclines them to 
 the active, and those suited to men whose disposition inclines 
 them to the studious, and contemplative, side of life. 
 
 But, beyond, and above, all these functions of the Univer- 
 sity, there is one far higher and more important still ; that, 
 namely, it should sow in all its worthier sons the seeds of that 
 way of looking at life, which has never been so well described, 
 as it has been by a living writer. 
 
220 University of Mad/ras, 
 
 *' He was acquiring," says Mr. Pater, speaking of a Eoman 
 youtli, the hero of his surpassingly beautiful book, ' Marius the 
 Epicurean,^ 
 
 " He was acquiring what is ever the chief function of all 
 higher education to teach, — a system of art, viz., of so relieving 
 the ideal or poetic traits, the elements of distinction in our every- 
 day life — of so exclusively living in them that the unadorned 
 remainder of it, the mere drift and debris of life, becomes as 
 though it were not/' 
 
 It would be a dangerous thing to say this if I were not 
 addressing those "whom I believe to be inspired, even perhaps, 
 too much inspired, with the Western passion for '^ getting on," 
 albeit they think too much of '' getting on" by the poor enough 
 ladder of Government employment ; but it is necessary to say it 
 in order to put before you the kernel of my thoughts about the 
 University. The world's work must be done — woe to those by 
 whom the hard prosaic inevitable side of life is ever neglected; 
 but I would have each one of you have in your minds a sanctuary, 
 into which it does not enter. 
 
 Till our University is doing all these things, from the lowest 
 to the highest, I, for one, shall not be satisfied, but I confess 
 that it is with no small pleasure that I observe how little she has 
 got to throw away, how little rubbish there is, in her existing 
 system. 
 
 My thoughts go back to the first time that it became my 
 duty, officially, to address a University. It was just nineteen 
 years ago, and I was then not Chancellor of the University of 
 Madras, but Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen, an 
 ancient institution, which had been founded, partly in the even- 
 ing of Catholic Scotland, partly in the stormy morning of her 
 Protestant Reformation. 
 
 Then, as to-day, I directed my speech mainly to point out 
 what I thought would be improvements, but, in the first case 
 the whole ground around me was strewn with old-fashioned and 
 semi-barbarous methods of teaching, the absurdity of which I 
 had to bring into strong relief. 
 
 Hero there is nothing of that sort. The machine is an 
 excellent machine. It will want, doubtless, every few years a 
 change here, and a change there, but the great improvements 
 wanted are not in the machine, but rather in the way in which 
 our people use it. 
 
 I calculate that^ when I was young, every English boy, who 
 had enjoyed, or suffered, what was called a first-rate education. 
 
i886.— J5i. Hon, Mountst/uart Blphmstone Grant Duff, 221 
 
 no matter what were his abilities, or his application, lost 
 five clear years of life, before he entered on his profession, 
 thanks to the hopeless idiotcy of the system through which we 
 were all put. I have taken comparatively little interest in Eng- 
 lish educational questions for some years back, but, from 18(51, 
 when I got the then Government to appoint the first Commis- 
 sion to enquire into our Public Schools till within a year or two 
 of my leaving home, I took a very active part in their discussion, 
 in and out of Parliament. During that time there was a great 
 deal of improvement ; but still the old follies stood back to back, 
 and sold their lives dearly. 
 
 Here, however, I find little in our system to criticize. It 
 is filled with the modern spirit, and, whenever a change is 
 wanted, and is likely to be acceptable to those concerned, a 
 scratch of the pen does more than years of weary iteration and 
 reiteration of common sense can do to break through, in the old 
 country, the cake of custom, let alone to overpower the resistance 
 of the craftsmen of Ephesus. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I think I have said to you, and, through 
 you, to the youth of Southern India, all that I had it in my mind 
 to say. My days in this country are numbered, but I shall 
 continue to watch with the greatest interest the future of the 
 Madras University. It has done good service up to this time, 
 but there has perhaps not been much in its work, very unKke 
 the work of its sister Universities at Calcutta and Bombay. It 
 has been mainly an institution for the testing by West Aryans 
 of the intellectual powers and educational progress of Southern 
 Brahmins, that is, of persons of pure or mixed East Aryan blood. 
 
 All this is highly commendable, and useful. No one has a 
 greater respect than I have for our Brahmins. Of them that 
 may be truly said, which was said so well of Pericles : 
 
 •* He waved the sceptre o'er his kind 
 By Nature's first great title — ^mind," 
 
 They must always occupy a most important place in a 
 society, presided over by the Aryans of the West, because their 
 place is indicated by their possession of a large share of those 
 intellectual powers, in virtue of which the West Aryan himself 
 liolds paramount sway. 
 
 But to have a University merely to do what, in these Bail- 
 way days, Bombay could do almost as well, would be a ratber 
 humble ambition. What must ever differentiate this University 
 from all other Universities is, that it is placed in the midst of a 
 huge Dra vidian population. 
 
222 University of Madras, 
 
 We can make a pretty good guess as to what the East 
 Aryan can do, when he has had '^ all the chances." We can 
 hardly make a guess as to what the Dravidian may do. Very 
 likely he will never be able to do work as good as that of the 
 East Aryan, but it is almost certain that tho best he does will 
 be different in kind. 
 
 THIRTIETH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Rajah Sir T. Madava Row, K.O.S.I.) . 
 
 Gentlemen, — His Excellency the Chancellor having asked 
 me to deliver the usual address to you on this occasion, I obey 
 as a matter of duty and deference. I feel all the more gratified 
 because the duty has been confided to me by no less a personage 
 than the Governor of the Presidency, whom we have all so 
 cordially welcomed, and who has already inspired all classes of 
 the people with the confidence that his rule will be just, gener- 
 ous, and beneficent to the utmost of his power and opportunities. 
 As an old friend of the people of Madras, it is a peculiar 
 pleasure to me to stand in this position. I will not affect any 
 extraordinary difiidence in the performance of the duty with 
 which I am charged, for I am much your senior in years, and, 
 therefore, in experience. 
 
 Gentlemen, I warmly congratulate you on the Academic 
 honours yon have won, — won after long and anxious toil, not 
 unfrequently amid unknown difficulties, pressure, and privations. 
 The University to which you belong will watch your future with 
 affectionate interest. May your careers be long, happy and 
 honourable. 
 
 Let me warn you that the world you are about to enter is 
 by no means as smooth and beautiful as the pencil 
 Atimelywam- ^^ youth and hope may have painted it to your 
 imagination. In reality, it is full of divergences, 
 difficulties, disappointments and dangers. After your entrance 
 into it, it will not be long before you begin to realise the full 
 meaning of what is called " the Battle of Life.'' You will find 
 a ceaseless strife going on everywhere in pursuit of food, fortune 
 or fame. The persons engaged are innumerable, the arms 
 employed are of infinite diversity. You will have to make way 
 amid dust and darkness ; you will have to wade through know- 
 ledge and ignorance of all degrees; through prejudices and 
 passions and errors and even vices difficult of enumeration. 
 False lights will often misguide you ; powerful temptations will 
 lure you; unexpected obstacles will stop you; new problems 
 
18S1.— Rajah Sir T. Madava Row, 223 
 
 will perplex you. Envy, jealousy, pride and causeless anti- 
 pathies will assail you. But it is hoped that the knowledge 
 and virtue which have been imparted to you heretofore, and 
 which you will strengthen hereafter by self-education, will con- 
 duct you safely and successfully through the world before you. 
 
 Gentlemen, yoicr education is not finished. It would be a 
 great error on your part to suppose that as you 
 Tour educa- have got your degrees your education is finished, 
 finished" ^^ Your general education has come to an end ; but 
 self-education must now begin and go on through 
 all life. Clearly understand what you have gained so far, 
 and do not over-estimate the advantages you have acquired. 
 You have been taught certain large facts; in other words, you 
 have been put in possession of a certain amount of knowledge ; 
 you have been taught how to learn, so as to enable you to in- 
 crease your knowledge. Your reasoning or judging powers 
 have been developed to a certain extent. Your miud has been 
 trained or dkciplined so as to be a useful instrument in the 
 future. You have been provided with moral principles, by 
 observance of which your conduct in life may be useful and 
 perfectly honourable. In a short time you will find out for your- 
 selves that your gains heretofore are insufficient as to quantity 
 and imperfect as to quality. If you do not realise this, you will 
 come to a standstill. Your stock of knowledge must be greatly 
 increased. The faculties of your mind must be further strength- 
 emed and improved by well-directed exercise. All this will re- 
 quire labour and application. But these should not be grudged 
 if you are ambitious of successful and honourable careers. 
 
 A great deal has to be done in life and life is short. The 
 way in which time is spent makes a great difference 
 Value time jn the merits and success of men. Exercise, rest 
 w^^Bpen 1 ^^^ recreation are necessary to health of mind 
 and body. You will be quite right to devote time 
 for these purposes. You will be wrong not to do so. Do not 
 waste your time in excessive ^eep, in idleness, in frivolities, in 
 aimless or useless conversation. Do not divert too much time 
 to objects which are not relevant to the cardinal aims of your 
 life. Consider well before you devote any considerable share of 
 your time to the study of ancient or foreign languages of no 
 great practical use to you. Your studies ought to have a useful 
 bearing on your plan of life. At least they should not diverge 
 far from the same. If you are to be a Tahsildar, do not divert 
 too much of your time to Chemistry. If you are going to 
 be a Vakil in Court, do not dissipate your time on Spheri<5al 
 
224 IJniverdiy of Madras. 
 
 Trigonometry- or Conic Sections. You will have to do more 
 with the sections of Codes than of Cones ! If yoii are to take 
 up the medical profession, do not bestow too much of your 
 time on Astronomy. Remember that much waste of time is 
 entailed by frequent changes in your plan of life. Unless 
 you have affluence and leisure, do not lay out too much of 
 your time on mere ornamental accomplishments or in the 
 reading of novels or other works of fiction. When you give 
 your time, give it so as to obtain a fair return of pleasure or 
 profit for yourself or for the community. Do not waste time 
 in pursuits for which you have no natural aptitude. Do not 
 waste time in undertakings which are impossible of accomplish- 
 ment ,or nearly so. I hardly like natives of India lavishly 
 devoting time to excel in the composition of English or other 
 foreign poetry. Considering that ideas are more important than 
 words, do not spend too much time in the cultivation of mere 
 literary graces. Do not squander time or brain-power in barren 
 controversies or speculations, such as too many Pundits are 
 fond of. If you want to acquire knowledge, acquire it as it is. 
 Do not needlessly trouble yourself about its long past history. 
 The lessons or deductions of history are far more worth time and 
 study than the long dry details of historical events. A few 
 select newspapers, local and general, you must, by all means, 
 read regularly, in order to know current history. But avoid 
 needless multiplicity and avoid the rubbish which is too often 
 produced by impoverished incompetence. 
 
 This is an important principle. Get a general idea of all 
 fields of knowledge. But you must study closely 
 thing^oi every- ^^^ Specially the particular field in which you are 
 thing and every- most interested. Plenty of books and advice are 
 tM^f. ""^ ^"""^ available for this purpose. Beware of a loose or 
 superficial knowledge of subjects connected with 
 your professional work. I am far from inculcating a strictly 
 utilitarian principle in the choice of the fields of knowledge for 
 your cultivation. All I urge is that you should take a rough 
 survey of those fields, and select such as would yield you ade- 
 quate pleasure or profit. Some fields may have to be rejected, 
 because you lack the requisite aptitude ; others, because you 
 have not the requisite means or leisure ; others again, because 
 you have no opportunities to practically use the particular kind 
 of knowledge. Be sure, gentlemen, no one will rejoice more 
 than myself to see multitudes of graduates throughout India 
 taking up multitudes of fields of knowledge and cultivating them 
 with diUgence, enthusiasm, and success. You have only to 
 
1Q81.— Rajah Sir T. Madavo Row. 225 
 
 remember that intellectual concentration is more fruitful than 
 intellectual dissipation. I strongly deprecate what may be 
 called intellectual vagrancy. 
 
 As you are on the threshold of the world, it is important 
 that you should have a clear idea of the principal 
 Aims of life. objects you are to achieve or try to achieve. First, 
 you are to secure for yourself material and moral 
 happiness ; secondly, you are to secure the same for all others 
 to the utmost of your power. The means to be employed for 
 these ends may be summarised in two words, — Knowledge and- 
 Virtue. These you have acquired to a certain extent as certified 
 by your degrees. Increase them by diligent and well-directed 
 self-education. Promote them among the people to the utmost 
 of your al)ility. Descending from these generalities, I might expa- 
 tiate for days on details touching the various relations of life. 
 But time being limited, I will lay before you a few specific hints 
 roughly and rapidly. Do not expect anything new, learned or bril- 
 liant in these hints, or even so much as natural or logical order. 
 I shall be satisfied if you, gentlemen, find in some of them practi- 
 cal truths of any little service to you in the careers before you. 
 
 I need not tell you, gentlemen, that the invaluable blessing 
 of health is at the foundation of all happiness. 
 Thoroughly learn the conditions on which health 
 depends, and resolutely practise those virtues which preserve it. 
 Promote public health and sanitation by private instruction, by 
 advice and by example. A great deal might be quietly done in 
 this direction with the result of more health and less disease, — 
 more happiness and less misery. Any exhortation on the subject 
 of health may seem unnecessary. But we often come across 
 instances in which the inestimable blessing of health is sacrificed 
 in the too eager pursuit of inadequate objects. Knowledge 
 regarding health should be acquired early in youth, rather than 
 when health has been lost or begins to decline. Do not trust 
 your health to ignorant quacks. The longer and the more happily 
 you live, the better will you fulfil the objects of the education 
 imparted to you. 
 
 A healthy young man will soon find material wants pressing 
 . for satisfaction. He will have to select some pro- 
 
 fession or business in view to his livelihood. This 
 necessity is early felt in India, and must not be long put off. 
 The question is '' how should you earn at least the minimum 
 required for your maintenance.'^ This should engage your 
 earnest attention, because you will not find it satisfactory or 
 honourable to live long on the industry of others. Do not take 
 29 
 
226 University of Madras. 
 
 up any business at random or by chance. You sliould carefully 
 think over the matter and consult friends competent to advise 
 you. Do not be over-ambitious or aim beyond your reacli. 
 Immoderate wishes often end in disappointment causing 
 depression or discontent. Select such a career as you may have 
 a clear liking for. Select that career for v^hich you are fitted 
 or for which you may soon fit yourself. Having carefully made 
 a selection_, resolutely adhere to it. Concentrate all your atten- 
 tion on it^ so as to mnster its requirements. Master both the 
 theory and practice of your business. Seek advice, guidance 
 and assistance from those who have already succeeded in that 
 business. Keep them in view as models to follow. Observe 
 them, study them, and learn what qualities have made them 
 successful. Avoid quarrelling with your superiors, subordinates 
 or equals. Keep on good terms with all. Cultivate ability, 
 diligence and the highest probity in the performance of your 
 business. Be humble and respectful to those above you and 
 unfailingly courteous to all aihers. 
 
 You must not overlook the difference between theory and 
 practice. One who has learnt the theory of swim- 
 PKwtice^ *^^ ming from the best books may not be able to keep 
 himself afloat even for a few minutes, while the 
 practised swimmer can swim long with ease and pleasure. You 
 well know how to write. Both your hands are equally your own. 
 Yet, mark what a vast difference practice makes between the 
 right hand and the left hand. You write easily with the right 
 hand, you can scarcely w^rite with the left. Consider this, and you 
 will easily understand why the world values a practical workman 
 much more than one simply theoretical. Therefore add practice 
 to theory. If this be not done, the practical man will beat the 
 merely theoretical one, and the latter must not complain. 
 
 Young men fresh from schools or colleges are generally 
 theoretical men. They must strive to enhance their value by 
 becoming practical also. 
 
 While you strive after increasing success^ leani to be con- 
 tented with what falls to your lot. Without con- 
 tentment no man can be continuously happy. Do 
 not postpone contentment to some distant future contingency or 
 consummation which may not be reached. J. do not mean to 
 dilate on this well-worn topic. I just advert to it, only to remind 
 you at the outset of your pursuit of happiness that the first three 
 factors of happiness are, — Health, Competence and Contentment. 
 Do not lose sight of these in the heat and tumult of the battle of 
 life. They are happily attainable by most men, 
 
i8S7.— Rajah Sir t. Madava Uow. 22? 
 
 I venture here to offer a suggestion, which may possibly 
 savour of novelty or superfluity. The anxiety of 
 Law.^^ ^®^^ an earnest well-wisher will, I hope, excuse it. You 
 are, of course, conversant with moral principles. 
 You know what acts morality forbids. But you may as well 
 know also what acts the law forbids with much greater force. 
 I refer to acts which the law makes penal. The catalogue of 
 such offences includes some which may not be always present to 
 common sense. Again, some of them partake of an artificial or 
 technical character. It would, therefore, seem desirable that 
 young men about to enter the world should glance over the 
 Penal Code and its lucid definitions, in order that they may take 
 care that they are not unconsciously or inadvertently caught in 
 the meshes of that comprehensive Code. The law of defamation, 
 for instance, deserves to be kept in view. It may be usefully 
 remembered that no one can plead ignorance of the law to excuse 
 its infraction. 
 
 Do not despise good manners, as these form an important 
 element on which success depends. They mate- 
 nSs.^^ ^^' rially diminish the friction which attends passage 
 through life. I have met instances in which bad 
 manners seriously marred great abilities or moral worth. And 
 yet it is easy to acquire good manners by a little study and by a 
 little observation. You may remember with advantage that 
 good manners are to life what oil is to machinery. I hope it will 
 not be a consequenco of your English education that you will 
 superciliously neglect those cheap graces and unbidden amenities 
 of your social life, which soften and sweeten your relations with 
 the people immediately around you. 
 
 In life you come in contact with innumerable men, whose 
 feelings are like your own. Be careful not to hurt 
 fSungs!' °^^^''''' *^®^^ feelings needlessly. By all means express 
 yourself truthfully, but, as far as possible, refrain 
 from causing pain. Avoid words which imply passion or vituper- 
 ation. We Natives are careful in this respect by habit and tradi- 
 tion, and education may be expected to intensify the good quality. 
 Great and good men are popular in proportion they cultivate 
 this habit of respecting others^ feelings. Distinguished European 
 examples are within your sight. 
 
 Differences of opinion too often characterise and divide 
 Native communities implying prevalence of differ- 
 
 opkiion^^^°^^ ^^ ^"* degrees of knowledge, differing capacities for 
 judgment, diversity of interests, differing passions 
 
 and prejudices, and multiplicity of standards of right and Avrong. 
 
228 University of Madi 
 
 Now, it must be obvious to you that the more opinions differ, 
 the more must the community be divided, and the weaker must 
 it consequently be. It is hoped that as education advances, 
 differences will diminish, and increasing approaches will be made 
 to a fair unanijuity. Let every educated man try to do his best 
 to verify his facts; to see that his facts are complete, that 
 his reasoning is sound; in short, to ensure correct judgment. 
 Do not differ under the false idea that ready assent implies 
 intellectual servility, or under the equally false idea, that dissent 
 implies intellectual independence. When a considerable number 
 of thoughtful and experienced men agree upon an opinion, be 
 slow to differ from the same. Rather agree than differ- Do 
 not differ merely to have an opportunity to speak, or to display 
 your debating power. For the advantage of unanimity, be dis- 
 posed to sacrifice minor differences. The more carefully you 
 form your opinions, the greater the deference you pay to men of 
 judgment and experience, the less will be the chances of dis- 
 agreement and discord. Remember that a community advances 
 in proportion as it follows the guidance of its best members. 
 
 If you have, after due inquiry and thought, reached a use- 
 ful conviction, avow it without fear or favour. You 
 of oonviction!^^ ^^^^ *^"^ ^^^ ^^® progress and propagation of truth, 
 so essential to public improvement. For example, 
 if you are convinced that child- marriage is mischievous, say so 
 without ambiguity or equivocation. If you believe Astrology to 
 be a false science, avow it candidly. The same with respect to 
 good and bad omens and other superstitions or errors. It is 
 particularly desirable that you not only avow your convictions, 
 but act upon them as far as possible. 
 
 Do not fear or hesitate to change your opinion if you have 
 good reasons to change the same. We are all 
 o idIotI^^^ °* liable to form erroneous opinions. And as we 
 advance in knowledge and experience, we discover 
 error. To still hold to the former erroneous opinion would be 
 pertinacity detrimental to the public weal. An undue love of con- 
 sistency is often responsible for a great deal of obstruction to the 
 progress of reform. The more educated men are, the more loyal 
 are they to the sovereignty of reason, and the more readily do they 
 cast off erroneous opinions and accept correct ones. Accordingly, 
 some of the greatest men of the world, have been known to change 
 opinions, when truth and reason required them to do so. 
 
 A compromise, you know, is an amicable agreement between 
 
 parties in controversy to settle their differences by 
 
 Compromises, mutual concessions, Controversies frequently arise, 
 
{887.— Bajah Sir T. Madava Row. 229 
 
 compromises are therefore eminently useful. I would advise 
 educated men to resort to compromises as often as fairly possible 
 without sacrifice of principle. Do not lightly say " 1 hate com- 
 I)romises ; I am an uncompromising fellow," In many cases 
 there may be nothing wrong or derogatory in a compromise. It 
 saves time, it saves money^ it saves trouble and anxiety, and it 
 saves temper. The greatest men have ended controversies by 
 judicious compromises. Life is a long series of compromises. 
 There can be no peace in private life without compromises. A 
 government and a people cannot long get on peacefully without 
 compromises. Governments settle mutual differences by com- 
 promises ; otherwise, war would be very frequent. Compromises 
 tend to unanimity of opinion^ unity of action, and reconciliation 
 of conflicting interests. A compromising spirit is all the more 
 necessary in India where so many diverse races have to co-exist 
 and to co-operate for the public good. Why, gentlemen, half 
 a dozen Hindu, Muhammadan and Christian gentlemen cannot 
 comfortably travel together in the same railway carriage with- 
 out a great deal of compromising spirit ! 
 
 Make these instrumental to the increase of knowledge and 
 virtue. Learn from your betters, instruct your 
 Conversatian"^ inferiors, as far as opportunities offer. Candidly 
 but carefully distribute praise and blame, so tbat 
 social opinion may become a living beneficial force. Do aat be 
 too ambitious of shining in company and conversation, for, then, 
 you do not enjoy yourself and have to tkink too much of your- 
 self to learn or to instruct. 
 
 You will be often called upon to accomplish given objects. 
 Do not impetuously rush into action. First, get a 
 Means to ends, ^lear conception of the object, wbat it is, and what 
 it is not. Secondly, conceive the different alternative means to 
 be taken. Carefully consider and select that wbich is most 
 effective and most honourable. Conceive the several possible 
 contingencies which may occur to disturb or defeat your endea- 
 vours. Think how their occurrence might be prevented. Think 
 what should be done if any such contingency occur in spite of 
 preventive precautions. Nothing, gentlemen, should take you 
 by surprise. Nothing should find you unprepared. Act on the 
 programme thus settled. Such a habit will maximise success and 
 minimise failure. 
 
 Avoid the mischievous error of supposing that our ancient 
 
 forefathers were infinitelj' wiser than men of the 
 
 dom"^^^^^^ ^^^ present times. It cannot be true. Every year of 
 
 an individual's life he acquires additional know- 
 
235 tTniversity of Madras. 
 
 ledge. Knowledge thus goes ou accumulating from year to year. 
 Similarly, every generation adds to the knowledge of the previous 
 generation. Under such a process, the accumulation of know- 
 ledge in a century is something very large. To assert therefore 
 that men possessed more knowledge scores of centuries ago than 
 at the present day is manifestly absurd. Even assuming intellec- 
 tual equality between the ancients and moderns, men of modern 
 times have had enormous advantages over those of ancient times 
 for the acquisition of knowledge. Our field of observation, our 
 facilities for observation, our instruments of observation, our 
 highly elaborated methods of calculation, our means of publish- 
 ing the results of observation, of getting the results scrutinised, 
 questioned, compared, discussed, and variously verified are 
 infinitely greater than those of remote generations. The explo- 
 rations of the ancients were fragmentary and superficial. The 
 whole world is now one field of observation. We can cross con- 
 tinents by railways, we can traverse oceans by steamers. We 
 dive to the bottom of the sea, we pierce to the bowels of the 
 earth. We rise to far off ethereal solitudes where new worlds 
 seem to be in process of creation or consolidatian. Our visual 
 powers are infinitely multiplied by such instruments as the 
 microscope and the telescope. Our power of measuring space 
 has been enlarged by a variety of the nicest instruments. So 
 also our power of measuring time. We have a marvellous postal 
 system which spreads information through a thousand channels. 
 We employ lightning itself as messenger of news. We have a 
 wonderful system of printing books, journals and periodicals, by 
 which the thoughts of the whole human race are exchanged with 
 ease and rapidity. The observers are innumerable, and include 
 the most gifted intellects animated by the highest love of truth, 
 by the highest enthusiasm and the keenest emulation. In short, 
 an enormous intellectual committee of the whole civilised world 
 is ceaselessly sitting from generation to generation, and is cease- 
 lessly working for the collection and augmentation of human 
 knowledge. Calmly and carefully reflect, and you, gentlemen, 
 are certain to agree with me. Hesitate not, therefore, to prefer 
 modern knowledge to ancient knowledge. A blind belief in the 
 omniscience of our forefathers is mischievous, because it perpetu- 
 ates errors and tends to stagnation. 
 
 India is the scene of the confluence of two mighty civilisa- 
 
 Preserve what tions. You will find a great deal that is old and 
 
 is good in the also a great deal that is new. You are not to accept 
 
 whatlsgoodTn either indiscriminately or exclusively. Exercise 
 
 the new. your judgment in choosing. In regard to scientific 
 
1887.— Rajah Sir T. Madava Row. 231 
 
 knowledge, the modern must be given preference. In regard to 
 virtues, many old ones which have been our inheritance for ages 
 are excellent, and ought to be retained, such as gentleness, good- 
 will, self-restraint, fidelity and gratitude to benefactors, polite- 
 ness, patience, charity, general benevolence, respect and submis- 
 sion to constituted authority, love of peace and order, — happily a 
 long list, of which we may well be proud. At the same time, some 
 modern virtues may also be adopted, such as courage, candour, 
 independence, perseverance, punctuality, public spirit, &c. Simi- 
 larly, a proportion of our manners, customs and habits deserve to 
 be cherished, for instance, the simplicity of our lives, our sobriety, 
 our domestic affections, our cheerful support of needy or helpless 
 relatives or dependants. Had time permitted, I should have 
 referred to some of our fine arts, and to a great deal in the 
 domain of aestiaetics, which deserves respect, reverence, and 
 admiration. 
 
 The subject of religion is difficult and delicate ground, and 
 must be but sparingly remarked upon. It would, 
 
 ^^^' however, be an error to omit it altogether from 
 
 our consideration. Each must, of course, be guided by his own 
 convictions. In this department exact knowledge is not attain- 
 able so as to find universal acceptance. Hence a generous 
 toleration and brotherly feeling to all are great duties. Re- 
 ligion being viewed as subservient to morality, some religion is 
 better than none. Where certainty is difficult but error is easy, 
 I would admit light from all quarters, — light from the creation 
 generally ; light from human reason, from human instinct, and 
 from human conscience, enlightened by knowledge ; light from 
 the opinions and beliefs of the best men of all climes and ages ; 
 light from the requirements of human society ; light from con- 
 siderations of what may be probable or safe and solaciug. 
 
 Many educated persons wish to be either or both. The 
 wish is natural, strong and almost intuitive. And 
 P^iti"aa ^"^ ■"" "^^^^ure to say that it is useful and honourable. 
 None need regret it ; all may rejoice at it. If 
 educated men are not to be patriots and politicians, who else 
 can be ? The preservation of all the good which India at 
 present happily enjoys, and its future advancement depend upon 
 her patriots and politicians. This is the class which, of all the 
 vast and varied population of India, is most capable of under- 
 standing, appreciating and using the magnificent opportunity 
 which England affords us of learning all that ought to be learnt 
 by progressive communities. England has spread before us the 
 vast stores of knowledge accumulated during many centuries of 
 
282 University of Madras. 
 
 hard and honest investigation. Let us diligently appropriate 
 these stores. To shut our eyee to them would be worse than 
 intellectual folly ; it would be an intellectual sin. Useful know- 
 ledge of all kinds must be acquired and assimilated; and poli- 
 tical knowledge certainly is not the least important part of it. 
 
 It is sometimes asserted in a reckless spirit that the old 
 political condition of India was better than the 
 cal c^dition. ^ present. I trust you will not accept such an asser- 
 tion. Ancient ideals of Government have come 
 down to us in prose and poetry. If the best of those ideals were 
 restored to us in all its integrity, India would loudly protest 
 against it. Coming to more recent times^ I do not think India 
 would tolerate any Grovernment as it was in Pre-British 
 times. The truth must be frankly and gratefully admitted that 
 the British Government of India is incomparably the best 
 Government we have ever had. It is the strongest and the most 
 righteous and the best suited to Indians diverse populations and 
 diverse interests. It is the most capable of self-maintenance, 
 of self -renovation and self-adjustment, in reference to the pro- 
 gressive advancement of the subject-races. 
 
 But it would be contrary to human nature itself to expect 
 that the British nation should undertake the heavy 
 thF'imposXle^ !^"*y ^^^, responsibility of governing and defend- 
 ing India without any advantage whatever to 
 itself. That some advantage should accrue to the British nation 
 by way of compensation is only natural and legitimate. Try to 
 set due limits to that advantage, but it would be irrational to 
 abolish it altogether. It would be impossible to deny all ad- 
 vantage to England for governing India. But, were it possible, 
 it would be undesirable in a high degree. Why so ? Because 
 if England got no advantage by governing India, England 
 would say of India what Prince Bismark said of Bulgaria, 
 namely, " I do not care what becomes of it, or who rules it." 
 
 Everyone who is not a visionary, and who has paid any 
 
 attention to the condition of the world as it is, 
 
 India cannot must feel convinced that India cannot, for a lonar 
 
 i)e independent. ,-, i ip -ii-i n. 
 
 time to come, be a seli-governed and nidependent 
 
 country. Her only chance of life, re-invigora- 
 tion, progress and prosperity, lies in her being under the wings 
 of some strong, just, and generous power. And what power 
 better than England ? Without powerful patronage and pro- 
 tection, India, weak and fascinating, would be exposed to the 
 lawless violence of any Imperial Dacoit ! Educated men should 
 ponder over these truths deeply and well- 
 
1887.— ijlo/'a/i Sir T. Madava How. 233 
 
 As associated efforts are more productive of good than 
 isolated or individual ones, educated men have 
 properly establisned various societies or combina- 
 tions all over the Presidency. This is a prominent and praise- 
 worthy feature of the times. As an important consequence a 
 new and unprecedented interest has been awakened in public 
 affairs, which are now better known and more extensively dis- 
 cussed and judged tending to the formation of a sound 
 public opinion which is so potent and salutary a force in the 
 modern world. These associations may do useful work in 
 various directions. As regards the great body of the people, 
 they may disseminate useful general information ; they may 
 promote political education ; tbey may correct or dispel errors 
 and delusions ; they may promote various reforms ; they may 
 make known local wants and wishes ; they may afford advice 
 and guidance. As regards the Grovernment, they may make 
 themselves still more useful ; they may vigilantly watch the 
 action of Grovernment at all times and in all places, in view to 
 wholesome criticism. The ideal of the Indian G-overnment 
 is happily very high. But to keep it on a level with its own 
 ideal, vigilant criticism is very necessary. High ideals have a 
 natural tendency to decline. The Indian Government is very 
 liable to errors or lapses. It does not sufficiently understand 
 the religions, habits and feelings of the subject-population. It 
 is apt to become high-handed owing to its vast superiority over 
 the subject-peoples. The people are extremely divided and 
 weak. The Home Government is far away. There is temptation 
 to prefer English to Indian interests. The European officers of 
 Government are birds of passage without permanent interest or 
 sympathy in India. There is temptation to overlook their faults 
 and shortcomings few as they may be. There is temptation to 
 favour the stronger races of India at the expense of the weaker 
 ones. There is temptation to treat foreign settlers in some 
 respects with excessive indulgence. There is temptation to 
 prefer foreigners to natives for public employments. Such are 
 some of the reasons which call for and justify watchfulness and 
 criticism. One of the noblest characteristics of the British 
 Government is that it permits, tolerates, and even welcomes such 
 criticism. Such criticism sometimes actually strengthens the 
 Indian Government in the performance of its difficult and sacred 
 duties. Special care should be taken that the facts criticised 
 are correct, and are not exaggerated, and that the criticism 
 itself is just and moderate : 
 
 Let three F's characterise the criticism, 
 It ghoald be Free, Fair, and Feaxless. 
 
 30 
 
234 Univ&rsity of Madras. 
 
 But associations should support Government as well as 
 criticise it as occasions arise. There must naturally be more 
 occasions to support than to criticise. Government has a right 
 to expect from educated men the most sincere and sympathetic 
 support as well as free and fearless criticism. Peace and order 
 being vitally essential to civilised existence, progress, and pros- 
 perity, nothing should be done by word or deed which may have 
 any tendency to disturb public peace or order. Nothing should 
 be done which may have a tendency, present or future, to 
 weaken those invaluable habits of obedience to the law which 
 the vast community of India has happily inherited. If the 
 uneducated masses misunderstand^Government in any particular, 
 the associations should be prompt and eager to set them right. 
 The associations should recognise it as an imperative duty to 
 vindicate the ways of an honest Government to the millions of 
 its subjects. If these are aggrieved in any respect, the associa- 
 tions will act as their faithful interpreters or advocates. The 
 associations should avoid causing any embarrassment to Govern- 
 ment by inopportune, impractical or difficult proposals. They 
 should avoid the reality and even the appearance of a mistrustful 
 or militant spirit. They should afford the ruling power every 
 reason to regard them as co-efficient agencies alike in trouble 
 and tranquillity. Besides such duties, the associations have to 
 deal with large questions of the day. 
 
 For instance, I think the people of India must press for 
 ^. , examinations beinff held in India for appointments 
 
 Simultaneous . ,\_ ry '^ cs ' T j. -i. • 
 
 Examinations in to the Civil bcrvice. In every respect it is a 
 India for the matter of justice and good policy. To insist upon 
 Civil SerYic«. ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ j^^-^^ proceeding to England and 
 
 staying there and passing would, in effect, be to place a number 
 of barriers in their way to prevent or greatly check their entrance 
 into the Covenanted service. Just see what the barriers are. 
 They are, the great expense involved which many cannot afford ; 
 great inconvenience; withdrawal from friends, guardians and 
 natural well-wishers ; risk of youth going astray ; risk as to 
 health ; great loss of time ; difficulty of competing with English- 
 men in their own language and on their own ground ; risk of 
 eventual failure ; loss of touch with his own country and people ; 
 probable impairment of social status ; a certain amount of dena- 
 tionalisation. These barriers would be insuperable to most 
 classes and particularly to the Bramin community, which has, 
 from time immemorial and through successive dominations, 
 maintained intellectual and moral ascendancy and social influence 
 in India. The difficulties would be felt also by a considerable 
 
iSSL—Ritjah Sir T. Madava Bow. 235 
 
 proportion of the landed and moneyed aristocracy. As regards 
 the best families, the plan would amount to a sentence of exclu- 
 sion. Judginor from my own feelings in the matter, I should say 
 that the discontent would be great, though, in the old Indian 
 fashion, it would be a good deal disguised. Gentlemen, for 
 my part, I have run my course, and have reached the serene 
 air of private life, but I cannot be unconcerned about my pos- 
 terity ! Just imagine what the people would have felt if the 
 Muhammadan rulers, even in the plenitude of their despotic 
 strength and prosperity, had declared that no Hindu would be 
 eligible to high office without going to Mecca and staying there 
 several years ! 
 
 To pass to another topic of the day. The people of India 
 are deeply interested in seeing that high collegiate 
 at?Mucation^ education is not made to suffer under a narrow spirit 
 of financial economy. It cannot be too strongly 
 urged that the intellectual emancipation of India depends upon 
 the maintenance of such education. The native intellect shows a 
 capacity for indefinite development. Noble England cannot have 
 a more docile pupil than India. The associations, however, know 
 how to deal with this matter. Again, we are right to press for 
 some system by which information and explanation may be elicited 
 from Government as occasions may require. It is an elementary 
 requisite of responsibility. We are also right in asking for a 
 larger number of Native members in the several Legislative 
 Councils of India. And these members should represent some 
 bodies other than themselves. They may represent property and 
 intelligence as determined by a rough test. But I hope that the 
 activities of the associations will not be confined to political 
 matters. 
 
 Nail your flag to the massive principle, " Increase happiness 
 
 „ . , _ „ and reduce misery.'' You cannot carry that flaef 
 
 Social Reform. . , • . • xt- 4.i_ i. £ • i 
 
 into a more promising region than that ot social 
 
 reform. With equal labour you can do far more good in this 
 than in the political field. Gentlemen, there is work here beyond, 
 the dreams of Howard and Wilberforce. Some social reforms 
 are difficult, but others are easy. 
 
 This is not the place to enumerate them even by way of 
 examples. I am prepared to speak to anybody who may be 
 earnest in the matter. Earnest you ought all to be. Effect at 
 least the easier reforms without delay. Postponing them from 
 generation to generation is unworthy of educated men who wish 
 to be increasingly self-governing. Let me remind you, gentle- 
 men, in this connection that Indian society suffers far more from 
 
SS6 tiniversity of Madras. 
 
 self -remediable miseries than any otlier society. Let every one 
 of the associations with which the Presidency teems, distinctly 
 ask itself at the end of every passing year the question, " What 
 have we done to remove or mitigate any of those miseries." 
 
 Gentlemen, it is now time to bring these desultory remarks 
 _ . to a close. I bid you farewell, in the confident 
 
 hope that you will be a blessing to your country 
 and an honour to your University. 
 
 THIRTY-FIRST CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Lieut. -Colonel W. HoaHES TTallet.) 
 
 Graduates of the Year, — In accordance with the laws of the 
 University an address is now to be delivered to you by one of 
 the Senate, and I have been chosen for this honourable office. 
 It is impossible to put aside the feeling that there are here 
 present many far worthier than myself, far better able to per- 
 form this important task — but a glance at the list of those who 
 have year after year spoken to your predecessors suggests a 
 reason for my selection. That list comprises Governours, Ad- 
 ministrators, Clergymen, Doctors, EducatioDalists, Lawyers ; it 
 is full of names familiar in our mouths as household words; it 
 begins in 1857 with the then Director of Public Instruction, and 
 it ends last year with the veteran Statesman who after a long 
 and distinguished career is now spending the twilight of life in 
 your midst. But with the exception of one who at the time in 
 civil employment connected with education spoke in virtue of 
 that employment, it contains no military officer. It may well 
 be then that the reason for my standing before yoa to-day is a 
 wish that the Army should in turn be represented. The honour 
 is none the less, is indeed by much the greater. 
 
 First, on behalf of the University to congratulate you on your 
 success — which I do most heartily. You have toiled and have 
 found the reward. The long course of academic work will now be 
 followed by the work of life. One education you have done with, 
 the other and more important you have yet to begin. Success in 
 this new path will much depend upon the nature of your pre- 
 vious training, for it is not what you have learnt 
 have*learnt!but but how you have learnt it that must now stand 
 how you have you in stead. You may practice for a quarter of 
 earn i . ^ century in the Law Courts, you may sit decade 
 
 after decade in a Revenue office, without finding an opportunity 
 of edging in the date of the battle of Marathon or the formula 
 
IQSS.'-LieuL-Colonel W. Hughes Eallet. 23> 
 
 of the binomial theorem, but the habits yon have acquired at 
 school or college will for good or evil be of hourly importance. 
 A scientific course is specially useful in this connection. No 
 training is so good. Science not only gives a never-ceasing 
 interest to the humblest life, making all Nature an open book 
 more beautiful than is to be found in libraries, but it inculcates 
 habits of observation, method and accuracy which are simply 
 invaluable. 
 
 And, in parenthesis, to you others who have not succeeded 
 let a word of counsel be said. Do not make idle 
 Cotinsel to xm- excuses. Do not go about saying that you ought 
 dAtes^^^^ °*^^' *o haye passed, that you answered all the ques- 
 tions right, and that the examiner must have made 
 some mistake in the marks. Ask your teachers, ever ready to 
 help, for a plain unvarnished opinion as to the cause of failure, 
 Bs to whether it is permanent or removable. Do not shirk the 
 truth. It may be you are not up to the peculiar mental stand- 
 ard — then best retire gracefully from the contest and go about 
 other business. There is no disgrace in wanting this modern 
 knack of packing away thousands of facts in memory^s pigeon 
 holes and producing them neatly tied up in bundles at 10 a.m. 
 on a certain day. Many great minds would have broken down 
 under this test. The milestones of history have mostly been 
 put up by men who would have cut a poor figure in the exami- 
 nation room. If, on the other hand, the evil is pronounced curable, 
 try hard to cure it. Failure is often owing less to want of 
 knowledge than to carelessness. Instead of first studying the 
 question to see exactly what is wanted, then thinking out the 
 answer, then putting your ideas roughly on paper, and lastly 
 writing out clearly and concisely the information asked for and 
 nothing else — a very large number of you glance hurriedly at 
 the question without taking any pains to ascertain its drift, and 
 then scribble pages on pages more or less connected with the 
 subject to which it refers, but in no real sense answering it. Six 
 pages of well expressed and pertinent matter do more towards 
 success than a hundred pages of undigested rigmarole. And 
 not only is your knowledge thus clumsily marshalled, but it is 
 villainously set down. Only a small proportion of answer papers 
 are decently written : a very large portion are disgracefully 
 written. Now bad writing is more often due to affectation or 
 laziness than to inability, and few of us who sin in this respect 
 but can, with a little trouble, write at least legibly. You would 
 take this trouble in drawing up an application for employment, 
 then why not take it at examination ? Bad writing can how- 
 
238 UmversUy of Madras. 
 
 ever be forgiven, slovenliness and dirt are more serious offences. 
 Lines running at all kinds of angles with tlie horizontal, blots, 
 smudges, and smears in profusion, erasures and alterations 
 countless ; these are characteristics of at least half your papers, 
 and they might all be avoided with care and thought. This is 
 an intolerable fault — reform it altogether. 
 
 In the terms of the by-law providing for this address, it is 
 my duty to exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably unto the 
 position to which, by the degrees conferred upon you, you have 
 attained. The closer these lines are followed, the better. They 
 seem to preclude anything in the shape of a disquisition on 
 education, and indeed elaborate argument would in present 
 circumstances be quite out of place. A tropical afternoon, this 
 vast hall the acoustic difficulties of which are almost insur- 
 mountable, in which modulation of the voice is impossible, and 
 in which the slightest movement or noise prevents your neigh- 
 bours from hearing the speaker, the sea-breeze blowing strong 
 through open casements, and the league long roller murmuring 
 sullen a few yards to windward, these are conditions that de- 
 mand plain words plainly spoken. I shall therefore merely give 
 you from the vantage ground of age and experi- 
 Some practi- ^^^^ some practical advice as to the conduct of 
 
 ca,l advice trom ^ tt.,i t 
 
 the vantage your lives — advice much needed m these days, 
 ground of age j^q^ Q^jy because various forces are at work to 
 experi . ^^g^^-^je your minds and to j&ll them with false 
 ideas, but also because you have as a class been lately placed 
 in a difficult position, one that craves wary walking. You 
 have book learning, your presence here to-day proves it : per- 
 severance you have, your presence here to-day proves it : but 
 you have also faults, and it is only fair to say that they are 
 partly due to the treatment you have received these many 
 years past. Ever since the higher education began in this 
 Presidency, (and probably the remark applies equally to other 
 parts of India), you have out of mistaken kindness been allow- 
 ed your own way to an injudicious extent, notably in such 
 matters as absence from school, promotion to forms for which 
 you are not yet ripe, leaving one master for another out of petty 
 whim, and it has been the fashion in certain quarters to ignore, 
 and deprecate criticism on, your shortcomings. The natural 
 result is that faults which might have been and should have 
 been nipped in the bud have developed and flourished : and now 
 of a sadden hard things are said of you, and these faults are 
 pointed at and commented upon with a shaking of the head as 
 though they were a new growth, as though their existence had 
 
lS88.—Lieut.-Colonel W. Hughes Ballet. 239 
 
 not all along been perfectly well known. Had the educated 
 
 youth of India been from the first subjected to the 
 
 That invalna- kindly but firm discipline under which Enerlish 
 ble botanical aid t_ • tti i j if i . , .,,• 
 
 to Education. boys in J^iUgland are brought up^ not omitting a 
 
 moderate use of that invaluable botanical aid to 
 
 education the common birch, there would have been no occasion 
 
 for this outcry. These faults are not however serious, they are 
 
 much less than might have been expected in the circumstances, 
 
 and if you but have the sense to listen to the truth, to accept 
 
 honest advice, and to turn a deaf ear to pernicious flattery, they 
 
 will soon be things of the past. 
 
 Now the subject of first interest to young men about to 
 start in life is naturally the choice of a career, but on this we 
 will not linger. The general arguments respecting the different 
 professions are too familiar to need repetition, and it must lie 
 with each one of you who has not already made up his mind to 
 consider how far those general arguments are modified by the 
 particular circumstances of his own case. All sources of infor- 
 mation are open to you — friends and relatives are at hand to 
 consult — think the matter well over — ^and then decide. The 
 counsel of a stranger can be of little use. But without running 
 the risk of recommending this or that profession which might, 
 for reasons only known to yourselves, be unsuitable, there is one 
 
 ^ , , point which I would urore. Do not choose a call- 
 
 Do not choose f 11 . ° T mi • • 
 
 a calling solely ^^ig solely on pecuniary grounds. This is a very 
 on pecuniary commou but a very fatal mistake. The great 
 groun . majority of people judge of a profession entirely 
 
 by the income it affords. Of course the* money element is not 
 to be ignored, especially by a man without private means, give 
 it the first place in the calculation if you like, but do not lose 
 sight of other factors. Think also whether the profession suits 
 you. Money is not the only object in life, there is also happi- 
 ness ; and how can a man be happy if his days are spent in an 
 uncongenial occupation ? For instance, picture the life of a 
 doctor who has a distaste for his work — few dooms can be more 
 terrible. I say not this to dissuade you from the medical profes- 
 sion, to my mind the noblest of the professions, but as a warn- 
 ing : precisely because it is noble it should not be entered 
 lightly. This is of course an extreme case, but the truth holds 
 good always. A man is fond of the open air and out-door 
 exercise — what salary can compensate him for thirty years of 
 office drudgery in a close room ? Again, think whether your 
 work will, in addition to giving you a livelihood, do good to 
 others. This may seem too quixotic a consideration for every- 
 
240 Univeraity of Madras, 
 
 day life, but it is not. An entirely selfish existence can rarely 
 be happy. Now all kinds of work are capable of doing good to 
 others, directly or indirectly, but those which act directly will 
 give you the greatest satisfaction. 
 
 Now let it be supposed that you have made your choice 
 among the professions — on two of them I would briefly remark, 
 because they are exposed to peculiar temptations by the fierce 
 competition of the times. 
 
 Graduates in law, your ancient and honourable profession 
 „ .. ^ stands second to none in the demands that it makes 
 
 Excitements • i. n i. i j • i^i t • 
 
 and temptations upon intellect and perseverance and m the digni- 
 of the profes- ties and rewards that it offers to the successful. 
 Bion o aw. Your daily work will be of the widest interest, the 
 studies connected with that work of endless variety. You will 
 become familiar with master minds of many ages and of many 
 countries. Words spoken 2000 years back in the Forum of 
 Kome and words spoken last month amid the busy hum of 
 London traffic will alike claim your attention. The study will 
 doubtless fascinate you as it has fascinated others. Many men 
 have found it so engrossing that it has become the one subject 
 of their lives whether in the Court House or at home — they 
 have thought and spoken nothing but law, they have taken law 
 as their familiar communing with it day and night, they have 
 parted with it only at their latest breath. You will soon find 
 
 yourselves brought face to face with that curious 
 
 A cmioTig etW- ethical problem which has staggered the best and 
 
 every Swyer. °^ *^® wisest, and which every lawyer must solve for 
 
 himself. How far is an advocate justified in plead- 
 ing, or bound to plead, a cause which he believes or knows to be 
 wrong ? You will find plenty of contradiction in the authori- 
 ties, from Cicero to Erskine, from Quintilian to Brougham. 
 The line has to be drawn, and each must draw it for himself 
 according to his own lights and his own conscience: it 
 is a matter to be decided by personal conviction rather than 
 by argument. When engaged in the actual conduct oE a case 
 
 you are not likely to forget the duty owing to a 
 neSes^ ^ ^^' client, but do not forget that there is a duty owing 
 
 to witnesses also. Remember that the attendance 
 of a witness in a Court of Law is often against his own inclina- 
 tion, often takes him away from important private business, and 
 not seldom puts him to serious money loss. Remember that he is 
 called upon by Justice to assist Justice, and that he is for the time 
 being an unpaid servant of the public. Remember that he is pre- 
 sumably as honest as yourself^ and that till this presumption is 
 
IBSB.— Lieut, -Colonel W. Eughes Hallet. 241 
 
 neg-atived by apparent prevarication or falsehood you have no 
 right to treat him as a rogue because his evidence happens to be 
 against your side. By all means test to the utmost his accuracy of 
 observation and his memory, and if reasonable occasion arise test 
 also his veracity and shake his credit — this you must do in the 
 interests of your client — but do not unnecessarily injure or insult 
 him. He comes into Court for the purpose of speaking to the 
 matter in dispute, and not for the purpose of having the secrets of 
 his life laid bare to the common gnze. Above all, when addressing 
 the Court on the evidence do not draw unwarrantable inferences 
 from his words, and then vilify him for what he has neither said 
 nor suggested. In a word, follow faithfully the principles laid 
 down in our admirable Indian Law of Evidence. A violation of 
 these principles may buy a cheap notoriety in the least desirable 
 quarters — but in the minds of all whose opinion is worth having 
 it grievously besmirches that professional purity which you have 
 to-day promised to maintain, and it seriously interferes with the 
 ends of Justice by making the very name of cross-examination a 
 terror, by making honest folk afraid to enter the witness box. 
 
 Many of you will doubtless enlist in the ranks of journalism. 
 The yearly in- ^ J^^^^Y increasing forco — you will find the life 
 creasing force arduous and exacting. It is a service which makes 
 o Journalisna. ^^^ allowance for private convenience. You are 
 the master, but at the same time the slave> of the public. You 
 must be ready at any moment to give an ex cathedra opinion on 
 any subject, familiar or unfamiliar. Nothing is too great for 
 your attention, nothing too small. You are the Nasmyth hammer 
 The Naemyth ^^ literature. You must work in season and out 
 hammer of liter- of season. Areyou sick ? — rise from bed and dash 
 ^^^®' off a leading article on the latest political telegram. 
 
 Are you in domestic trouble ? — put grief on one side while you 
 review in appropriate style the new book of comic stories. But 
 to compensate for this life of endless work and worry you will 
 You will have ^^^^ power — godlike power. The mfluence of a 
 power, godlike newspaper in England is enormous, incalculable, 
 power. ^^^ even in India where there is sometimes an 
 
 affectation of poohpoohing the Press it is very great. Question 
 it who will, the Press is a great power for good — it is also 
 unfortunately a great power for evil. It can expose and insist 
 upon the remedy of wrong — it can also do wrong. Reflect on 
 this fact — that your first essential is to interest the public. No 
 amount of industry or cleverness can avail without this. You 
 must interest. Now reflect on this other fact — that nothing 
 interests the majority of people so much as adverse criticism, 
 31 
 
242 University of Madras. 
 
 especially if they are acquainted with the subject of it. A scath- 
 ing account of a man or of a measure is read with the a^reatest 
 eagerness, a favourable account is passed over with indiiference. 
 A sad confession for poor humanity ;, but so it is. And lastly reflect 
 on this third fact — that nothing is so easy as to find fault. Com- 
 bine these facts, and it is evident that the journalist is under 
 constant temptation to write sarcasm and abuse, especially the 
 journalist whose lines are cast in a small society. Yet to its great 
 credit be it spoken the better part of the Press steadily resists 
 this temptation. Do you resist it also. Consider this matter 
 The line Seriously for it is of the gravest moment. The line 
 which costs you which costs you nothing to write may cost the vic- 
 may^^cos^^the tim much to read. Do not unlace a reputation in 
 victim much to mere wantonness. It is no doubt excellent to have 
 ^®^ • a giant^s strength, but remember that it is tyran- 
 
 nous to use it like a giant. By no means refrain from lashing when 
 the lash is deserved, but make sure that it is deserved. Be at the 
 greatest pains to understand the actions and motives of the man 
 you attack. And on this point let me refer you to a wise writer. 
 Dr. Holmes happily says that when two persons are talking it is 
 only natural there should be misunderstandings among the six ; 
 and in explanation he points out that when Thomas and John are 
 together there is first Thomas as he really is, then Thomas as he 
 exists in his own imagination, and lastly Thomas as John thinks 
 him to be, all three very different persons — and that similarly 
 there are three Johns, making a total of six. So when you, Jour- 
 nalist John, propose to scarify Thomas, remember that there are 
 three of him and be quite sure you get hold of the right one ; and 
 if Thomas is an official remember also that there are behind him, 
 unseen by you, other officials Peter and Paul pulling him different 
 ways and that he is not a free agent. 
 
 And now to all of you, whatever your profession, a few 
 
 A few words words of homely counsel. Be independent. The 
 
 of homely coun- plan of reaching the top of a hill by hanging on to 
 
 sel to all. ^j^g ^^^^ ^g^j^g ^£ ^ stronger brother is no doubt 
 
 often successful, but it is never dignified. More satisfactory to 
 climb to a lower level by your own unaided exer- 
 enf ^ iii<iepend- ^{qus. Go your own way in life. Respect your- 
 self, and that you may do so respect otiiers. Be 
 ever courteous to inferiors and deferential to superiors. Be 
 cheerfully submissive to those set over you in your work. One 
 One of the ^^ ^^^ worst signs of the present age is impatience 
 worst signs of of Constituted authority. A large class of ill-condi- 
 the present age. tioned persons take for their motto— Whatever is. 
 
lS8S.—Lwut.-Coloncl W. Hughes Hallet. 248 
 
 is wrong. Be not you of them. Believe me there is nothing 
 noble, there is certainly nothing sensible, in giving grudging 
 obedience where unhesitating obedience is due. And how can 
 you in turn expect to be obeyed when you have set a contrary 
 example yourself ? Be assured that those below you will closely 
 watch your actions, and will when the time comes better your 
 instruction. There is an old and very true saying, that he who 
 has never learned to obey will never learn to command. But 
 beyond your immediate superiors, be deferential to your social 
 superiors also whoever they may be. This is a point on which 
 there has been bad teaching. The times seethe with theories to 
 the effect that all are equal and that therefore deference from 
 one man to another is misplaced. This sorry nonsense is not 
 new, it has been aired at many stages of the world^s progress, it 
 is unworthy of serious refutation, and you will have read history 
 to little purpose if you do not see its hopeless impracticability ; 
 but still a word of warning may be useful. Face the world as it 
 is, not as dreamers of bad dreams would make it. The man who 
 is above us may owe his position to accident, to merit, to age, 
 to interest, to wealth, nay even to demerit, it matters not. He 
 is above us, and it is our duty to recognize him accordiugly with 
 the customary signs of deference. To do so costs nothing. To 
 say '^ Sir " to a superior involves no loss of dignity or self- 
 respect, but on the other hand to adopt a familiar tone and affect 
 an equality which does not exist is a contemptible practice and 
 shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. No, in 
 this sense men are not and cannot be all on one level, 
 the whole scheme of the Universe repudiates the idea, and 
 even the preachers of the doctrine do not usually carry it 
 about in every- day life ; let an inferior apply it practically 
 to themselves and he will soon find that the latter end of 
 their commonwealth forgets the beginning. But there is another 
 sense in which men may be eqiial. If you do your 
 The ense in work in life honestly and diligently, owing no man 
 
 whicn men may ,i- .-i • i,*i u 
 
 be equal. anything, then you may m a very hign sense be 
 
 the equal of every one, King or Kaiser. Equally 
 
 with superior and inferior cultivate a pleasant manner, which is 
 
 by no means the same thing as a servile manner. A young man 
 
 may wrap himself in no better cloak for life's journey. And be 
 
 modest. In an age of charlatanism and self-advertisement this 
 
 may seem a suicidal policy : but you have in this town, among 
 
 your own countrymen, a living proof that the greatest abilities 
 
 and the greatest industry may go hand in hand with extreme 
 
 modesty, and may yet win not only the highest personal esteem, 
 
 but also the highest official rewards. 
 
244 Univerdity of Mad/ras. 
 
 Be manly. Book-learning alone never yet made a nation 
 and never will. Be manly. Thanks to tlie untiring 
 Be manly. efforts o£ Certain gentlemen to wliom the youth of 
 Southern India can never be sufficiently grateful, at the head of 
 whom is now His Excellency the Governor, you have ample 
 opportunity for athletics and gymnastics, and for all games from 
 cricket down to epicene lawn tennis, opportunity of which mauy 
 take advantage. The reproach cast in the teeth of your brother 
 of the Ganges would be idle in your case. But even though you 
 should cultivate the body till it reaches the perfection aimed at 
 in Greece that would not be enough. There would then be the 
 machine and the brain to direct the machine, but the motive 
 power would still be wanting. You must have the manly spirit. 
 Look for noble examples, and follow in their footsteps ; they 
 may be found in the living world, in history, in art. Both by 
 precept and practice discourage petty squabbling and quarrelling. 
 Discourage appeals to the Police Court on every trifling occasion. 
 Possibly the very excellence of the Penal Code does harm in this 
 direction. Its provisions are so elastic and so easy of application 
 that they must often present irresistible temptation to an aggriev- 
 ed person. This was put very nicely by a candidate at a law 
 examination some years back. I had asked what safeguard there 
 is against the excessive litigation that would arise if the provi- 
 sions of the Code were literally enforced, and the young man 
 replied " there^is no safeguard so long as one lives in society, the 
 only way is to retire from the world and become a hermit.^' So 
 melancholy a solution of the difficulty suggests much unhappy 
 experience. 
 
 Be brave. You come of a land that has bred brave meu. 
 The fables of antiquity tell of no nobler exploits 
 e brave. ^j^^^^ those performed by the Madras Army. Not 
 
 alone Amboor, Arcot, Assaye, and such familiar instances ; but 
 numberless deeds of heroism, endurance, self-denial, done by 
 knots of men all over the Presidency, deeds so common in their 
 day as to pass almost unnoticed, and which now live only in 
 obscure chronicles forgotten by all but the curious. These 
 things should however find a place in your memories, for it 
 is the Madras Army which has made your presence here to-day 
 possible. 
 
 Be thorough. Whatever you are doing, do it with all your 
 might. Strive to earn the character of always try- 
 Be oroug . ^j^^ your best, and thus beget a confidence which 
 no amount of mere cleverness can ever hope to win. Then if you 
 fail, as all must fail sometimes, there will be no disgrace. Now 
 
iS88.^Lieut.-Colonel W. Hughes Ballet. 245 
 
 to do thoroughly everything which you undertake it is plain 
 that you must not undertake too much, and here comes oppos- 
 ing counsel. There is a maxim often quoted with approbation 
 and held up for general guidance, " Know something of every- 
 thing and everything of something," but I venture to think it a 
 most dangerous piece of advice, especially to young men, even 
 allowing that it is not meant to be taken literally. It has a fine 
 antithetical ring, and is just the sort of phrase to catch the ear, 
 but it will not bear scrutiny. No man, however gifted, can in 
 these days know something of everything, and the attempt to do 
 so will certainly result in knowing nothing of anything. The 
 prodigy thrives in fiction no doubt. The muscular hero, who 
 carelessly crumples up the fire irons with the finger and thumb 
 of his left hand, is matched by the intellectual hero, who is ready 
 at any moment to correct a bishop in a quotation from the less 
 known patriotic writings or to give the details of the population 
 of Turkestan according to the latest census. But he does not 
 exist in fact. Then Bacon is held up as an example. Well it is 
 not wise for a youth to start in life with the notion of rivalling 
 Bacon. Ambition is a good spur, but like other spurs the inex- 
 perienced will find it safer when of moderate length. And after 
 all what does Bacon's case prove ? He was perhaps the most 
 marvellous genius that ever lived. Perhaps no other man has 
 mastered so large a share of the learning of his own age. But 
 the times have marched. Discoveries, inventions, the accumu- 
 lated labours of students, have immensely enlarged the field of 
 learning. The area of possible human knowledge, the area of 
 knowledge which it is open to one man to acquire, increases year 
 by year — and it increases not in arithmetical progression, but in 
 geometrical. He who could take all knowledge to be his pro- 
 vince at the end of the 16th century would find that province 
 occupy but a small corner of the map at the end of the 19th. If 
 I persist in driving this nail home it is to save you from a very 
 fatal error. Try a simple test. Take three subjects at haphazard 
 from different branches of study — say, Hydraulics, Spaiiish 
 Literature, the Botany of South America — and ask the best 
 educated man of your acquaintance, not actually engaged in 
 teaching these subjects, to pass an elementary examination in 
 them. Yet here are only three, and all tolerably familiar. 
 Instead of three take three hundred — double three hundred and 
 then treble that — where will the man be who tries to know some- 
 thing of all ? That way madness lies. 
 
 To criticize is ever easier than to create, and while it is one 
 thiag to warn you against undertaking more than a reasonable 
 
246 tiniversUy of Madras. 
 
 amount it is quite another to lay down what the amount should 
 be. But in any case, before all else devote yourself zealously 
 to your profession. This is not a superfluous caution, for 
 strange though it may seem there are men who spend much 
 time and truble over other matters and yet leave the real 
 
 work of their lives to take care of itself. Master 
 prSessfon.^^'^ your profession ; be not a niggard of your labour. 
 
 Go back to its beginnings, trace its development, 
 see how its present form and features were arrived at. For 
 example, if you are a lawyer spend days and nights over such 
 books as Sir Henry Maine^s Ancient Law and Village Communi- 
 ties. Then note how it works and the varying aspects it presents 
 in other countries, and so escape contracting narrow views. By 
 comparing the different existing legal systems, for instance, you 
 would probably come to the conclusion that ouj* own, especially 
 as modified in India, is the best, but you would avoid the mistake 
 of supposing it to be perfect. Then you will soon see that in 
 order to know your own profession you must know something of 
 many others also. You will find that it is like a tree in the 
 midst of a dense forest, with other trees close around ; that as 
 you ascend and get further from the root the branches spread 
 more and more, crossing and interlacing with the branches of 
 the neighbouring trees, till it becomes necessary to learn the 
 principle on which these other branches grow in order to rightly 
 understand the directions of your own. To take the former 
 example, a lawyer must be more or less acquainted with mer- 
 cantile usage, the recognized methods of book-keeping, the 
 agricultural system of the country, the general principles of 
 anatomy, the nature of wounds, the actions of poisons, and a 
 score of other matters, for otherwise he cannot grasp the bear- 
 ings of a case and cannot appreciate or check the evidence of 
 witnesses. A study of your profession on these broad and 
 liberal lines will not leave many hours for other labour, but you 
 must make it leave some. The next and only other necessary 
 work is to keep yourselves fairly conversant with the questions 
 of the day, to do which needs much discrimination in the choice 
 of newspapers, magazines, and reviews, since a busy man has 
 only time to read a small fraction of the vast amount written. 
 Now let us suppose that after this there are still two or three 
 hours remaining each day for what may be called optional work. 
 How to employ these spare hours each must decide for himself, 
 and on your decision will to a great extent depend the kind of 
 man you become. One may take up general or special literature, 
 -another may turn to science, and so forth. And here it is worth 
 consideration whether a short space each week might not be 
 
l888.—Lieut.-Gohnel W. Hughes Hallet. 247 
 
 spared for one of the Arts. Personally, I believe that a life 
 from which the love and practice of Art are wholly absent can 
 never be other than an incomplete life. It may be music, sino-ing, 
 drawing in some one of its numerous branches, carving, modelling, 
 or any of what are called the minor Arts ; if the necessary con- 
 ditions are obtainable, which in India is exceedingly rare, it may 
 be acting; so long as it is a humble following of Art for the 
 sake of Art and not merely a ministration to vanity the result 
 must be good. Art takes one above the pettiness of the world 
 as nothing else can. 
 
 But however these extra hours are spent, re- 
 Ulysses' warn- member still tliat the profession comes before all. 
 
 ing 
 
 Bear in mind the warning of Ulysses : 
 
 " Perseverance, dear my lord, 
 Keeps hononr bright : to have done is to hang 
 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
 In monumental mockery. Take the instant way, 
 For honour travels in a strait so narrow 
 Where one but goes abreast ; keep them the path, 
 For emulation hath a thousand sons 
 That one by one pursue : if you give way, 
 Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, 
 Like to an entered tide they all rush by 
 And leave you hindmost ; 
 
 then what they do in present, 
 Though less than yours in past must o'ertop yours." 
 
 Heed well the warning. Whether you slacken speed from 
 idleness or inability, or whether you merely diverge from the 
 straight course in search of other attractions, the effect is the 
 same. Others pass you. Therefore first do your work in 
 life thoroughly, and then devote the leisure hours to other 
 occupations or amusements but carrying them out thoroughly 
 
 also. Do not attempt too much. If you do the 
 tocTmuch^^"^^* professional career will be neglected and, no 
 
 matter how superior your abililities, disappoint- 
 ment and failure will be your ultimate portion. Starting in the 
 race of life with brilliant prospects you easily keep level with 
 and even outstrip competitors, but the beautiful flowers by the 
 wayside are allnring and you pause to gather them. What 
 matters it ? You can easily overtake the others. With an effort 
 you do so. But again the temptation to stray, and this time 
 further afield, and now to recover the lost ground is a harder 
 task. And so each wandering from the path makes wider the 
 gap between yourself and your sometime inferiors, and your 
 efforts to reach them become more and more hopeless. Then in 
 a flash your eyes are opened and the truth is seen — in attempt- 
 ing too much you have lost everything. Then comes dull despair. 
 
248 University of Madras. 
 
 Then in the evening of days, sinking back wearied and exhausted 
 with a life struggle after the impossible, echoing those melan- 
 choly words " too late, too late/^ you find when it is indeed too 
 late that in striving to grasp universal knowledge you have been 
 striving to grasp that which is intangible, that life, health, talents, 
 opportunities, have been wasted in the pursuit of a chimera. 
 
 To this rough and necessarily very imperfect sketch of the 
 leading principles which should regulate your conduct as indivi- 
 duals something must be added on your relation to the University. 
 You have here in the full light of day, in the presence of the 
 Senate and of several hundred spectators, undertaken a solemn 
 obligation. Not only have you promised to be good citizens, 
 promoting the cause of morality and upholding social order and 
 the well-being of your fellowmen ; you have also promised to con- 
 duct yourselves in daily life as becomes members of the University 
 and to promote the cause of learning. This pledge must not be 
 lightly broken. Wherever you may be and whatever your occupa- 
 tion you must endeavour to help others in the quest after know- 
 ledge. In a huge city like this individual effort may not do much, 
 you can but join with the throng, each doing his share; but in the 
 smaller towns and villages a single example is of distinct value. 
 Let that example be worthy of the University. Here is a 
 glorious duty, glorious but still a duty. You have to hand the 
 lamp of learning down the generations. Through all historic 
 ages that lamp has burned, through all ages to 
 duty (loiine(?Tn come it wiU coutiuue to burn, till this race shall 
 glorious Ian- be no more. Let the thoughts rest where they 
 ^"^^^- will on the memories of the past, there that flame 
 
 is to be seen and ever moving onward. Back in the earliest 
 recorded times, the sage of Egypt, of Chaldea, of India, takes 
 his pupils to tower top and teaches them that fanciful lore of the 
 heavens which has now given place to a truer science — from 
 then onward to where in the groves of the academy the disciples 
 walk with the master probing the dim depths of philosophy, by 
 their side the blue Bgean with smiles innumerable reflecting a 
 cloudless heaven, and overhead the calm-browed goddess look- 
 ing grave approval enshrined on her own Acropolis — onward 
 again to the schools of Alexandria where the father of geometry 
 thinks out the eternal problems, and Hipparchus and Eratos- 
 thenes, grand in the audacity of their conceptions, grand even 
 in their errours, struggle to compass the universe — onward to 
 where under spreading oak and in stonehewn cloister a pale- 
 faced priesthood treasures with loving care the priceless heir- 
 looms of a dead age, the key to which it must never hope to 
 
18S8.-^Lieut.'Colmel W. Hnghe.^ Thdlet. 240 
 
 possess — onward to the domes and arches of Cordova where the 
 sons of Arabia garner up the grain that the natives of Europe, 
 purblind, would trample in the mire — onward to Tudor England 
 where men breathe once more, raising their heads above the 
 dark waters of repression and of ignorance that have stagnated 
 heavy, thick, through so many weary centuries, and there is 
 born into the world a new life, a new literature, a new humanity 
 — aye and onward to our own time, when Science yielding at 
 last to the importunity of man lets slowly fall the veil and 
 discloses those charms so long and so jealously guarded — yes 
 ever onward, sometimes over smooth and fruitful plain where 
 the way is easy, and sometimes over scarped rock and through 
 tangled briar where advance seems almost impossible, but ever 
 onward, now with bright blaze illumining the firmament and 
 anon with flicker feeble to the very verge of extinction, but 
 still onward and ever onward that sacred lamp of learning is 
 borne aloft by an eager band of votaries, a band of votaries who 
 absorbed in their own passion pay no heed to the world about 
 them, and for whom indeed surrounding events, thrones that 
 totter, dynasties that dissolve, and republics that crumble away 
 have no further interest than this, that they add yet another 
 page to the studies of the future. Of that band you are now 
 members. 
 
 Much has of late been written and spoken about certain of 
 your social customs, and it has been urged that 
 social ^cuSoms ^t© higher education cannot be said to have 
 come from with- bome fruit SO long as they exist. To my think- 
 from^withoutr^ i^^ however reform must in such matters come 
 from within rather than from without ; you must 
 turn for guidance to the enlightened among your own country- 
 men. But still there is one point on which I feel too strongly 
 to remain altogether silent. How long do you intend your 
 womankind to remain in ignorance ? How long is to be before 
 the education given you on such favourable terms 
 Education of filters through to them ? Some little improvement 
 ^ ^ ' has been effected during the last few years, but 
 
 till female education ceases to be the exception and becomes 
 the rule the reproach will not depart from you. Woman has 
 occupied many positions in the world. In savage tribes merely 
 an ill-used animal, in Greece a domestic drudge, in the purer 
 days of chivalry an idealized being placed on a pedestal so high 
 that she breathed a different atmosphere from that of the every- 
 day world, in modern W^t^stern civilization a highly cultivated 
 product rivalling man in the receptive faculty but still far 
 
 32 
 
250 University of Madras. 
 
 behind in the great creations of iDtellect and Art. Where the 
 golden mean lies is a much vexed question, partly because 
 people forget that the training proper for her who is to be a 
 wife and mother dift'ers both in degree and kind from that 
 needed for her who is to gain an independent living. But this 
 much may at least be said with confidence, that where the voice 
 of woman is ever — I will not say hushed, for no system could 
 effect that — but where the voice of woman comes ever muflBed 
 from behind a screen, there man deliberately denies himself 
 invaluable help. There are many questions no doubt which can 
 P tili r vir- ^^^^ decided by man alone ; there are indeed 
 
 tues of the some which it is an abomination for woman even 
 feminine tern- to touch ; but in the great majority joint counsel 
 peram n is best. The cleverest man will always find much 
 
 to learn from a woman. The female mind is before all things 
 practical, and an effectual solvent for what — in lack of a more 
 classical term — we call fads. Man sees many objects, but their 
 very number causes them to be blurred ; the eye of woman 
 takes in a narrower field, but the outlines of what it does see 
 are remarkably distinct. Woman dismisses the fringe of a sub- 
 ject with a wave of the hand or a curt depreciatory formula and 
 concentrates herself on the main features, a method which gains 
 in promptitude if it sometimes loses in abstract justice. And 
 so it comes to pass that in the search after truth womaa often 
 finds the jewel while man is still lighting his lantern. How 
 long will you refuse the assistance of her v/ho is your natural 
 ally ? How long will you do injustice to your wives and 
 daughters, and through that injustice injury to yourselves ? 
 And it is not only that you lose the counsellor, you lose the 
 friend also. What true companionship can there be between 
 two persons whose minds have nothing in common ? 
 
 "Among uneqiials what society 
 Can sort, what harmony, or true delight ? 
 Which must be mutual, in proportion due 
 Given and received ; but in disparity 
 The one intense, the other still remiss, 
 Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove 
 Tedious alike." 
 
 And now, in conciusion, as to your duty to the State, by 
 no means the least important of your duties. You 
 StfiteJ ^^ ^^^ have first to smoothen the way in dealing with the 
 millions whom we call the masses. Always a diffi- 
 cult task for a Government to get its recommendations and 
 measures understood by these, it is especially difficult when rulers 
 and ruled belong to different races and start with different trad itions. 
 Here you can, each in your own degree, be of real service. For 
 
1888.— Lieut.-Colonel W. Hughes Hallet, 261 
 
 example, you can urge upon theryotthe advantnge of abandoning 
 his primitive tools for tljose modern improvements which are now 
 placed within his reach, and of carrying out scientific suggestions as 
 to rotation of crops and dressing the soil jyou can explain the object 
 of sanitary regulations and the importance of obeying them ; the 
 necessity of precaution against infectious diseases ; the benefits of 
 vaccination ; the advantages of resorting to the hospital when sick, 
 especially in cases of epidemic. You can interpret between those 
 Interpret be- ^^^ make the law and those who have to obey the 
 tween the rulers law. Education and contact with educated minds 
 and the ruled. enable you to understand matters which are a 
 mystery to others not having your opportunities, and which as 
 a mystery are feared. You must lull to rest those suspicions 
 which the uneducated ever feel when something new and un- 
 familiar is proposed. You must carry that lamp of learning of 
 which we spoke into the caves of superstition and ignorance, 
 casting its beams into every cranny and crevice, and show to the 
 peoples that the grim shapes which terrify them so much are 
 nought but phantoms of their own imagining, things of darkness 
 that fade away on the approach of light. 
 
 And while thus correcting misapprehension and error in 
 others, do not fall into like error yourselves. Reflect that 
 though matters which seem an enigma to the villager are by 
 reason of education simple to you, there may yet be other matters 
 beyond your grasp also. Therefore when some policy of Govern- 
 ment runs counter to your wishes and ideas, pause before ascrib- 
 ing illiberal motives. You may see one side of a subject quite 
 clearly and think you have mastered it ; yet there may be other 
 sides entirely hidden from your eye of which you dream not. Be 
 cautious therefore in assuming a measure to be wrong because 
 you can see no good in it, or right because you can see no harm 
 in it. Do not fall into the dangerous mistake of looking with 
 suspicion on the motives of people who hold opinions contrary 
 to your own. Here again you suffer from bad advisers. From 
 platform and magazine self-dubbed '^ friends of India^' encourage 
 you to ask for this or that concession, and to think yourselves 
 ill-used if it is not immediately granted. But these persons are 
 not your true friends. Seek your true friends rather among 
 those who have proved their friendship by heaping on you 
 material benefits and privileges, and when you feel inclined to 
 murmur at a refusal to accept your views turn as a corrective to 
 a consideration of what you already enjoy. Think of your 
 material benefits — call up the India of a hundred years back, a 
 hotbed of picturesque insauitation, the absence of communications, 
 
252 tJniversity of Madras. 
 
 tlie eouatatifc wars, tlie ganprs of freebooters, dacoits, thngg, 
 tlie insecurity of life and property, the unchecked sweeping away 
 of millions by pestilence and famine, in a word the state of 
 danger, misery and discomfort, and then look upon the present. 
 It is as though the good genius from one of your own Eastern 
 tales had spread his wings over the land. Then think of your 
 privileges, you can follow any religion, you can practise any 
 profession, you can acquire any property, you can publish your , 
 opinions on any subject, you can dwell where you please, come 
 and go as you like, in a word shape your lives exactly as seems 
 good to you, without let or hindrance. Is this nothing ? Is 
 this a small thing ? How long have Englishmen in England 
 enjoyed such privileges, how many nations in Europe enjoy 
 such privileges now ? These things you have not bought. 
 They have been given you. You have paid nothing for them. 
 Aye, but they have been bought and paid for by others, 
 and would you know the price ? Ask it of history. The blood 
 that has enriched a hundred battle-fields, the heads that have 
 fallen low upon a thousand, scaffolds, the smoke that has 
 made murky the heavens from countless martyr pyres, this is 
 the price paid by England for that which she has given you 
 freely, M\y, ungrudgingly. Trust then and be patient : all 
 fitting things will come in fitting time. Trust the mother who 
 has done so much for you, that she may do more and yet more : 
 be patient that she may do it in due season, not with the 
 ill-considered haste which breeds disaster. Trust and be 
 patient. And if you and your fellows throughout this mighty land 
 thus live — as individuals doing your work honestly, thoroughly, 
 as citizens respecting your neighbours, as subjects co-operating, 
 with and having confidence in the State, then there need be no 
 misgiving as to the future of India. Then may we lift up a 
 corner of the curtain that hides the great Shall-Be and look 
 without fear on what lies beyond. There may the eye see that 
 ■which shall make glad the heart. For the keen intellect of the 
 East welded with the sturdy self-reliance and energy of the West 
 shall together result in an Indian Empire indeed : an Indian 
 Empire complete, one whole, flawless : an Indian Empire beyond 
 the wildest dreams of a Darius, beyond the wildest hopes of an 
 Akbar : an Indian Empire proof against traitor within and foe 
 without : an Indian Empire ready and able to take her stand, 
 shoulder to shoulder with her sisters of the great Anglo-Saxon 
 federation, roekfirm against all comers, foursquare against the 
 world. 
 
l889.-~Mr. D- Sinclair. 253 
 
 THIRTY-SECOND CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By D. Sinclair, Esq., M.A.) 
 
 Graduates of the Year, — In accordance with the Bye-Laws 
 of the University an address has now to be delivered to you by a 
 member of the Senate exhortiug you to conduct yourselves 
 suitably unto the position to which by the degrees conferred upon 
 you you have attained, and His Excellency the Chancellor has 
 conferred on me the honour of discharging this duty to-day. 
 
 Tou have all of you for some years now been travelling 
 along a straight and well-defined road, your intellectual horizon 
 somewhat narrowed by text-books and syllabuses, and some- 
 times I fear clouded by notes and annotations, compilations and 
 compendiums ; but though often brain-weary, often heart-heavy 
 sometimes to some of you as I know, having the utmost difficulty 
 in providing yourselves with the ordinary necessaries of life, 
 you have struggled manfully on, and the end of this road you 
 have reached to-day. In the name of the Senate I most heartily 
 congratulate you. But you will have already discovered that 
 this road along which you have been travelling, has but led you 
 into an open country — the world ; that you must still go on on 
 life's journey, and as there may be in front of you pitfalls into 
 which you may stumble, obstacles you will have to overcome, 
 rivers you may have to wade through, hills you will have to 
 climb, it is becoming that your Alma Mater, now that you are 
 no longer to be under her immediate fostering care, should, in 
 wishing you Grodspeed, tender to you words of encouragement 
 and counsel, it may be also of warning. 
 
 Fortunate have you been when compared with the great 
 masses of your countrymen. Knowledge you have 
 Value of a acquired of which they can form but little concep- 
 theEiglShLan- *ion. Your acquaintance with the English lan- 
 guage, g^^g^ has opened to you the treasury of English 
 literature and the loftiest and noblest thoughts of 
 England's greatest sons have become known to you. Her store- 
 house of science has been unlocked for you and you have been 
 taught and shown how to use the forces of nature for the relief 
 and benefit of your fellow-countrymen. Through the English 
 language you have learned something of the human race, how 
 nations have risen to the highest eminence and the causes that 
 led to their downfall. You have made the acquaintance of the 
 heroes of the world, a Leonidas and a Washington, 
 Wkose every battle-field is holy ground. 
 
254 University of Madras. 
 
 Whicli breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone, and 
 of others whose careers though less brilliant were no less noble 
 a Hampden an^l a Wilberforce, names that will be held in grate- 
 ful remembrance by a hundred generations. All this and much 
 more you have learned, and under the personal influance and 
 guidance of your professors you will have been able to draw 
 from it the lessons therein taught. These will have elevated 
 you morally as well as intellectually, stirred up within ycJli new 
 and loftier aspirations, a stronger longing after truth and good- 
 ness, a desire to follow after right because it is right and loath- 
 ing of every thing that savours of the nature of mere selfishness. 
 
 For unless he can erect himself above himself, 
 How poor a thing is man ! 
 
 Such being the lessons you have learned and the principles 
 
 by which you are to be guided, it will be for you to walk up to 
 
 them and demonstrate them in your lives. Never have you 
 
 ^ ^ ^ been regarded with a more critical eye than now. 
 
 Demonstrate -vr i "j.! • • t» i 
 
 what you have JNever perhaps with more suspicion. Prove by 
 learnt in your your unspotted lives, by your devotion to duty, by 
 ^^' your unimpeachable integrity, your unquestioned 
 
 honesty and your unflinching truthfulness, that the training and 
 culture you have received have elevated and ennobled your 
 natures, made you better men and better citizens, and thus your 
 Alma Mater is doing the great work for which she was called 
 into existence, a work that as time goes on will be seen more 
 and more to be for the highest good of this great and historic 
 laud. 
 
 Students you have been, some of you perhaps at first with 
 the sole object of being in the laudable position 
 th^u hS^°** y^^ occupy to-day. But your studies will have 
 been of little avail, if they have not awakened 
 within you a desire to pursue your search after knowledge and 
 truth for its own sake, to learn and understand the thoughts and 
 modes of action of the great of past ages, to make yourselves 
 familiar with the current speculation of your own day, and to 
 gather from them what your well-trained minds will readily turn 
 to advantage for yourselves and your countrymen. Those of 
 you who have selected Medicine or Engineering* as your profes- 
 sions will have to remain students for life. Science advances 
 with rapid strides. It will only be by continuous and steady 
 application you will be able to keep pace with it. Not to keep 
 pace with it is to fall behind, to become inefficient practitioners iu 
 the professions you have adopted. You will, therefore, make 
 yourselves acquainted with what the giants in your profession 
 
1889.--ilfr. D. Sinclair. 255 
 
 are doing, the discoveries they are making, the inventions they 
 are introducing. But, while all of you will make a thorough 
 acquaintance with your own profession or work, whatever it may 
 be, your first duty, you will have many hours of leisure in which 
 to use your knowlege for the benefit of the community amongst 
 which you may be placed. You have received a liberal educa- 
 tion. You know its value. You will know it still more. Do 
 what in you lies to give to the masses of your countrymen that 
 which you your.selves have so freely received, and, wherever you 
 may be placed, be each of you a centre of light, illuminating and 
 revivifying all around you. Government has done much, and no 
 doubt will continue to do much, to promote education ; but it is 
 on you, on those who have received it in its highest forms, that 
 will largely rest the responsibility of raising the intellectual as 
 well as the moral condition of your country. Educate the 
 masses. Stimulate the desire for education where- 
 
 w^Sf^cf^*^® *^® ever it exists, where there is no such desire strive 
 masses. . ' -rxr- -i • 
 
 to create it. Without education you never will 
 
 have national life, never become a great people influencing for 
 
 good the history of the world. 
 
 You have received a liberal education yonrselves. Give it 
 to your women. Much has been done in this re- 
 wOT^en.^*^ ^^^ spect during the past twenty years, and all honor 
 to those who have led the way. But much remains 
 to be done. It is but the veriest fraction of the females of this 
 country, that are under instruction. Further by your exam- 
 ple this good work. Use your utmost influence to extend it. 
 And as for generations', perhaps, the national sentiment is likely 
 to insist on girls leaving school at an early age, a great opportu- 
 nity is provided for you to supply them after leaving school with 
 a healthy literature in their own language. I am glad to see 
 one of the members of the Senate devoting the leisure of a ripe 
 age to this most commendable work. Do you take it up. The 
 education and training you have received pre-eminently fit you 
 for it. Apply yourselves to it. Provide a vernacular literature 
 of interesting and useful knowledge — a literature of romance 
 too, if you will, breathing a lofty moral spirit — a literature that 
 will brighten what might otherwise be many a weary listless 
 hour, that will raise your women intellectually, and make them 
 more and more true companions for you as wives — companions 
 able to understand your labours and sympathize with you in 
 them, and by their sure instincts help you in your difficulties. 
 Those of you who have made Science a special study will have 
 many opportunities of using your knowledge for the benefit of 
 
256 University of Madras. 
 
 your less fortunate couTitrymen. You will teach them to observe 
 those great laws that cannot be broken with impunity. That for 
 them to preserve their bodily health and escape the ravages of such 
 relentless avengers as cholera or small-pox, attention must be paid 
 to the sanitation and conservancy of their homes and villages ; that 
 the water to be used for food must not be that green filthy liquid 
 taken from the little tank into which the sewage of the village 
 runs or percolates ; but it must be pure and clear, carrying with 
 it refreshing and life, not decay and death. You will use your 
 influence to dispel many of the prejudices that prevail amongst 
 your countrymen, such for example as that against vaccination, 
 so that many a home may not be left desolate, many a lovely 
 face not disfigured by the scars of a loathsome disease. Your 
 scientific knowledge should enable you to help the manufacturer 
 to produce a higher quality of goods, and if as the latest writer 
 maintains, the country plough is the best suited to the require- 
 ments of the land and the climate, you can at least impress 
 upon the ryot the importance of a rotation of crops, and that 
 land, if it is to be a bountiful giver, must be treated generously 
 and liberally. 
 
 Students you have been, students you must continue to be, 
 and students of more than books. 
 
 You are going out into the world and will come into living 
 contact with living men. Your lot may probably be cast in 
 times when great social and, it may be, religious questions will 
 have to be considered and faced. It will require of you the 
 utmost caution, the most careful study of the questions them- 
 selves and of their apparent adaptability to the times in which 
 3^ou live, and from your knowledge of the history of the human 
 race and human institutions, from your study of the gi-eat 
 movements that have convulsed nations, at one time hurling 
 them into darkness and despair, at another time carrying them 
 on to a brighter and happier and more glorious era than had 
 ever previously dawned upon them, you will have to determine 
 for yourselves whether things shall remain as they are, or whether 
 customs, consecrated by a hoary antiquity, and deeply rooted in 
 the hearts of an ancient people, shall not be changed or done 
 away with. You will have to make up your mind as to whether, 
 for example, infant marriage and enforced widowhood is to be 
 perpetuated, and every year the lives of thousands of young, 
 bright and tender hearts to be blasted and reduced to wretched- 
 ness. And with the light which you have received, if you are 
 persuaded that such customs are detrimental to the happiness 
 of your country, that they are contrary to human nature and 
 
1889.— Afr. D, Sinclair. 257 
 
 have no place in your ancient Faith, then you must have the 
 courage of your convictions, and must make your voice heard 
 and power felt. No more difficult duty lies before you. 
 No duty more noble. You must therefore be brave, not in the 
 
 sense of what I am afraid we too frequently see 
 
 Be brave, with in the present times, when young men mistake 
 
 conviction!^ ° volubility for wisdom, and arrogance for manliness. 
 
 But brave, with a bravery founded on conviction 
 arrived at after the most careful study and reflection, a bravery 
 that will be clothed with modesty, that will be free from selfish 
 ends and untarnished by self-conceit. 
 
 But you are looking forward to taking a part in the poli- 
 tics of the day. Politics has become a popular subject. It is 
 interesting. It is exciting. Above all, in this country, it is 
 comparatively easy. Here you will have no national prejudices 
 to battle against. No institutions, 
 
 " Strong in possession, founded in old custom, 
 Fixed to the people's pious nursery faith,** 
 
 to lay irreverent hands upon. 
 
 You, however, hold an important position in this country — 
 a position I might say almost unique in the history of the world. 
 Twenty years ago one of the most cultured and most distinguished 
 statesmen that ever ruled in this land, addressing the graduates 
 on an occasion similar to the present, called on them to remem- 
 ber that they were the adopted children of European civilization, 
 the interpreters between the stranger and the Indian, between 
 the Government and the subject, between the great and the 
 small, between the strong and the weak, and he asked them 
 whether they would carry a faithful or a deceitful message. 
 Your numbers then were small, your influence much less far 
 reaching than now. The responsible position you occupy may 
 well be placed before you again, and the same question may not 
 inappropriately be asked you to-day. 
 
 You have studied the history of your own country. You 
 are acquainted with those dark days for this 
 Compare the unhappy land, when the Afghan or the Mughal 
 comitr ^ wiiSits Sleeping down on her fair plains converted her 
 present. fertile fields into a desert, levelled her most sacred 
 
 shrines with the dust, and brought death and dis- 
 honor into a hundred thousand homes. You are acquainted with 
 the later Mughal rule which, while it has left an imperishable 
 name in the wonderful works of its engineers and in its magni- 
 ficent buildings had no room in its policy for religious toleration, 
 no room in its administration for aliens to its faith, no room for 
 33 
 
258 University of Madras. 
 
 buildings sucli as that in whicli we are assembled to-day — fos- 
 tering homes of light and learning. You will call to mind how 
 even almost within the memory of the living, the quiet peaceful 
 hamlet of your fathers might be roused from its slumbers by 
 gangs of Pindari robbers, and the morning sun be a witness 
 only to the desolation that had been made — the father dead — 
 the children oiyhans — all property gone — nothing left for the 
 survivors but misery and blank despair. These things you will 
 call to mind and compare them with the condition of your coun- 
 try now, when every man has security in his possession, and the 
 humble ryot may lay him down and sleep in peace and safety. 
 Perfect freedom in religion, equality in the eyes of the Law, 
 freedom of speech, and liberty of the Press such as few nations in 
 the world possess. Education provided in the most generous spirit, 
 and designedly intended to enable you to qualify yourselves for 
 some of the highest judicial and administrative offices in the 
 State, and, as time goes on, it may be, to enable you to have a 
 larger share in the Government of your country. These and 
 many more inestimable benefits you have had given to you with 
 no grudging hand. What then, I would ask, is to be your mes- 
 sage to your countrymen ? Is it to be a message of peace and 
 goodwill ? Or is it to be a message of misrepresentation, of 
 concealment, keeping out of view the many benefits you have 
 received in the past, and presenting in false colours the work 
 and intentions of the Government of your own day ? Are you 
 going to stir up hatred where there should be gratitude, distrust 
 where there should be confidence ? If so, better you had never 
 been in the position you occupy to-day. You will be no true 
 friends to your country. And while you must be the interpre- 
 ters of England^s rule to your countrymen, you 
 estly^^betweSi «!««* ^o less be the exponents of your country's 
 Eugland and wants to England^ And here your responsibility 
 ° is no less weighty. The great democracy of Eng- 
 
 land is waiting to learn the needs of this ancient people. Its 
 heart beats with generous impulses, and if you are enabled to bring 
 a real and genuine message from the millions in this land, you 
 may rest assured it will meet with a generous response. But 
 on the other hand, if for narrow class ends you try to mislead, 
 you take a spurious message and, keeping out of view the needs 
 and wishes of your less educated countrymen, you aim only at 
 the aggrandisement of self, then I believe you will meet with 
 that rebuke which you will well merit ; and, again I say, you 
 will be no true friends of your country. But actuated by the 
 pu'rest patriotism, you will prove yourselves true interpreters 
 between the Government and the people, The liberal power 
 
1890. — Rai Bahadur P. UaAiganadha Mudaliyar. 250 
 
 tliat has enabled you to occupy that position you are in to-day 
 expects it. The fair name and honor of your Alma Mater 
 demand the culture and moral training you have received will 
 impel you towards it. And great as is your responsibility, no 
 less great will be your reward, if, as highly influential members 
 of this great people, you are enabled to carry joy and gladness 
 into a million homes, and become a potent means in helping on 
 the regeneration of your country. Then it may be, that that 
 dawn of a better day for India which, is already gilding the 
 hilltops of time shall, as the ages roll on, brighten into a glorious 
 noon, when the Aryan of the West reunited with the Aryan of 
 the East in a common brotherhood, with common high hopes and 
 lofty aspirations, with truth, righteousness and peace as their 
 watchwords shall carry their own life, and light and liberty into 
 the remotest and darkest regions of the earth. 
 
 THIRTY-THIRD CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Rai Bahadur P. Ranqanadha Mudaliyae, M.A,) 
 
 My Lord Chancellor and Gentlemen, — The bye-laws governing 
 the procedure at Convocation require that a Fellow of the Senate 
 should make an address to those who have been admitted to the 
 Degrees of the University, exhorting them to conduct themselves 
 in a manner suitable to the academical position gained by them. 
 This responsible duty has, on this occasion, been assigned to me 
 by His Excellency the Chancellor, and while I owe it to him to 
 say that I feel thankful to him for the honor he has conferred on 
 me, I owe it to myself to add that I am keenly sensible of the 
 difficulty of the task I have undertaken. Gentlemen, you who 
 have just received degrees. You have this day been admitted 
 into the honorable body of the Graduates of the University of 
 Madras. Your admission was preceded by a period of probation 
 during which you were subjected to a severe discipline. At the 
 close of this period, you were examined by a body of experts 
 who have declared that you have been weighed in the balance 
 and that you have not been found wanting. And the University, 
 before setting the seal of its approval on you, has wisely obtained 
 from you solemn promises that you will so conduct yourselves 
 in every relation of life as to be an honour to the University, and 
 a blessing to the country that gave you birth. By taking these 
 promises from you, and by deputing a member of the Senate to 
 impress on you their full meaning and significance, the Univer- 
 sity wishes you to understand that it attaches no less importance 
 to the social and political virtues; to character and conduct, — 
 
260 University of Madras. 
 
 tlian to intellectual power and literary or scientific knowledge. 
 The ceremony you have gone through to-day is not a mere 
 matter of form. Its purpose is to awaken in your minds a lively 
 sense of what you owe to the University, and what you owe to 
 yourselves. You are going into the world with the stamp of the 
 University on you as sterling coin. The degrees you hold wil) 
 enable you to attain a position of eminence in the community to 
 which you belong. How can you better evince your grateful 
 appreciation of the honor the University has conferred on you 
 than to prove by the zeal and ability, the good sense and integrity 
 with which you discharge your public and private duties that 
 you are worthy sons of your Alma Mater ^ and that be the tempta- 
 tion to evil never so strong, you will not consciously stoop to do 
 any thing that will cast the slightest slur on the fair reputation 
 of the fraternity to which you will from this day forth belong ? 
 
 In regard to the University to which you and I belong, and 
 are, I trust, proud to belong, I may be permitted to say that 
 humble as its aims and limited as its functions are, it has done 
 the work it has set to itself with creditable success. It has 
 indeed no monumental buildings, no ancestral trees, no galleries 
 and museums, nothing of a romantic or picturesque character to 
 captivate the imagination by, no proud reminiscences linking it 
 with names illustrious in the past for genius or heroism. It has 
 had but a brief existence. Its life has been peculiarly monoto- 
 nous. Year after year, examinations have been held, results 
 published and degrees conferred, — a work which falls very far 
 short of what many Universities in Europe have done and are 
 doing. But none-the-less, I venture to assert that a great deal 
 of good has already been done, and that the foundations are 
 being slowly but surely laid of good in the future sufficient to 
 satisfy all reasonable expectation. It is no small thing that of 
 those who graduated during the thirty-two years 
 AEetrospect. ^^.^^ ^357 ^^ jggg^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ present on the rolls 
 
 1,974 Bachelors of Arts, 49 Masters of Arts, 317 Bachelors of 
 Law, and 8 Masters of Law. The numbers that passed the 
 examinations in Engineering and Medicine are less satisfactory, 
 but even in this there is no ground for despair as the failure is 
 in my opinion due not to a want of capacity on the part of the 
 students, but to the absence of such a demand for Engineering 
 and Medical Graduates as would ensure to them an honorable 
 competence. The numbers of candidates for the Matriculation 
 Examination and the First Examination in Arts have gone on 
 increasing by leaps and bounds, — increasing of late years to such 
 an extent that it was felt that the time had come for directing 
 
1890. — Mai Bahadur V. Ranyanadha Mudaliyar. 261 
 
 the attention of the youth of the country to courses of study and 
 branches of knowledge that the University omits, and rightly 
 omits to include in its curricula. This rapid increase in the 
 numbers presenting themselves for the lower examinations may 
 not in itself be a matter for rejoicing, seeing that only a small 
 fraction of those that pass the lower examinations go on with 
 their studies till they obtain a degree ; but looking at the matter 
 from another standpoint, and noting what expansion of Primary 
 and Middle School education must have preceded it as a neces- 
 sary condition, the great help that the University has given 
 towards the successful working of the multitudinous agencies, 
 public and private, that are carrying on the work of educating 
 the youth of this country, deserves thankful recognition. Weighty 
 testimony has been borne by previous speakers at Convocation to 
 the services rendered by the University in providing the State 
 with servants of a better stamp than it formerly had. The men 
 that the University has given have been found to be superior to 
 their predecessors in " method and regularity and also in the 
 tone of morality/' If these are all the benefits that the Univer- 
 sity has conferred, and I shall not pause to inquire what more 
 it has, it must be acknowledged to have done a great and useful 
 work, and to deserve the lasting gratitude of those who have 
 profited by its labors. 
 
 Tot hose who failed to pass the recent TTniversity Examina- 
 tions, I would say, do not lose heart. Work 
 Advice to mi- with greater zeal and method than you have yet 
 dates!^ ^^^ ^' done, and if you deserve to succeed, succeed you 
 will. Painful as it must be to you that you have 
 failed, you will not be surprised to hear that there is a point of 
 view in which your failure is a thing to be glad of. It is obvious 
 that a University degree will cease to be of any value if the 
 undeserving gain it as much as the deserving, and it is in every 
 sense a more desirable thing that you should fail once, twice, 
 thrice, and then succeed, only if you deserve to succeed, than 
 that the value of a University degree should fall in men's esteem. 
 There never was a greater necessity than at present for the 
 University keeping a jealous watch over the standards of its 
 examinations. The time may be far distant when the best gradu- 
 ates of this University can claim to be the intellectual equals of 
 the best graduates of the West. Perhaps that time is a dream 
 never to be realized. But there is no doubt that such equality 
 is the ideal to be aimed at. Anything that tends even in a slight 
 degree to cause a divergence from the policy hitherto pursued 
 of raising standards gradually but to a definite and appreciable 
 
262 ' University of Madras- 
 
 extent, deserves in my opinion to be regarded as a calamity, 
 wliicli the true friends of education will do well to avert by all 
 tbe means in their power. 
 
 My connection with the examinations of the University dur- 
 ing a long course of years enables me to say that 
 cline^S^mathe- especially of late years there has been a marked 
 inatical attain- decline in the mathematical attainments' of the 
 °^®°*^" candidates for the Matriculation Examination and 
 
 the First Examination in Arts. Every teacher knows how diffi- 
 cult it has become to make the majority of students in the First 
 Arts classes pay due attention to their mathematical studies, and 
 this difficulty arises, I believe, less from natural inaptitude or the 
 preponderating claims of other subjects of the course than from 
 a capricious distaste born of the intention to give up mathematics 
 altogether after passing the First Examination in Arts. Be the 
 causes what they may, this notable decline is a matter for serious 
 regret, and I may, on behalf of the University, express an eaf- 
 nest wish that students will appreciate better than they seem to 
 do at present the place and function of mathematics in a scheme 
 of liberal education, and bestow upon that subject the attention 
 it deserves as a disciplinary study, and as an indispensable help 
 to the study of every branch of the physical sciences. 
 
 I find from the records of the University that 1,974 gradu- 
 MortaHty ^*^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^P *^ *^^ 31st of March 1 889 ; and that 
 among . gradu- of those no less than 118 have passed away, 1 
 ^^^- out of every 17. Among the Masters of Arts, 
 
 the rate of mortality is 1 out of every 9 ; among the Bache- 
 lors of Law, 1 out of every 8 j among Bachelors of Medicine 
 and Masters in Surgery, 1 out of every 7. These figures 
 are such as to cause the gravest anxiety. What is peculiarly 
 painful is that the higher the academical standard attained, 
 the greater is the rate of mortality, indicating that the physical 
 enei-gies have collapsed under the strain of the higher studies. 
 When this high rate of mortality is coupled with the fact, that 
 a good proportion of those that have ceased to exist were in 
 their day men of bright promise with a prosperous career before 
 them, the loss must be felt to be very considerable. It behoves 
 you to take warning betimes, and to guard against the fatal error 
 of your mental growth so far outrunning your 
 .Physical train- ^i-^y^icaX growth as to endanger bodily health or 
 even life itself. The attention of the youth of the 
 country has already, thanks to the Physical Training and Field 
 games Association, been drawn to those healthful and recreative 
 exercises and field-sports which will give the body the vigour and 
 
1890. — Bai Bahadur P. Banyanadha Mudaliyar. 263 
 
 the elasticity required to undergo without injury to severe mental 
 effort. It is said that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull 
 boy." Of the Hindu boy^, it will be truer to say that all work 
 i ^g ^^ Qf and no play makes him a feeble boy. Hindu boys, 
 "losing time all but a few excepted, need still to be taught the 
 wisely." art of " losing time wisely." With a variety of 
 
 exaniinations to pass, with the high-pressure methods of impart- 
 ing instruction in vogue, and with a hereditary aptitude for 
 conning things by heart, the Hindu youth is sorely tempted to 
 pore over his books day and night, forgetting that he has a 
 bodily frame to build up as well as a mind to stock with know- 
 ledge. Such utter disregard of physical health out of excessive 
 anxiety to cultivate the mind must produce the most disastrous 
 results, — feebleness, want of spirits, functional derangement, 
 premature arrest of bodily growth, if not death itself. "This 
 over-education," says Herbert Spencer, " is vicious in everyVay, 
 — vicious as giving knowledge that will soon be forgotten ; 
 vicious as producing a disgust for knowledge; vicious as 
 neglecting that organization of knowledge which is more impor- 
 tant than its acquisition ; vicious as weakening or destroying 
 that energy without which a trained intellect is useless ; vicious as 
 entailing that ill-health for which even success would not com- 
 pensate, and which makes failure doubly bitter." 
 
 I may, in this connection, exhort you and the like of you to 
 -r>.«. ■> remember that on you devolves tho duty of diffus- 
 
 Diffuse know- . "^ , , . • "^ 
 
 ledge among mg among your Country men true notions concerning 
 
 your country- natural objects and natural forces. There is much 
 
 ™®"' truth in the familiar cou'olet : — 
 
 " How small of all that hnman hearts endure, 
 That part which kings or laws cin cause or cure." 
 
 Much the greater part of human misery is due to ignorance, — 
 ignorance in regard to the properties of the things around and 
 about us, — ignorance in regard to the character of physical 
 forces, — ^ignorance of the invariable sequences of cause and effect 
 in the realm of nature. Let it be known to the many as it is 
 now known to the few that "pestilences will take up their 
 abode only among those who have prepared unswept and 
 j ungarnished reside uces for them/' and how much human suffer- 
 ing^ could be avoided or mitigated. There is small cause for 
 \, under, though there is much for sorrow, in the fact that such 
 large numbers periodically fall victims to cholera, small-pox, 
 and typhus. How is it possible for people to be healthy when 
 they are ill- washed and ill-fed, — when their houses are ill- 
 drained and ill-ventilated, — when their towns have narrow streets 
 reeking with noxious odours from accumulated garbage, — when 
 
264 University of Madras. 
 
 the water they driok and the air they breathe contain the germs 
 of disease and death ? Is there ground to hope that the masses 
 will, in their present state of ignorance, find out what it is that 
 makes human beings fall like grass beneath the mower's scythe, 
 and hasten to adopt the remedies that science has devised for 
 alleviating human suffering and prolonging human life ? Can 
 they be made to feel that tlieir houses require to be kept clean 
 and white- washed, that their drains need flushing, that their 
 streets need widening ? Are they likely to realize the need for 
 preserving the wells and tanks that supply drinking water 
 free from impurities of all kinds ? What they are likely to say 
 and do is what they have so often said and done, and that is to 
 plead poverty and inability, and to submit themselves with such 
 resignation as they can command to the decrees of an over- 
 ruling fate. Graduates of the University, I wish I can, by any 
 words of mine, make you feel what a vast field of useful labor 
 lies before you in imparting to your fellow-countrymen tho 
 rudiments of natural knowledge. You know the saying that 
 he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew 
 before, is a benefactor to his country. Judge then what immense 
 benefit you will confer on the generation to which you belong 
 and through them to succeeding generations, if through your 
 exertions men learn to lead healthier lives and to suffer less 
 from the maladies that flesh is heir to. 
 
 In regard to the relation in which you stand to Government, 
 I have nothing new to say, but trite as what I may 
 ernmSt^' ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ sound, I cannot pass over so important a 
 topic. The benefits that the British rule has con- 
 ferred on us are so well and widely appreciated that a very brief 
 mention of them is all that is necessary. Ton enjoy a security 
 of person and property, unknown to your fore-fathers ; you 
 have received the precious gift of British Literature and Western 
 Science ; the countless ways in which the genius and industry of 
 man have compelled the forces of nature to minister to his 
 material wants have been placed within your reach. In addition 
 to these great blessings, you enjoy a freedom of thought and 
 speech which it cost your rulers centuries of painful struggle to 
 win. You who have received such benefits are bound to be 
 grateful, and mark my words, you will, in my opinion, be acting 
 most unwisely, if by any thing you say or do, you let it be thought 
 that you are wanting in grateful loyalty. It may well be that 
 you are not content with what you have already got, but remem- 
 ber that you owe this very sense of a better condition of things 
 than the present to that wise generosity which prompted our 
 
1890. — Rai Bahadur P. Rnnganadha Mudaliyar. 20") 
 
 rulers to raise us from a state of ignorance and moral stagnation 
 to a state of comparative clearness of intellectual vision and 
 moral activity. Ask by all means for what more you may want, 
 but ask in such a way that there may be no doubt or misgiving 
 in regard to your loyalty and obedieuce to established authority. 
 And before you ask for more, satisfy yourself thai what you ask 
 for is desirable and necessary. Those who have given so much 
 are entitled to credit for willingness to give us all that it is good 
 for us to have. You who have received a liberal education are 
 peculiarly bound to guide your fellow-countrymen with wise and 
 moderate counsel. It is at once your duty and your privilege to 
 act as interpreters between the rulers and the ruled. See that 
 you interpret aright to the ruled the motives and intentions 
 of the rulers, and help the governing anthoiities by faithfully 
 making known to them the wishes and feelincs of the people. 
 The task that a Government like that of British India has to do 
 is a rough and trying task. Do not make it harder by wilful 
 misrepresentation. The teachings of our religion and philosophy, 
 the traditions of the past, and the best interests of the present 
 are all on the side of loyalty and fidelity, and approving as I do 
 all reasonable desire on your part to make yourselves useful in 
 the sphere of political administration, I call upon you as the 
 inheritors of an ancient civilization to steer clear of courses of 
 conduct that will do no good, but may do much harm by rousing 
 into activity such unhealthy feelings as jealousy and disaffection. 
 There has, of late years, been a great deal of talk and writins: 
 about local self-government, talk and writing for the most part 
 misleading. According to some, the people of India will never be 
 fit to govern themselves ; according to others they possess already 
 the necessary fitness, let a jealous bureaucracy deny it as stoutly 
 as they may. Let me advise you to reflect on one aspect of the 
 question. Self-government ordinarily means the governing of 
 a people by themselves, but it may also mean the governing of 
 one^s self by one's self. The true measure of the people's fitness 
 for self-government in the former sense is to be found in their 
 fitness for self- government in the latter sense. Only those are 
 fit to command who have learnt to obey. If a great majority of 
 the individuals composing a community are characterized by 
 weakness of purpose, error of judgment, blind adhesion to 
 custom, and ill-regulateil desires, it is idle to expect such a 
 people to possess in a collective capacity the intellectual and 
 moral virtues required for a wise and beneficial management of 
 Raise your- their own affairs. Your first duty then is clear, 
 selves individu- Raise yourselves individually. Acquire a sound 
 ^^^y- knowledge of the laws of human well-being and 
 
 3^ 
 
266 University of Madras. 
 
 progress, endeavour to lead pure and blameless lives, strive to 
 control the lower passions of your nature, and, by constant 
 practice o£ self-denial, learn the luxury of doing good. Of this 
 be sure that, to the extent to which you become wise and virtu- 
 ous men, to that extent only will you be fit to exercise political 
 power, and the fitness to exercise such power must, as history 
 sufficiently proves, be followed sooner or later by the attainment 
 of it. It may fall to some of you to conduct native 
 In^n PrSs**^^ Newspapers, in English or in one of the Verna- 
 cular languages. I trust the Press is destined to 
 become as powerful an organ in India as in England, but that 
 this high destiny may be accomplished, the writers to the 
 native papers should be imbued with a fitting sense of respon- 
 sibility, and should endeavour to reflect public opinion faithfully 
 as in a mirror. I know that in India public opinion has to be 
 educated as well as represented. This makes the responsibility 
 all the greater. The native Press should keep steadily in view 
 the cardinal requisites of progress, — a desire to find out what 
 is true, just, and beneficial, and to avoid what may secure tem- 
 porary advance at the cost of more or less permanent injury; 
 an ever-present feeling that large masses of men can move but 
 slowly onward, and that the true secret of success is '^ to hasten 
 slowly ;" a cordial recognition of all that is good in existing forms 
 and methods, and a settled conviction that '^ political institutions, 
 to be efficient, must grow up from within, and not be imposed 
 from without.^' The native Press is yet in a state of infancy. 
 Faults of indiscretion deserve, therefore, to be treated with indul- 
 gence. I have often noted a desire to produce sensational effects, 
 a proneness to exaggerate, a warping of the judgment due to 
 defective knowledge, and a tendency to make intemperate invec- 
 tive do duty for sound and sober criticism. Permit me to urge 
 that the plainest mode of saying a thing is almost always the most 
 effective mode, and that no criticism strikes so vigorously home 
 as that which bears the evident impress of a careful study of facts, 
 and of a desire to judge without fear or favour. 
 
 Allow me to say a few words next on social reform. It is 
 said that human opinion has to pass through 
 fonn three phases, — "the unanimity of the ignorant, 
 
 the disagreement of the inquiring, and the unani- 
 mity of the wise." Having after long ages emerged from the 
 state of unanimity of the ignorant, we are now passing through 
 the necessary transition stage of the disagreement of the in- 
 quiring. The fault will be ours, if we do not so order things 
 in this second stage, as to make the nearest approach posssible 
 
1890. — Rai Bahadur P. Haitganadha Mudaliyar. 267 
 
 to the third stage, the unanimity of the wise. I am sincerely 
 convinced that real pro^rress is possible, in this as in other 
 directions, only if the guidino" spirits of the movement are men 
 of enlightened views, sound moral impulses, and a living relig- 
 ious sentiment, — men capable of looking before and after, — men 
 not so blindly attached to the past as to oppose every thing new 
 nor so rashly bent on reform as to despise every thing old. 
 Never lose sight of the fact that you have to carry the masses 
 with you, and that in consequence some of the social and relig- 
 ious changes that the educated few may be ripe for will have 
 to be postponed ; and that true wisdom and philanthropy re- 
 quire that while you have your faces set in the right direction, 
 and while you have the courage to declare your convictions, you 
 walk warily and slowly so that your less favoured brethren 
 may follow your lead at such pace as is good for them. Observe, 
 I do not commend the practice, which is only too prevalent, of 
 talking and acting in a manner entirely at variance with one's 
 own thoughts and feelings. Such incougrnity between the 
 inner and the outer life is the very death of all that is pure and 
 noble* and self-denying. According to the best light in you, 
 approve only of what you consider to be right, and so conduct 
 yourselves as to make it clear, that you neither justify nor excuse 
 injurious customs and debasing superstitions. The Western 
 ideas and sentiments that you have imbibed in the course of 
 your education will and must urge you to advance, but as in 
 human affairs good and evil are inextricably blended together, 
 and the desire to obtain a thing is no guarantee of fitness to use 
 the thing desired wisely and well, I would solemnly entreat you 
 to look before you leap, and to make sure by pbservation, by 
 study, and by reflection that in your impatient unwillingness to 
 bear the ills you have, you do not fly to greater ills you know 
 not of. ^ Prove all things.' A spirit of rational and searching 
 inquiry is the necessary outcome of the scientific discipline that 
 you have had. You cannot help feeling the absurdity of assum- 
 ing that all our thinking has been done for us by our ancestors. 
 If through indolence, or love of selfish ease, or fear of con- 
 sequences, you fail to think for yourselves, and if you neglect 
 your opportunities of doing what you can to make your domestic 
 life and your social surroundings harmonize better with the 
 needs of the present, you will, believe me, be unworthy of the 
 education you have received; you will betray the trust the Uni- 
 , versity reposes in you; you will be false to your- 
 
 things; ^ hold selves and false to your countrymen. I say again 
 fast thkt which 'prove all things,' but "hold fast that which is 
 ^^ ^^ ' good." While I feel nothing but respect in regard 
 
268 University of Madras. 
 
 to the intentions and motives of those among us who would fall 
 back on the Shastras for working* out a new social scheme for the 
 people of India, I must take the liberty to say that that method 
 seems to me to be inadequate, — nay more positively injurious. 
 The Shastras are worthy of all reverence as handing down to us 
 the traditions of a by-gone civilization. No social reformer can 
 afford to despise them, or to neglect their study. But it is 
 abundantly manifest that rules and observances and institutions, 
 tliat suited the men of a by-gone age, can hardly suit us, who 
 live under a very different environment. The method of finding 
 in the Shastras chapter and verse in support of this or that 
 reform may carry us some little way forward, and that only 
 after a long struggle over texts and interpretation ; but I feel 
 convinced that such a re-casting and re-construction as would 
 eliminate from our social life the elements that have for so long 
 held an iron sway, and paralysed our intellectual and moral 
 The Shastraic energies, could be achieved only by modifying the 
 nietliod of social Shastraic injunctions, and not by a tacit conformity 
 reform. ^^ them. I have said that the method under 
 
 criticism is injurious, and my reason for saying so is that what 
 might be gained by placing reform on a false basis is nothing as 
 weighed in the scales against what must be lost. This wrong 
 method will and must stand in the way of many important reforms 
 that every true friend ot India would wish to see accomplished, 
 and I would, therefore, impress upon your minds the necessity for 
 giving this subject your most earnest consideration. By all means 
 venerate the past ; be proud of the relics of ancient civilization that 
 abound in India; admire our ancient philosophy for its depth and 
 subtlety' and penetrative insight; and love our ancient literature 
 for its sweetness and pathos and wealth of profound moral and 
 religious sentiment. But remember that the richer the legacy you 
 have inherited from the dead, the stronger the obligation to make 
 the lives of present and future generations something the better 
 for your self-denying labors in the cause of national progress. 
 
 I fear I have alreadj'^ overtaxed your patience. I shall 
 
 T « .^^r,4. content myself, therefore, v/ith making a mere 
 Improvement 'J . .-i • x. i. j ^' xi j. 
 
 of the Vema- mention or two other important duties that you 
 
 culars. have to perform. You have to cultivate the study 
 
 of your mother-tongue, and to improve it to such an extent as to 
 
 make it a fit medium for the communicat-on of Western ideas in 
 
 Science and Philosophy. You have to promote the education of 
 
 Education of your women, and to make your fellow-countrymen 
 
 women. understand that the education a woman wants is 
 
 nut that which will make her a better sort, of household drudge 
 
1890. — Eai Bahadur P. Runganadha MudaUyar. 269 
 
 or a more agreeable kind of- play-tbirg, but that which will 
 make her fit to sympathize with her husband^s aims and aspira- 
 tions, to otTer him wise connsel, and so to bring up her children 
 as to turn their natural endowment to the best account. 
 
 It has been often pointed out that there is among you much 
 industry but little thought, great power of acquisition but small 
 power of production. The charge, I fear, is well grounded. 
 This unsatisfactory result is, I have no doubt, in some measure 
 due to the vicious methods of teaching necessitated by the 
 demands of the long series of examinations that our young men 
 have to pass, and the small scope allowed for the free play of 
 the intellect when its whole energy is spent on the r/iere acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, and there is little power and less inclination 
 for assimilating and organizing the knowledge acquired. You 
 do not need to be told that yonr education has but just beofun. 
 It has begun not only in the sense that you have to go on adding 
 to your stock of knowledge to keep yourself abreast of the times 
 in which you live, but also in the sense that you have to reflect 
 on what knowledge you have already gained, and make it a part 
 of your intellectual furniture. Most, if not all of you, will have 
 to discharge professional duties of one kind or another. Your 
 education up to this point has been intended to fit you for every 
 path of life. You have now to choose some one path. See to it 
 that the path you choose is such as is suited to your tastes and 
 capabilities. I count it superfluous to advise you that profes- 
 sional success cannot be attained without a careful study of 
 principles, and without that skill in the application of principles 
 which is to be gained only by constant practice. The tendency 
 to study almost exclusively codes and acts, rules and regulations 
 is a survival of scholastic habits that needs in your case to be 
 checked and counteracted, rather thau encouraged. Let me 
 warn you, therefore, of the danger you have to guard against in 
 your ardent pursuit of professional success, — the danger of learn- 
 ing only what bears on your profession and of neglecting 
 altogether those humanizing studies, which are necessary to keep 
 the intellect fresh, active and healthy; the danger of your 
 letting the mind move in well-worn grooves, — the danger of your 
 becoming slaves to routine. Remember that while you have to 
 improve your professional knowledge and skill, you have also to 
 keep up the habit of studying the wise and noble thoughts of 
 the living and the dead. It is only by doing so that you may 
 hope to have a well-balanced mind,— a mind with a clear sense 
 of the true and the just, — a mind with a keen sense of the 
 beautiful in nature or art, — a mind instinct with noble feelings. 
 
2^0 University of Madras. 
 
 I now conclude, but before concluding, I congratulate you 
 in tbe name of the University on the honors you have attained, 
 and bid you go forth into the world, and win your spurs in the 
 battle of life. The University to which you belong will watch 
 your career with anxious solicitude, and e?:pect you not simply 
 to do the best you can, each for himself, — but also to do the best 
 you can for your fellow-men and your mother country. 
 
 THIRTY-FOURTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By Dr. Duncan.) 
 
 When Lord Connemara appointed me to deliver the 
 customary address on this occasion, it was with mixed feelings 
 that I undertook the duty. And the more I have thought of 
 it, the more divided have my feelings become. On the one 
 band, I feel gratified to be associated with the distinguished 
 men who in years gone by have stood in the place 1 occupy 
 to-day. On the other hand, I cannot but reflect that this 
 high privilege brings with it great responsibility. My pre- 
 decessors have on behalf of the University, offered to gradu- 
 ates of former years a cordial welcome to the world of letters 
 and science. It is for me to see to it that the welcome offered 
 to you shall not be less warm and sincere. An ideal of duty, 
 pure and lofty, has year after year been presented to graduates 
 on their admission as members of the University. It is for me 
 to give earnest heed that, in presenting this ideal to you to-day, 
 it shall not be lowered or tarnished. 
 
 I am reimnded to-day of twenty years ago, when for the 
 first time I attended as a spectator at a Convocation 
 Twenty years ^j ^^jg University. However much this gradua- 
 tion ceremony may, by reason of repetition, lose 
 in attractiveness to a superficial on-looker, it has an abiding 
 charm for the man who retains through life his sympathy with 
 the struggles and triumphs of the youthful seeker after know^- 
 ledge. I can recall as if it had been but yesterday the eloquent 
 words in which your predecessors of twenty years ago were 
 addressed by one who was even then coming to be recognized as 
 a power for good in Southern India; though at that time he had 
 not secured the hold on the affectionate esteem and gratitude 
 of your countrymen which his great abilities, his liberality, 
 bis self-sacrificing devotion have now deservedly won for 
 him. On that occasion the Rev. Dr. Miller sought to instil 
 something of his own enthusiasm into the breasts of the young 
 men just admitted to be members of the University, appealing 
 
1891— 'Dr. Duncan. 271 
 
 to tliem witli all the power which eloquence and sympathy can 
 give to prove themselves worthy sons of an ancient people. In 
 tlje years that have come and gone since then, the newly admit- 
 ted giaduntes have had the privilege of listening to addresses 
 some of them aglow with the fire of eloquence, some of them 
 laden with that practical wisdom which the observation and 
 reflection of years briug to the philosophic mind. If my remarks 
 are characterized neither by the eloquence of the orator, nor by 
 the wisdom of the sage, I may at least hope that they will afford 
 you some encouragement, stimulus, and guidance at this impor- 
 tant period of your lives. 
 
 I am charged, ladies and gentlemen, with the pleasing duty 
 of offering you, in the name of the Chancellor, Vice- Chancellor, 
 and Fellows, a cordial welcome as members of the University of 
 Madras. We hold out to you the right hand of fellowship in 
 no grudging spirit. The dignity you have this day attained 
 unto has been honourably won after long-continued and arduous 
 toil. It has been won in a field in which wealth and birth confer 
 no privileges, where each man has to depend on himself, where 
 intellectual force, controlled by a resolute will and a lofty con- 
 ception of duty is the principal factor of success. Looking 
 back on the years of study that have had their fitting consum- 
 mation to-day, many of you will think with regret of much that 
 has been left undone, of mistakes made, of precious hours and 
 days wasted, of energies misapplied. And it is most fitting 
 that you should at this important stage of your lives lay to heart 
 the lessons of experience. Bat do not allow regrets for the pnst- 
 to shut out from your view the possibilities of the future. Brood- 
 ing too much over past failures is apt to weaken the knees of 
 action, leading one to the fatal conclusion that, because the best 
 has not been made of the years gone by, it is useless to prolong 
 the contest. At no time of life should men, reflecting on tbe past, 
 give way to despair, and least of all when, like you, they have just 
 got beyond tbe threshold of it. If, notwithstanding mistakes and 
 failures, yon have been able to secure the position you occupy for 
 the first time to-day, let that be to you a ground of hope that your 
 future achievements will be honourable to yourselves, beneficial 
 to your fellow-countrymen, and a source of pride to the Uni- 
 versity which this day receives you into its membership. 
 
 And this reminds me that I must put yon on your guard 
 
 against the too common misconception that the 
 
 the^crowniug°of graduation ceremonial is the crowning of the edifice 
 
 the edifice of ot knowledge and culture. Hitherto you have only 
 
 know e ge. been laying the foundation, to-morrow you begin 
 
272 Univer&ity of Madras, 
 
 to rear tlie superstructure. Your admission to tlie Univer- 
 sity to-day is merely the seal and token that, in the opinion 
 of the Senate, the foundation stone of learning and culture 
 has been well and truly laid. Do not deceive yourselves, there- 
 fore, by the thought that the years to come will be years of 
 mental indulgence, in which you will have nothing to do but 
 reap the reward of your past exertions. Your future may be a 
 life of ease if you deliberately will it to be so. But in that case 
 you must be prepared for the sure and certain penalty — the loss 
 of that intellectual and moral power you now possess. The 
 only way to preserve the knowledge and culture you have 
 acquired is to endeavour to deepen, extend, and apply the one, 
 and to perfect the other. As the foundations of a palatial struc- 
 ture gradually crumble to ruin, unless by being built upon they 
 are protected from the disintegrating action of the elements ; so 
 the grasp of principles you have acquired and the studious 
 habits you have formed will slowly but surely decay, unless you 
 diligently cultivate and strengthen them. How often is the 
 bright promise of youth obscured long before middle age ! The 
 greatest happiness of the teacher is day by day to watch the 
 expansion of the faculties and capacities of his pupil, and to 
 forecast that brilliant future when those powers shall have 
 reached maturity. Sometimes, alas ! it is his most poignant 
 sorrow to see the eager questioning spirit settle down into sloth- 
 ful acquiescence, the keen edge of the subtle intellect become 
 blunted, the high aspirations of youth, with clipped wings, sink 
 into the stagnant waters of dreary commonplace. Let not youi- 
 teachers have any cause to say of you : " Surely we have labour- 
 ed in vain." . If you have acquired any love for books, bear in 
 mind that that love will give place first to indifference, and then 
 to distaste, unless it be seduloui^ly cultivated. If you have 
 gained any insight into the wonderful works of nature, do not 
 lull yourselves to sleep by the easy-going reflection that all you 
 have to do in future is to hold fast by what you now possess. 
 Unless you earnestly extend and cherish your acquaintance with 
 and love for nature, depend upon it she will in time become a 
 sealed book to you. If you have acquired any power of sustained 
 flight in the rarified atmosphere of speculative philosophy, do not 
 iniaorine that you will be able to maintain the power of living 
 in these higher regions of thought, unless ever and anon you 
 give yourselves up to lofty meditation, and leaving sordid cares 
 behind, live 
 
 " lu thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars." 
 
 In accordance with the regulations of the University, it is 
 my duty to exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably unto the 
 
1891.— i)r. Duncan. 273 
 
 position io which, by the degrees conferred upon you, you have 
 attaiued. This implies that you give due heed to the cultivation 
 of your intellectual and moral character for their own sakes, 
 Self-culture is, moreover, an indispensable pre-requisite for the 
 fulfilment of those other duties incumbent on you as graduates 
 of this University. You have now become members of a body 
 corporate, and can no longer as individuals live for yourselves. 
 Your aims and pursuits must henceforward be in harmony with 
 those of the society into which you have been admitted. And 
 what are those aims ? They are the advancement of learning, 
 and the promotion of morality and human welfare. Freely ye 
 have received of the gift of knowledge, freely give. Strive not 
 only to increase the stock of human knowledge, but also to 
 spread it among the ignorant. Be it your aim not only to 
 elevate and purify the ideal of duty, but also to encourage and 
 help your fellow-men in their endeavours to live a better life. 
 Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, 
 whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report : 
 these things it must be your ceaseless endeavour to realize in 
 your own lives and in those of your fellow-men. 
 
 If our graduates would earnestly strive to promote the 
 cause of morality and sound learning, and to advance the 
 welfare of their fellow-countrymen, there would, I am fain 
 to believe, be less of adverse public criticism at their expense. 
 The opinion is widespread that the manufacture of gradu- 
 ates — for in this disparaging way is the course you have 
 gone through referred to — that the manufacture of graduates is 
 both harmful in itself and far in excess of the requirements of 
 the country. This is a serious charge, and it is for you and 
 your fellow-graduates to enquire into the truth of it. On the 
 
 31st March last there were on the rolls of the Uni- 
 0^*^^*^^^^ versity 2,169 graduates in Arts, 351 graduates in 
 
 Law, 78 graduates in Medicine, and 47 graduates 
 in Engineering. Now, taking into account only the gi'aduates 
 in Arts, I would ask whether 2,169 is an excessively large 
 number among a'population of some forty millions. Compared 
 with the audience assembled in this hall, you, the newly-admit- 
 ted graduates in Arts, may seem to be a large body ; and should 
 your names appear in to-morrow's newspapers, the list will not 
 be a short one. This year, as in former years, the question will 
 be asked : What is to become of you ? People forget that 
 before twenty-four hours are over you will have begun to 
 scatter yourselves over the enormous area embraced by Southern 
 35 
 
274 Univeraity of Madras- 
 
 India. South Indian society must be in a hopeless condition 
 if useful work cannot be found for one graduate in every 18,441 
 of the population. 
 
 In order to account for the low estimation in which gradu- 
 ates are often held by the public, we must, I 
 Gk^uS*^^* think, take into account other considerations than 
 their absolute or relative numbers. It is just 
 possible, for example, that it has its origin in the conviction 
 that the graduates admitted year by year are not of the right 
 kind. This is a matter deserving of the most e9;rnest considera- 
 tion. For it implies either that the young men who receive a 
 University education are not of the right class, or that the 
 education given is defective, or that our graduates do not live 
 up to the expectations formed of them by others and the pro- 
 mises made by themselves. It must, I think, be admitted that 
 there is an element of truth in each of those implied charges. 
 It is to be regretted that the aristocracy of native society holds 
 itself aloof from University culture, notwithstanding the ex- 
 ample set by the Princes of some of the reiguing families of 
 Southern India, who enter the arena of intellectual competition, 
 to have their ability and knowledge tested on equal terms with 
 the lowliest in the land. On political and social grounds it is 
 eminently desirable that those whom the masses of the people 
 have been accustomed to look up to as the leaders of the society 
 should be brought within the influence of the highest culture. The 
 tendency of modern society is to attach less and less value to 
 birth and wealth, unless accompanied by a cultivated mind. 
 The conservative instincts of the people of India are, probably, 
 still strong enough to cause the aristocracy of birth and wealth 
 to be looked up to, eveu though it be steeped in ignorance and 
 prejudice. But the democrative wave which is spreading over 
 the world will sooner or later change the aspect of affairs in 
 India also, and it is for the high-born and the wealthy to show 
 by superiority in knowledge and intelligence that they are 
 entitled to be regarded as men of light and leading. In all 
 this I do not for one moment mean to imply that opportunity 
 should not be given to the son of the poorest and humblest in 
 the land to receive the benefits of University education. It is 
 in the interests of society that intellectual ability and moral 
 worth, by whomsoever possessed, should be allowed every 
 opportunity of developing themselves. This the colleges of 
 South India have done and should continue to do, without, 
 however, leaving the other undone. As to the charge, so often 
 made, that our University education is defective, none will 
 
1891.— Dr. Duncan, 275 
 
 admit that more readily than those who are chiefly responsible 
 for it. But for these defects, whatever tliey are and whether 
 remediable, or irremediable, yon, ladies and gentlemen, cannot 
 be held responsible. But the opinion that graduates are too 
 numerous ha;?, probably, its main support not in the considera- 
 tion that the right class of young men do not attend our colleges, 
 nor in a conviction that the system of the higher education is 
 defective, but in the fact that so many graduates fail to realize 
 the expectations formed of them, forgetting the promises they 
 made on graduation day to support and promote the cause of 
 morality and sound learning, to advance social order and the well- 
 being of their fellow-men. It is for you to help to remove this 
 reproach. In advising you how you will best justify before your 
 fellow-men the education you have received, it is impossible to lay 
 down hard and fast rules. Much will depend on your own peculiar 
 bent, much on the circumstances in which you may be placed. 
 
 As regards the support and promotion of sound learning, 
 each of you will probably best achieve that end by continuing to 
 prosecute the particular branch of study to which you have 
 mainly devoted yourselves during your University career. It is 
 not unusual on occasions like the one which has called us together 
 this afternoon, for the speaker to take the opportunity of press- 
 ing upon young graduates the claims of the science to which he 
 is himself devoted. And there is much to be said in favour of 
 the practice. Were 1 to follow it, I would remind you that the 
 proper study of mankind is man, and I would strive to impress 
 on you the paramount claims of Psychology and the cognate 
 sciences. But I shall not abuse the position I occupy to-day to 
 advertize my own wares to the prejudice of those of others. On 
 the contrary my advice to you is : Follow the line of study you 
 
 have been pursuing during the past years. If your 
 
 Follow your collegiate training is worth anything, that is the 
 
 stSy. ^^ ^ sphere in which, other things equal, you wiU be 
 
 most likely to succeed. It may be your happy lot 
 to extend the boundaries of your science ever so little into the 
 illimitable region of the unknown. If you cannot accomplish 
 this, the crowning achievement of the man of science, the effort 
 put forth will, nevertheless, strengthen your reasoning powers, 
 will give you a firmer grasp of known principles, and will thus 
 render you better fitted to help your fellow-men to participate in 
 the treasures of wisdom which, unlike other treasures, are not 
 diminished to the individual by any increase, however great, in 
 the number of those who share them. 
 
 But, while counselling you to pursue, with all the earnestness 
 
^76 University of Madras, 
 
 and assiduity of which you are capable, the particular branch of 
 knowledge which natural inclination and aptitude, strengthened 
 and methodized by academic discipline, may urge you to follow,and 
 which the circumstances of your future life may render practicable, 
 I should fail in my duty were I to abstain from inviting your special 
 attention to the claims of one department of thought. It may not be 
 the fashion now-a-days to profess a high regard for speculative 
 philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics may have deservedly 
 become a by-word and a reproach, and Michelet 
 Michelet's de- njav have riffhtly defined it as the art of bewil- 
 
 finition of meta- t *: j H* n t n t . -i 
 
 physics. dermgone s self methodically. I am not concerned 
 
 with defending the speculations which under the 
 name of metaphysics, or ontology, or theology, have engrossed 
 the minds of men since the dawn of reflection. But I ana 
 deeply interested in getting you to understand and appreciate 
 the spirit of enquiry, of which metaphysical speculations, how- 
 ever erroneous they may be, are the outward expressions. The 
 ever-increasing volume and the ever-multiplying ramifications of 
 knowledge render specialization a more and more pressing neces- 
 sity for each succeeding generation. To few men is it permitted 
 to gain a minute acquaintance with more than one science. And 
 what is true of the man of science is true also of the college 
 student. The tendency of modern academic regulations is to 
 Disadvantages confine the student to a comparatively small num- 
 of specializa- ber of subjects. But this specialization, necessary 
 ^°^' though it be, has its disadvantages both in respect 
 
 to the training of the faculties and in its bearing on that adequate 
 knowledge of the universe which is the aim of the highest scien- 
 tific thought. Each science professes to give the last word that 
 can for the time being be said, not on the universe as a whole, 
 but on that particular part of it with which it is concerned. 
 Chemistry gives us the final conclusions of the chemist with 
 regard to the phenomena and laws of chemical combination. 
 Biology systematizes the latest conclusions with respect to the 
 phenomena and laws of life. Psychology confines itself to the 
 domain of consciousness. Each science presents, therefore, only 
 a partial view of nature ; and this fact should never be lost sight 
 of. For partial or one-sided views become harmful when, for- 
 getting their real character, we treat them as complete and 
 all-sided. Now, this is precisely what the specialist is in danger 
 of doing. The more the mind is engrossed with a particular 
 branch of knowledge, the greater is the tendency to treat all 
 other branches as of less importance and, therefore, as less 
 deserving of study. This scientiiS© bias, if unchecked, may lead 
 to the other sciences being ignored aitogetiier, the favourite 
 
1891.— Dr. Ihmean. 277 
 
 science being looked upon as affording a complete account of the 
 universe — as embracing the alpha and the omega of knowledge. 
 Against this tendency — a tendency favoured by the training 
 you have received — you must ever be on your guard. If the 
 several sciences give only the final deliverances that can be made 
 for the time being in their respective spheres, something more 
 is needed before we can be said to possess a genuine and com- 
 prehensive conception of the universe. What is that something 
 The ' First ^^^^0 ? It is included in what Aristotle calls the 
 Philosophy ' of ' First Philosophy^' it is the undercurrent in all 
 Aristotle. metaphysical speculation, it finds its highest expres- 
 
 sion in theology. Each science, in its search after unity of cause 
 and law, ultimately arrives at certain laws of the highest gener- 
 ality as far as that science goes. It is the business of the First 
 Philosophy to gather together these general laws, with a view to 
 their being combined into a few still more general principles. 
 And it is only when the final utterances of all the sciences have 
 been thus co-ordinated and, if possible, subordinated to higher 
 generalizations, that we can be said to have an adequate concep- 
 tion of the universe as a whole. To reach this lofty point of 
 view, a minute acquaintance with all the special sciences is 
 not necessary. The branches of knowledge are many, but the 
 intellectual faculties employed and the operations carried on 
 in scientific investigation are comparatively few. A mind 
 thoroughly trained in habits of observation, experiment, com- 
 parison, abstraction, generalization, and inference, possesses all 
 the fundamental qualifications for undertaking the task of dis- 
 covering those higher generalizations which unite the different and 
 often seemingly-conflicting conclusions of the several sciences. 
 Cultivate, therefore, this habit of bringing the conclusions of the 
 special sciences face to face, of comparing them one with another, 
 of seeking for some higher or more general principle or law of 
 which they are the specialized forms. This is the genuine 
 breadth of culture. This it is that shows us the special sciences 
 in their true proportions, as parts of one stupendous whole, and 
 gives us a conception of the universe at once comprehensive and 
 satisfying. It is doubtless true that in striving after this com- 
 prehensive view of the universe, men have often ignored 
 altogether what the special sciences have had to say, and thus 
 have been led into the wildest extravagances, peopling the uni- 
 verse with meaningless abstractions. But if you follow the 
 course I am recommending, you will not fall into this snare, for 
 in every step you take you will tread on the solid ground of 
 nature as presented to you by the respective sciences. Nor will 
 this habit of mind, which seeks to co-ordinate and unify the 
 
27 B University of Madras, 
 
 manifold results of human experience by means of higher laws, 
 prove in any way antagonistic to successful investigation in some 
 one of tlie special departments of enquiry. Let it be your 
 endeavour, therefore, to combine devotion to one branch of study 
 with that more general outlook on the wide domain of knowledge, 
 which enables one to see things in their true proportions aud 
 relations, instead of looking at them through a distorting medium, 
 in which their intrinsic harmony too often appears a discord. 
 
 Let the spread of knowledge among your ignorant fellow- 
 countrymen be also an object of constant solicitude 
 ieio^^^^'''" to you. When you leave this hall to go to your 
 appointed labours in different parts of the country, 
 carry with you the firm resolve that in whatever sphere of life 
 you are placed, you will regard it as your bounden duty to help 
 to dissipate the gloom of ignorance and superstition which 
 prevents your fellow-countrymen from entering into full posses- 
 sion of *' man's beautiful heritage, the earth." Each of you can 
 do a little, some of you may do much, to spread the light of 
 knowledge. There is, I fear, too much truth in the popular 
 verdict that, with the exception of those who have adopted 
 teaching as a profession, the graduates of this University have 
 hitherto done little towards the spread of education. The neg- 
 lect of this duty is, I doubt not, one of the reasons for the small 
 esteem in which they are held by the public. 
 
 There is one aspect of this duty to which I would draw your 
 special and earnest attention. And here I address myself to 
 Hindus and Mahomedans. It is now three and thirty years 
 since this University was founded. During that .period the 
 advance in the education of the male population has been 
 remarkable. Not less remarkable has been the slow progress in 
 the education of the female population. Intense eagerness to 
 
 educate your boys, and almost complete indiffer- 
 
 Educate your ence towards the education of your girls, this is a 
 
 women. phenomenon of Indian society which strikes the 
 
 foreigner with amazement. I am not unmind- 
 ful of the steady increase that has taken place in recent years 
 in the number of girls attending school. In one respect this 
 increase is the most melancholy part of the business. During 
 the year ending 31st March 1890 the number of girls 
 attending school in this Presidency increased from 69,873 to 
 78,344, or by 12*1 per cent. The increase in the year previous 
 had been 6*6 per cent. This you will think belies my assertion 
 that there has been little progress, and you will wonder how 
 such a goodly increase can in any aspect be regarded as a cause 
 
1891 .—Dr. Dwiean. ' 279 
 
 of dissatisfaction. But, look at tlie state of things a little more 
 closely. Almost all the Hindu and Muhammadan girls attend- 
 ing school are in Primary schools, and most of them in the 
 lower standards of these schools. In Upper Secondary schools 
 for girls there was, on the 31st March last, not a single Muham- 
 madan pupil. Brahmans and Sudras were also entirely absent ; 
 and the whole Hindu community throughout the Presidency was 
 represented by five girls ! Is this as ifc should be ? In Lower 
 Secondary schools for girls there were 23 Muhammadans, 53 
 Brahmans, 32 Vaisyas, 338 Sudras, and 16 belonging to other 
 classes. Out of 2,113 girls reading in these schools, 1,651 were 
 Europeans, Eurasians, or Native Christians ; while only 462 were 
 Muhammadans or Hindus. Again I ask, is this as it should be ! 
 
 A few months ago the attention of the public was directed 
 by one who is now a Fellow of the University to 
 Withdrawing the evils consequent on early marriage. On that 
 ft'i^early'^e occasion Dr. Smyth dwelt more on the bodily than 
 on the mental aspect of the question. But in 
 whichever of these aspects it is viewed, it is closely connected 
 with the subject I am now considering, namely, the early 
 withdrawal of girls from school. I am not here as a censor of 
 your time-honoured customs, which, if changed at all, must be 
 changed of your own deliberate choice. But it is my duty to 
 impress on you two truths : firstly, the absolute necessity of 
 educating your women, if you are to hold your own among the 
 nations of the earth ; and, secondly, the utter impossibility of 
 this being done so long as custom withdraws girls from school 
 soon after they have passed beyond the age of infancy. As I 
 have said elsewhere ; ^^ Hindu and Muhammadan parents must 
 be brought to face the vital issues that are bound up with this 
 question. If Native society, in full view of all the circum- 
 stances, deliberately allows itself to fall behind in the march of 
 progress, there is not another word to be said. But if it desires 
 to take its place among the foremost peoples of the earth — to be 
 a progressive instead of a stagnating or decaying society — it 
 must gird up its loins and resolve at whatever cost to emanci- 
 pate its women from the thraldom of ignorance. A society 
 composed of educated men and uneducated women can never be 
 a progressive society.^' Do you resfard knowledere 
 
 A society com- ^°-i ^ - t i Ui. 
 
 posed of edu- ^^ a priceless possession tor yourselves, but a use- 
 
 cated men and less encumbrance or a curse to your mothers and 
 
 SS?''cau''*\iever JO^r wives, your sisters and your daughters? 
 
 be a progressive You are prepared to make many sacrifices for 
 
 society. ^^ education of your boys^ is that of your girls 
 
280 Univei'sity of Madras. 
 
 not worfcby of equal sacrifices ? Are you doing your duty by 
 your daughters in sending them to school only during infancy and 
 the two or three years that follow it_, removing them from instruc- 
 tion when their minds are just beginning to find pleasure in the 
 acquisition of knowledge ? The evil is not merely that their 
 education makes no further advance, but that the very little they 
 learnt at school rapidly fades away, and along with it there 
 vanishes the taste for reading and culture, the seeds of which 
 had begun to germinate when they were withdrawn by social 
 custom to the comparative seclusion of the domestic circle. The 
 male members of the family, if they happen themselves to be 
 educated, do occasionally strive to keep the last oraces of school 
 life from being effaced from the minds of ike girls of the house- 
 hold. But even this is rare ; and I believe I am correct in saying 
 that in the majority of households no attempt is made to con- 
 tinue the education of girls after they leave school, and that, 
 consequently, within a few years their minds are in much the 
 same condition as are those of girls who have not been to 
 school at all. You profess to have received pleasure and profit 
 from the education you yourselves have received. Try to imagine 
 the knowledge you have gained, and the tastes you have 
 acquired, during your school and college life, obliterated. Would 
 life appear in such circumstance to be worth living ? Would it 
 not, to say the least, have lost one of its greatest charms ? Yet this 
 is the condition to which social custom condemns the majority of 
 your women. I do not say that their lives are joyless lives, but 
 I do say that they are denied the means of experiencing some of 
 the keenest and purest enjoyments a human being is capable of. 
 This selfishness, which practically shuts out one-half of society 
 from the pleasure-giving and refining influences of literature, 
 science, and art, is a reproach to educated men. And think, 
 gentlemen, how much you yourselves lose in being deprived of 
 the sympathetic companionship of your wives and sisters. The 
 intellectual pursuits which have occupied your time during these 
 past years being entirely foreign to them, they cannot share with 
 you that supreme satisfaction which the victories of the intellect 
 bestow, nor can they help you to bear the trials and disappoint- 
 ments that attend the steps of the seeker after knowledge. 
 
 And what about your children ? If you wish your women to 
 be something more than the physical mothers of 
 And what your children, you must see to it that they are edu- 
 dreaV^^^^ " cated. The infiaence of the mother's character on 
 her children during- infancy is admitted by every- 
 body. Yet how few realize what that means ! How can an 
 
1891.— Dr. Duncan. 281 
 
 illiterate, uncultivated, perhaps infantile mother watch over the 
 opening faculties of her child and mould its character for good ? 
 One cannot trust to maternal instinct and common sense alone in 
 such an important matter. Maternal instinct is a sorry substi- 
 tute for intelligent judgment, and common sense is very uncom- 
 mon in an uncultivated mind. There is no more reason why the 
 moulding of the characters of the young should be entrusted to 
 the instinct and common sense of uneducated people, than there 
 is for entrusting any other human pursuit to such guidance. 
 There are, on the contrary, very powerful reasons why the 
 first years of life should be placed under the most highly 
 trained intelligence, the experiences of these years being those 
 that exert the most lasting influence for good or evil in after- 
 life. 
 
 And reflect, gentlemen, on the future of your society ? Un- 
 less you earnestly, and manfully, and successfully 
 Reflect on the grapple with this question of female education, there 
 Boo?e?y.° ^^^ can be no lasting social development, and in the 
 absence of development there must come decay. If 
 hereditary transmission be true at all, it applies to mind as well 
 as to body. We may not yet have discovered, we may never 
 discover, the intermediate links in the chain of causation by which 
 the intellectual and moral qualities of parents are transmitted to 
 their children. The fact is, nevertheless, indisputable. And if 
 there be any truth in the belief that intellectual endowments 
 take more after the mother than after the father, the question 
 becomes all the more serious. The child of parents possessing 
 well-developed bodies and minds begins life with faculties and 
 capacities, which, in proper conditions and in due course, grow 
 up to the maturity of manhood or womanhood. Not so with the 
 offspring of a mother whose faculties are infantile and undevel- 
 oped. The mental development of the child is speedily arrested, 
 the faculties retaining to the last thfe inherent weakness of their 
 maternal source — a weakness which will prevent them from ever 
 growing unto a vigorous maturity. Do men gather grapes of 
 thorns, or figs of thistles ? Can the plenitude of intellectual and 
 moral power be reaped as an inheritance from a mother, perhaps 
 a child-mother whose faculties have lain dormant, or, if at all 
 roused to activity, have been arrested in their development almost 
 at the outset ? For the sake of posterity, therefore, I entreat 
 you to do what you can to remove one of the greatest blots on 
 your social system. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. Do not imagine that I mean 
 
282 University of Madras. 
 
 to point tlie moral tliat may be drawn from the appearance 
 amongst you of four representatives of tlie gentJer 
 inS ^ Lady ^ex. For the second time in the history of the 
 L. M. s. of the University a lady has been admitted to the degree 
 ^tv^'^'^'a^'the ^* Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery, and for'the 
 tirst Lady gra- first time ladies have been admitted to the degrees 
 S ^d'iSte'' of Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery and 
 Bachelor of Arts. It is most meet that a modern 
 University like this should open its doors to the one sex as well 
 as to the other ; so that women^ who possess the means and the 
 mental endowments, may receive the highest education, both 
 general and professional. But I do not advocate that all your 
 women should be educated up to this high standard. I do not 
 ask that in every household there shall be a blue-stocking; 
 though amid the manifold interests of the complex society of the 
 nineteenth century, even the blue-stocking may find her appropri- 
 ate sphere and function. The cause which I earnestly commend to 
 your sympathy and co-operation is the bringing about of such 
 modifications in your social customs as shall render it possible for 
 young women to obtain an amount of education sufficient to call 
 into exercise and harmonious development those faculties and 
 capacities which in their present condition lie dormant, or reach 
 only a dwarfed and stunted growth. Their well-being and your 
 own well-being, the well-being of your children and future growth 
 of your society, depend on the manner in which you perform this 
 primary duty of educated men. 
 
 The solution of this momentous question is, I grant, beset 
 with difficulties, and it is not for me to say how 
 of iBdia'^must they are to be overcome. In this matter, gentle- 
 work out their men, the people of India must work out their 
 own s va on. ^^^ salvation. Do not, however, too readily acqui- 
 esce in the conclusion that the problem is absolutely insolu- 
 ble, or that it cannot be scflved within any measurable period 
 of time. Was the settlement of any great social question ever 
 arrived at by means of a policy of despair and non possumus ? 
 Let me remind you that several of the essential conditions of 
 success are at present in your midst. If earnest and zealous 
 men are needed to keep the question continually before the pub- 
 lic, have you not amongst you many with the fervour of Dewan 
 Bahadur Kaghunatha Rao ? If far-seeing statesmanlike views 
 are required, have you not men endowed with the wide political 
 sagacity of the venerable Raja Sir T. Madhava Rau ? Are you 
 afraid lest the good cause should make shipwreck at the outset 
 by the intemperate advocacy of those whose zeal is apt to carry 
 
1891.-— Dr. Duncan. 288 
 
 them beyond the bounds of prudence and legality ? This diffi- 
 culty can surely be met and overcome by a society which pos- 
 sesses men with the judicial acumen and calmness of the 
 Honorable Mr. Justice Muttuswami Aiyar. If you wish the 
 movement to be under the aegis of the highest academic culture 
 of your Alma Mater, and to be presented to the public with all 
 the charms of literary grace, have you not in men like Rai 
 Bahadur Ran ganatha Mudaliyar the embodiment of all that is 
 best in the culture of the East and the West ? If within the 
 Senate of your University there are men with so many of the 
 diverse and necessary qualifications for carrying to a successful 
 issue a great social reformation, may you not assume that 
 throughout the land there are many such, waiting merely for 
 you to say : " Come over and help us '' ? The maia thing re- 
 quired is to make you feel in its full force the urgency of the 
 question. Need I repeat that we are not dealing with a matter 
 of a little more or a little less of benefit to a small section of the 
 community, but with the removal of an evil which is eating out 
 the very vitals of your society ? 
 
 I have endeavoured, ladies and gentlemen, to the best of 
 my ability, to point out to you some of the ways in which you 
 will best fulfil the promises you have made to promote the 
 cause of morality and sound learning and the well-being of your 
 fellow-men. The responsibility laid upon you is heavy, and I 
 have not sought to lighten it. Let the good name of your Uni- 
 versity be one of your most cherished possessions. Except as 
 affiliated to that world-wide University, which embraces all the 
 schools that, through the ages, have kept alive the sacred flame 
 of knowledge, your Alma Mater cannot boast of a hoary anti- 
 quity. But, though the traditions you have to maintain may 
 not claim the sanction of centuries, yet, young as they are, they 
 deserve to be held in reverence. To cherish the lofty tradi- 
 tions of a long bye-gone past is a worthy task ; your task is a 
 worthier one. For it devolves on you to formulate the prin- 
 ciples and to work out the practices that will become in due 
 course the traditions of future generations* Let it be your 
 earnest endeavour so to conduct yourselves that those traditions 
 shall in the years to come tend to the highest good of this 
 ancient land. Your University while laying upon you grave 
 responsibilities, does not demand impossible achievements. You 
 are not called upon to forego your own private advancement, 
 nor the well-being of those with whom you are connected by 
 ties of kindred. In common with your less favoured fellow- 
 countrymen you will engage in the ordinary duties of life, pur- 
 
284 University of Madras, 
 
 suing tlie same ends as other men. In each and all of those duties 
 let it appear that you are guided by those qualities of mind and 
 heart which genuine culture imparts. To some of you more than to 
 others there will come a large measure of what is called success in 
 life. But to all of you, if you abide by the promises you have made 
 to-day, there will come, whatever else may fail, the sweet con- 
 sciousness that you have striven with all the strength that was in 
 you to live up to a high ideal. Go forth now to your allotted 
 walks in life, clear in intelligence, resolute in purpose, pure in 
 heart ; carrying with you the inspiriting and sustaining thought 
 that you have this day been admitted as citizens of no mean 
 city — as citizens of that catholic Universitas, or republic of 
 letters^ which knows no distinctions of race or creed, and on the 
 burgess-roll of which are inscribed in undying fame the names 
 of the wisest and the best of every age and clime. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH CONVOCATION. 
 
 (By H. B. Geigq, Esq., M.A., CLE.) 
 
 Mr. Chancellor, — I rise by your appointment to exhort the 
 newly made graduates to conduct themselves suitably in the 
 position to which they have attained by means of the degrees 
 conferred upon them. Sir, by your hand. 
 
 But, gentlemen, before I proceed to touch on matters, the 
 Fellows who consideration of which will form the substance of 
 died during the my remarks this evening, it is, I think, well to 
 ^^^^' invite you, to recall for a few minutes the names 
 
 of those Fellows of this University who have passed away during 
 the year which ends to-day. They laboured loyally and honour- 
 ably for many years either in the administration of public affairs^ 
 or in the pursuit of knowledge, or in the dissemination of higher 
 moral religious and political ideas : and one and all in furtherance 
 of the best interests and happiness of the people of this country. 
 Two of them, Sir Thomas Py croft and Sir Madava Eau, made 
 for themselves names, as administrators, which will live in the 
 annals of Madras. The former appears in the Act of Incorpora- 
 tion, among the first Fellov^s of this University, and on him in 
 his capacity of Chief Secretary and subsequently as Member of 
 Council, must have devolved a considerable share in the organ- 
 isation of public instruction in this Presidency. As an adminis- 
 trator., Madras has seldom, if ever, had his equal : and his 
 unwearied industry, his high sense of responsibility and his 
 fairusfcia of mind have helped to produce these virtues in all 
 
1892.— 3fr. fir. B. Grigg. 285 
 
 branches of the Service of which he was one of the highest 
 ornaments. Mr. Maltby had placed the administration of the 
 ancieut States of Travancore and Cochin on a basis calculated to 
 ensure solid progress in every branch of public life. His policy 
 would however have proved for a time at least comparatively 
 barren of good results had it not been grasped by the powerful 
 and cultivated mind of Sir Madhava Rau, the most capable 
 Hindu administrator of modern days. He organised the admin- 
 istration of Travancore, and later that of Baroda, on lines which 
 combined many of the political and administrative ideas of 
 Europe with those of an oriental country, and shewed to the 
 "Rulers of this Empire that to an Indian administrator may 
 safely be entrusted a portion of the fateful task of re-casting the 
 administrative and political machinery of Native States, so that 
 law may take the place of arbitrary power and the public weal 
 be substituted for the advantage of the favoured classes. In 
 Mr. Pogson the University has lost an Astronomer whose name 
 will always be famous as the discoverer of several asteroids, as a 
 patient and untiring worker in the fields of astral observation 
 and as a faithful and discerning recorder of astronomical facts. 
 Gentlemen, I would that his example might inspire some of you 
 to make the study of the heavens the study of your lives — and 
 that Madras may yet have the honor of giving to India the first 
 scientific astronomer, a native of the laud, as it has already 
 given to her the best Statesman of recent days. In Bishop 
 Caldwell and Doctor Hay the country has lost two ripe Dravidian 
 scholars, and two men who led noble lives — lives worthy of 
 imitation. They showed to you that the true religious spirit is 
 not egotistic and narrow, but altruistic and catholic. The work that 
 these enlightened men have done for the modern Tamil and Telugu 
 literatures is not their least claim to your gratitude, for they 
 with other men of their school, European and Native, have done 
 for these languages, probably more than their natural custodians. 
 In Mr. Hanna the University mourns a scientific engineer whose 
 eounsel was of great value in the recent movements in the 
 direction of improved engineering and industrial education, and 
 this country a public-spirited citizen. Whilst in Dr. Mohideen 
 Sheriff we have lost an experienced student of Medicine who 
 did good work in bringing to light what was worthy of record 
 in the indigenous systems of Medicine and in helping his co- 
 religionists to understand that modern scientific Medicine is the 
 true development of that art of healing, which their forefathers 
 have the undying honour of having been the first to cultivate ; 
 for though crude :md in its infancy, it was still in a manner 
 scientific. It is also my sad duty to commemorate two Fellows, 
 
286 University of Madras. 
 
 Rai Bahadur S. Ramaswami Mudalliar and the Rev. W. T. 
 Satthianadhan, who have gone from amongst us in the last few 
 weeks. The former was a distinguished student of this Univer- 
 sity, and a helpful counsellor in its affairs. He was a warm but 
 judicious and moderate advocate of political progress, and thus 
 afforded an excellent model to you of how you can conduct your- 
 selves loyally and yet independently in public matters. Mr. 
 Satthianadhan, who was among the first students to matriculate 
 in this University, has left to the Native Christians of Madras a 
 beautiful example of simplicity of life, of pastoral efficiency and 
 of devotion ; and he has shown to you that a change in faith 
 does not involve the abandonment of what is best in your native 
 traditions and feelings. Gentlemen, I have asked you to com- 
 memorate these worthies because I feel that it is as true of 
 corporations as of individuals that "he who lacks time to mourn, 
 lacks time to mend " — that 
 
 " Where sorrow's held intrusive and turned out 
 There wisdom will not enter nor true power 
 Nor aught that dignifies humanity." 
 
 We reject one means towards leading worthy lives as 
 members of this great corporation if we fail to meditate upon 
 our honoured dead. Would that in this grand hall we had 
 fitting memorials on canvas and in marble of those who being 
 members of the University did yeoman's work in their day for 
 the people, more especially in that branch of national life of 
 which this University is the highest expression and exponent — 
 that thus the immortal dead might live again 
 
 " In minds made better by their presence, live 
 
 " In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 
 " In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 
 " For miserable aims that end in self, — 
 
 Gentlemen, having reminded you of the dead whose memory 
 does you honour, I would now briefly trace to you the history of 
 the University to which you have just been admitted as members. 
 
 You have promised to conduct yourselves in your daily 
 life and conversation '' as becomes members of the same,'' and I 
 would have you learn to feel an honourable pride in being such, 
 recognising the potentialities of the organisation to which you 
 henceforth belong, and understanding your duty in connection 
 with the progress of your country through educational means. 
 
 This University is but new. It has no antiquity to endow 
 A ■, i 1 i 1. it with a wealth of venerable associations'' dear and 
 
 AsnortsKretcn . ,, ... i • i • i j ^^ ^ a. 
 
 of tbe history gracious — associatious wnicn might mellow what 
 of the Univer- fg young and crude blending with it that which is 
 ^ ^' beautiful and good in the past. Its life does not 
 
1892.— Mr. JET. B. Origg, 287 
 
 ' II ■i nm- i nrm aa - i - ' 
 
 extend (>t<^ ^ven five and thirty years, the Act of Incorporation 
 with w'hicli it began having only been passed on the 8th 
 September 1857. The three first Universities of India, those of 
 Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, were the immediate outcome of 
 the Educational despatch of J 854. But the educational condi- 
 tions of India which that great state paper sought to regulate 
 were due to the labours of many eminent men, statesmen, 
 lawyers, missionaries ; and of others, natives of the soil, such as 
 Raja Ram Mohun Roy, who had been quickened by the first 
 breath of the dawn of Western knowledge in India. All decisive 
 changes in the world take place in the intellect. These men saw 
 that the literature of India, beautiful and varied as it was in the 
 earlier periods of its growth, had been reduced to sterility and 
 decay by the idea-strangling and cast-iron systems of control elabo- 
 rated by commentators and grammarians of a later age. They 
 saw that the ancient educational systems of the country were 
 powerless to work a change in the Indian peoples towards a 
 higher life, and towards material well-being, and they strenu- 
 ously fought for the introduction of a system of education under 
 which the free thoughts and noble '^ intents of the heart '^ of the 
 peoples of the West might be conveyed on scientific methods to 
 these Eastern peoples : seeking thus also to re-invigorate and 
 restore to their proper place in the mind-building of the people 
 tlieir ancient poetry, vedic, epic and dramatic, their books of 
 law and the philosophical speculations of their sages. That 
 conflict was waged and won. But it lasted through nearly two 
 generations of men and, though partially decided in 1835, it did 
 not end until the issue of Lord Halifax^s despatch. Then came 
 the last year of the East India Company's rule — the year 1857 
 — the most terrible year in the annals of our Empire in the 
 East. You may remember how in 1574, the people of Holland, 
 on the raising of the siege of Ley den, nothing daunted by the 
 horrors of a life and death struggle with the Spaniard, preferred 
 the promotion of knowledge and the education of their children 
 to their own present advantage, and founded in that city a Uni- 
 versity, the first in the Netherlands, in the time of their direst 
 need. But, gentlemen, the act of your rulers was nobler by 
 far — ^for they, when the mutiny was at the flood, with a splen- 
 did faith in their divine right to regenerate the people of India 
 and to rule them that they might regenerate them, with an 
 exalted charity and an unexampled liberality, founded, not for 
 their own sons, but for the benefit of the very people whose 
 soldiery were waging a cruel rebellion against them, not one 
 University but three. It has well been called our annus tristis, 
 but, gentlemen, not tristis only but mirahilis, — to be gratefully 
 
288 University of Madras. 
 
 admired, I trust, by succeeding generations of enlightened men, 
 tlie graduates of our Universities. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, wliat is this University which they 
 founded ? The first thing which strikes me in 
 Ur^rsity. ^^^ t^ji^g ^o answer this query for you is that its found- 
 ers avoided the question as to whether an Univer- 
 sity has simply to do with preparing its students by a liberal and 
 humanistic education to become right-thinking men able to take 
 clear views in regard to the daily problems of life which they 
 will have to solve, or also with the imparting of professional 
 knowledge. Nor do they seem to have touched the question 
 whether an University, which has not within it the potentialities 
 of becoming a local habitation for a permanent congregation of 
 learned men, can ever concentrate within it the educational side 
 of a people's life. Their thoughts seem not to have wandered 
 back to the ancient Universities of Paris or Bologna, or to Oxford 
 or Cambridge, or even to Universities of the German type ; but 
 they took for their model, an University, that of London, which 
 confined itself. Medicine excepted, to the modest work of pre- 
 scribing courses of study, for its students, and of effectively 
 testing such students. They departed from that model in only 
 one important matter to which I am about to refer, viz., the 
 restricting of the study of Matriculated students to affiliated 
 colleges. Their ends were essentially practical. They sought 
 to form not a centre of instruction for all, but a centre for testing 
 the instruction of all, and by this system of public examina- 
 tions, to give ''full development to the highest course of educa- 
 tion to which the Natives of India, or of any other country, can 
 aspire," and besides, by the division of University degrees and 
 distinctions into different branches, to direct " the exertions of 
 highly educated men to the studies which are necessary to 
 success in the various active professions of life,'' and thus to 
 diffuse useful knowledge, and to confer upon the Natives of 
 India '' vast moral and material blessings.'^ Thus the practical 
 ends in view in establishing the University are clear. But there 
 are two matters in connection with it to which I would invite 
 your attention. The first concerns the development of the 
 organization of the University ; the second, the supplementing by 
 subsequent self- culture the courses of study which it encourages. 
 I do this because I feel that you should think of these things 
 and of how you can help to establish and settle your University 
 system on lines which will better promote good and useful 
 learning, and secure for its graduates as great an influence 
 in the educational development of South India, as public 
 
1892.--Afr. E, B. Origg. 289 
 
 expediency permits, making good your claim to the franchise 
 in the republic of Letters and Science by continued study, 
 and helping to maintain a high standard of culture among those 
 who constitute the academic class in the country. Now, gentle- 
 men, it seems to me but sound policy that gradually this Univer- 
 sity should seek to gather within it at Madras a congregation of 
 learned and scientific men as the centre of its corporate life. 
 Without such a heart I do not believe that the body can ever 
 become the centre of light and knowledge, and without such a 
 centre I cannot believe that scientific thought will ever be estab- 
 lished on a true basis in this country. The University must be 
 more than an abstraction, it must be a body of living men. Now, 
 how can this end be attained in a natural process of evolution, 
 and how can you help in that process ? I have drawn your atten- 
 tion to the fact that this University, differing from that of 
 London, requires its students to have passed through affiliated 
 colleges ; but so far it has not provided that they, in their life 
 as graduates, shall continue, in communion with their colleges. 
 Now it is in and through the college that I believe this congre- 
 gation of learned and scientific men, may best be obtained. I 
 would therefore exhort you to keep through life close to the 
 college from which you obtained your degree. If you will do this, 
 I doubt not means will be found in due course to enable you to 
 become incorporate with your college, and with the University 
 through it. Thus the practical solution partly depends upon 
 yourselves. 
 
 In the ancient English Universities the college forms the 
 basis of the University system. Ac Oxford the 
 Ancient Eng- administration practically vests in " the Congrega- 
 ties. tion'^ which consists of all the great officers of the 
 
 University, the Heads of Colleges, the Professors, 
 other important functionaries, and resident Masters of Arts, 
 whilst the final legislative power rests with *^the house of Con- 
 vocation'' which consists of '^all Masters of Arts and all Doctors 
 of the three superior faculties, who have their names on the 
 books of some College or Hall.'' Madras is becoming more and 
 more a University town, more and more the focus of the great 
 educational movement. It now possesses three First grade and 
 four Professional colleges, and I cannot doubt that the tendency 
 of the great educational agencies will be to locate their First 
 grade colleges in or near Madras. It has resident in it already 
 nearly eighteen hundred collegiate students, a number which 
 greatly exceeds the number of students in the University of 
 Oxford five and twenty years ago- It will thus possess colleges 
 37 
 
290 University of Madras. 
 
 on which to build such a scheme. I have therefore observed with 
 unmixed pleasure the recent movement of the ex-students of the 
 Madras Christian College to reunite themselves with that college 
 — their true Alma Mater, — inspired by grateful devotion to that 
 eminent man, the Rev. William Miller, who gives his life to 
 the glorious work of educating and elevating South India. It 
 seems to me a laudable ambition for the graduates in Arts of 
 
 this University, who have attained to the dignity 
 of^S^i^t^*'iu ^* *^® Master's degree, or to that of Master of 
 the University^" Laws or Doctor of Medicine, to seek to have a voice 
 
 in the administration of the University ; but it is 
 also a laudable ambition that the Heads and Professors of its 
 superior colleges should seek to become more potent factors 
 therein. Such ambitions need not be in conflict, but should be 
 in harmony, the influence of the college being strengthened 
 through its graduates. Such a gathering together of educational 
 forces wiU, I would fain believe, raise this University to a far 
 higher sphere of usefulness than that which it now occupies — 
 confer on it uniqueness and individuality, and tend to give to the 
 Professors of its colleges University rank. It needs the friction 
 of mind against mind to kindle the heat which generates thought; 
 the sharp strokes of wit on wit to strike out the sparks which fan- 
 ned become the unquenchable fire of knowledge- To one small 
 people was it given to be the fountain head of progressive thought 
 in the world. '^ Except the blind forces of nature," says Sir Henry 
 Maine, "nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its 
 '^ origin. * -^ -^ A ferment spreading from that source has vitalised 
 " all the great progressive races of mankind, penetrating from 
 " one to another and producing in each results accordant with 
 " its hidden and latent genius, and results often far greater than 
 " any exhibited in Grreece itself." But would, I ask, this new 
 creation have ever dawned upon the world had not Athens 
 centred in herself the mind of Greece ? 
 
 The next way m which I think the University organisation can 
 hereafter be improved is by providing means, direct- 
 teJ^rinLe^fes! l^ or through its affiliated colleges, by which you 
 who have obtained your degrees, and other students. 
 Matriculated or not, may carry on the work of self-culture, or 
 obtain knowledge in subjects which do not fall within the college 
 or school curricula. Many of you probably know how great has 
 been the influence of the schemes of University Extension Lec- 
 tures and of Local Examinations in obtaining for the Universities 
 of Oxford and Cambridge a truly national character, A similar 
 scheme to the latter has, as you know, been instituted in this 
 
l892.-^ifr. H, B. Grigg. 291 
 
 Presidency by your GoYernmentj and even if such work could 
 be undertaken by this University, it is probably wiser to leave 
 it in the hands of Government. Little objection can, however, 
 I think, be taken to a scheme of University Extension Lectures. 
 Already in some of our colleges assistance is being afforded to 
 students who are studying for the Master of Arts Degree, but 
 not as yet by means of special lectures. But nothing has as yet 
 been done to provide the means of acquiring extended know- 
 ledge, except in the arts, to students otherwise than through the 
 regular curricula of affiliated institutions. . This is not the place 
 to discuss the practical difficulties of such a scheme, but it is the 
 place in which to say that provision for impartiug knowledge 
 in this way is gradually becoming a necessity of higher educa- 
 tion in this Presidency and to invite attention to the subject. 
 The revenues of the University will be ample. I cannot con- 
 ceive a more appropriate way of spending the surplus of money 
 derived from examination fees than in providing means for the 
 further education of the examinees outside the beaten paths of 
 the University, through lectures, be they in connection with a 
 University course or in subjects not as yet included in the Uni- 
 versity curricula. By such a measure students of this University 
 might from time to time hear courses of lectures by distinguished 
 scholars and scientists of Europe. I feel the necessity for 
 keeping the tests in branches of knowledge outside the Univer- 
 sity courses under the immediate control of Government, but I 
 am also persuaded that that system is in part only a provisional 
 system as regards higher knowledge, and that if education in such 
 subjects is ultimately to be placed on a sure basis, the University 
 must, in the fulness of time, provide the means of testing such 
 students by examinations and of honoring those who distinguish 
 themselves therein by Degrees or Licenses — in other words that 
 this University should in time confer Degrees or Licenses on such 
 specialists as Chemists, Agriculturalists, Musicians, as well as on 
 Lawyers, Physicians, Engineers, and Schoolmasters. 
 
 Gentienaen, I have told you that your organisation as an 
 University is capable of a beneficent evolution. 
 Improved and such an evolution has already affected the 
 vers^y study!"" courses of study, which were laid down for you at 
 the beginning. But you should be for ever grate- 
 ful that the scheme of higher education marked out for you 
 was at once modelled on more scientific lines than those which 
 till then prevailed in some of the leading Universities of Great 
 Britain, Your fathers were not limited to instruction in ancient 
 Languages, and Letters^ or in Mathematics, but they were at 
 
292 tiniversikj of Afad/ras. 
 
 once given a course which compelled them to study not only 
 Language or Mathematics,, but also History and Moral Phi- 
 losophy, with an option of either Natural Philosophy, Physical 
 Science, or Logic and Mental Philosophy. It is true that 
 from the number of subjects, and the necessarily limited pro- 
 vision for teaching, the result was, perhaps, in too many cases, 
 an imperfect knowledge of several, in place of a more com- 
 manding grasp of one or two great subjects, but notwith- 
 standing these defects it gave a thorough grasp of leading 
 principles and not a mere superficial acquaintance with details, 
 and thus imparted to some of the early students, what is one of 
 the best outcomes of our system of education, a bent of mind 
 not to see things as they appear through the darkened and dis- 
 torted glass of prejudice and popular opiniou, but with the 
 naked eye of the mind, illumined by the clear beams of true 
 literary and scientific knowledge. That course of study had its 
 defects, many of which have now been removed — and with the 
 organisation of the improved schemes the name of Dr. David 
 Duncan will ever be remembered. You have now a better 
 grounding in general knowledge, that is of things which a culti- 
 vated man ought to know. The number of subjects in the final 
 stage has been reduced and the courses of study have been 
 fixed on scientific lines. Moreover a vast improvement has 
 taken place in quite recent years in the supply of Professorial 
 teaching. Your fathers had teachers of high merit and noble 
 character, whose names, as I speak, will flash into your minds, 
 but these distinguished men would have been the first to admit 
 that their work suffered because there was not enough division 
 of labour. Through the liberality of your Government as 
 regards both Departmental and Aided Colleges that defect 
 has been in a great measure removed, and 1 trust this century 
 will not close before at least in two colleges of this Presi- 
 dency, there will be adequate Professorial teaching in each 
 great branch in which this University examines. Thus, 
 gentlemen, you will see that your opportunities of training 
 yourselves are greatly superior to those your fathers enjoyed, 
 except in one matter only, namely, in the facilities which existed 
 for intercourse with your teachers. That loss has been unavoid- 
 able, because as in a large family of children the father and 
 mother must substitute general for individual leading and guid- 
 ance, so with a large body of students the prof-essor must rest 
 on the words spoken to the class as a whole, with an occasional 
 word in season to the individual student, instead of the loving 
 personal leading which we so often hear was characteristic of 
 gome of the men who taught your fathers. '-- But my experience 
 
1892.— Mr. /?. B. Qrigg. 2^3 
 
 tells me that it is oftenest the thought, which comes fresh with 
 warm life from the brain of a teacher as he deals at lecture with 
 some great subject, " striking across the mind and flushing all 
 the face" that is indelibly fixed in our minds and moulds our 
 future life. You have all had these opportunities in whatever 
 Faculty you have been studying, and I would hope that one and 
 all of you are carrying away some such life-giving thoughts, some 
 such grains of gold which you may treasure in the store-houses 
 of your memories, some such seeds of wisdom which may grow up 
 in the good soil of your minds and yield fruit an hundred-fold. 
 
 Now as to supplementing the courses of study through which 
 Supplement J^^ have passed for your degree. Gentlemeu, 
 what has been Bachelors of Arts, if you have during your Uni- 
 leamt. versity course disciplined and strengthened your 
 
 understanding, if you have acquired a knowledge of things which 
 an educated man in South India must know to be a useful 
 citizen, supplemented by a fairly thorough knowledge of some one 
 science, if you have added to this a sound knowledge of the English 
 tongue and through its literature have grasped in some degree the 
 genius of that people, if you have along with all this cultivated 
 a truth-loving spirit, a spirit which " abhors idols," be they of 
 the tribe, of the cave, of the market place or of the theatre, you 
 will be fitted for preparing yourselves by special study for the 
 branch of activity by which you will hereafter seek to earn your 
 livelihood and live the life of a cultivated being. You have laid 
 the foundation in the schools of this University for the school of 
 life. It is but the foundation. I know full well that tempta- 
 tions to a vain spirit are many and peculiar. You have come, 
 many of you, from what you now regard as ignorant homes and 
 you are surrounded too often by unenlightened relatives and 
 friends, whilst a graduate in Europe would live amongst those 
 whose knowledge and experience of life he cannot for a moment 
 afford to disparage or dispute. But this condition of things is 
 not one which should make you self-complacent. It should 
 rather fill you with the spirit of meekness and of fear — of meek- 
 ness because your superior knowledge should make you know 
 that after all what you have learnt is but little of the sum of 
 knowledge, and of fear, for you must see that you, even more 
 than the English graduate, have need to supplement that know- 
 ledge. If you arrest your development in knowledge, says 
 1 tell t al ^^^ Henry Maine, conceit and scepticism must be 
 cultivation must the result, '^ intellectual cultivation should be con- 
 be ever progres- stantly progressive." First then, you in a way 
 require a more thorough knowledge of the English 
 
2^4 University of Madras. 
 
 tongue than perhaps any people on the face of the globe. 
 Without the power to comprehend clearly the thoughts conveyed 
 therein, your progress in the course of intellectual and social 
 amendment is impossible. Remember, that words often confuse 
 ideas, and that the inharmonious use of a word may often lead to 
 great and permanent divisions and estrangements in thought, 
 estrangements so great that whole societies of men may be led 
 thereby in different ways. Words like coin become devalued 
 by use. This is the special danger which besets a spoken 
 language, and still more a language, used by a people for all 
 its public necessities, which is not the language of their homes 
 or of their own literature. In Madras it is an ever-increasing 
 danger. English, if you are not careful, may degenerate into a 
 patois, hard to be understood, and thus the language will cease 
 to be a great unifying influence in the Empire. If then you would 
 be in sympathy with the great thinkers of the world, whose 
 ideas must reach you through English, keep up your know- 
 ledge of that language, read the best books, books which con- 
 tain the clearest, the noblesi the purest, the most beautiful 
 thoughts that the mind and heart of man has yet evolved — the 
 thoughts of Homer and of Plato, of Virgil and of Tacitus, of 
 Dante, of Pascal, of Groethe, of Shakespear and of Bacon. 
 
 English is the language which opens to you the realms of 
 knowledge and through it you must have breathed. 
 The English ^j^^ jj^ some measure at least, the modern 
 spirit ; which after all was the spirit of Pytha- 
 goras — to seek truth and to do good — to re aXr) eveiv Kai to 
 ivepyeTciv. You are presumed to have acquired over English a 
 sufficient mastery to pursue knowledge through that language, 
 and through study of its literature to understand the people 
 who are your rulers. But after all the breadth of ground 
 covered by your studies has been limited and the quantity of its 
 literature which you have studied has been small, in consequence 
 of the habit of most students to confine their reading to pre- 
 scribed text-books and the notes of commentators. My advice 
 ^ - to you is to keep the authors you have studied 
 
 thorryou have with the notes you have made always near you, 
 studied with and ^q not, as I know s® many of your predeces- 
 ^°^' sors have done, dispose of them to the first book- 
 
 seller. If you have imbibed any true love of English literature, 
 and is there a soul among you so dead that it has not been 
 stirred to its depths by some of the works you have studied, — 
 you cannot part with these books without a sigh.. If you will 
 keep only those which have taken the greatest hold upon your 
 
1892.— Mr. H. B. Origg. 295 
 
 mind, even this is better than a wholesale passing by the plank 
 of all the words and thoughts of the men, whose minds during 
 the past few years you have sought to understand. Unless you 
 continue your study of the language and its literature, your 
 English education will prove of little use beyond providing 
 means of earning your daily bread. I do not despise this use, 
 but you will indeed be poor in soul if you reap no greater riches 
 therefrom than what can be tied up in a money bag. Let it not 
 be said of you that you have sought to obtain a degree only and 
 not also to raise yourselves to a higher life of thought and 
 action. 
 
 In the course of your reading few of yon will not have 
 become conscious of the direction in which your 
 
 Do not gy^dge taste or talent lies. Cultivate that taste by read- 
 money or 00 s. ^^^ ^^^ especial care all that you find on the sub- 
 ject in the newspapers, the journals, and above all, in books — 
 and make a real effort to economise and buy the books that 
 give you special help and pleasure.- Do not grudge this money. 
 Such books are often more precious than rubies to the true 
 learner. This taste for forming small libraries is I know here 
 and there beginning to show itself, and it is all the more neces- 
 sary in this country where at present not a single public library 
 exists — though through the generous policy of your late Gover- 
 nor, Lord Connemara, that reproach will soon be removed from 
 Madras. I have always felt a sincere sympathy for the young 
 graduate who passes to up-country life, where he will rarely 
 find good books available, notwithstanding that, the Govern- 
 ment offers to help most liberally the formation of libraries. 
 Do not be tempted to say '^ I have my work to do, and I would 
 do that, with my might. What help will the contin- 
 literatureis^he ued study of literature be fco me ?" You can make 
 study of man- no greater mistake in life than this, for the study of 
 
 ^° ■ literature is in a sense the study of mankind. And 
 
 you cannot be in sympathy with your kind, you cannot have a 
 due sense of proportion with regard to your own special work, 
 if you neglect to read, or rather to keep up your reading in 
 general subjects as well as to pursue reading in connection with 
 your special work in life. I do not say you should not have 
 your favorite lines of reading or your favorite authors; by no 
 means. Even in literature you should have your own depart- 
 ment, your own book-case, so to speak, in the world's library. 
 But do not narrow your sympathies. Most of you will make 
 your living in the Public service. That service more and more 
 needs cultivated men, men full of the thoughts of others as well 
 
296 University of Madras. 
 
 as of their own. If you would be useful in your day and 
 generation, if you would leave tlie world a little better tliau you 
 found it, make tbe acquaintance of great men in their books 
 and never tire of their friendship. Oh the marvellous inherit- 
 ance which they have left I the right to communionship with 
 them in thought and, aye, in action too. To you, isolated as 
 necessarily you often must be from your fellows, how great is 
 this boon, how inestimable the blessings of the great legacies of 
 thought which they have left with you. '^ Their works,'' writes 
 Wordsworth, 
 
 " Are a substantial world both pure and good 
 Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh ;and blood 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow." 
 
 But although English is to you the gate of knowledge I 
 would not have you rest on it alone. Your position is peculiar ; 
 it corresponds to that of the youth of the middle and renascent 
 Ages who were taught in Latin only. But although this system 
 has its disadvantages, it has this advantage that you have been 
 taught to use this foreign tongue as the vehicle of all your rea- 
 soning processes — that is, it has been taught to you logically 
 and accurately. You are therefore much less liable to mistake 
 words for things. 
 
 But whilst English is all this to you remember that no cul- 
 tivated man should rest content with a knowledge of one lan- 
 guage only. The task of learning a language is much less to you 
 than to an Englishman. Most of you .know only English well, 
 for your knowledge of your own Vernaculars from all accounts 
 is but indifferent. Some few of you have passed in Sanscrit or in 
 Latin. Three languages is the outside limit of your knowledge, 
 whilst few English graduates do not possess a moderate know- 
 ledge of two classical and of at least one modern language 
 besides their own. Your task in the way of learning languages 
 seems to me always to have been overrated. Had the methods 
 of instruction been good much more might have been re- 
 quired of you. Now I would urge each one of you, who has a 
 facility for learning languages, to use some portion of your 
 leisure in after-life in studying other languages besides English 
 — especially modern European languages. It is true that you 
 will rarely feel the need of French or German, as 
 em ^^^uro^ean ^n Englishman feels it, for purposes of traveler of 
 language be- correspondence ; but if you read, as I trust you 
 sides English. ^.^|^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ English literature and English 
 
 pamphlets and newspapers, I do not see how you are to appre- 
 ciate such literature unless you know something of the languages 
 
1892.— ifr. H, B, Gh-igg. 297 
 
 which permeate it. It may be too late for any but a few of you 
 to study Latin and Greek, but I would advise all of you who 
 intend to take to the profession of Teaching, or of Law, or of 
 Medicine, to study one at least of these languages. Remember 
 
 that admirable as is English literature, and power- 
 Learn Latin ful as is English as a vehicle of thought, you can, 
 possible** ^ unless you know Latin and Greek, only get the 
 
 thoughts of the peoples who were our spiritual 
 and social forefathers at second hand ; you must, so to speak, 
 depend on interpreters and reporters. You must see things 
 through their eyes and hear the far-off articulate voices of the 
 ages from their tongues. Most of you must rest content with 
 this ; but he who seeks to be a teacher and guide of men in a 
 particular branch of knowledge, the fountains of which are in the 
 Latin and Greek tongues, cannot escape from the task of study- 
 ing these languages — especially the former. I have often, 
 gentlemen, felt my heart fail me for the future of your people 
 when I have observed how that not one teacher of English in a 
 hundred has been suflBciently inspired with the love of know- 
 ledge to have armed himself for his life's work by studying the 
 languages on which our composite tongue is built — but that 
 instead they should be dreaming of passing examinations and 
 tests which may bring to them a few more pitiful rupees. 
 
 Compare what your educated young men are doing in this 
 way with what the youth of the cities of Great Britain are 
 doing. Thousands of young men, often artizans and labourers, 
 are attending the language courses in the various institutes, 
 such as the Working Men's College and that of the London 
 Society for the extension of University Teaching — many of 
 them — not to better their material prospects in life, or even to 
 fit themselves for the peculiar work they have to do, but to cul- 
 tivate their minds so as to live better the lives of rational beings 
 and to drink deeper of the stream of knowledge. Gentlemen, 
 do not weaken your claim to rise in the scale of peoples, to have 
 a more potential voice in shaping your destinies, by simply 
 living on the honey you have stored up during your college life 
 instead of ever adding industriously to that store which shall be 
 intellectual food to you and to your children. 
 
 Now as regards your own Vernaculars. Tour duty is not 
 merely to add to your power of understanding the 
 knowledge ^^of Dien whose books you read, but if you have a true 
 the Vernacu- desire to spread good and useful knowledge among 
 ^^^' the people, you must also obtain the power which 
 
 so few of you, I fear, possess of expressing yourselves idiomati- 
 38 
 
298 University of Madras. 
 
 cally and vigorously in your own language, and of interpreting 
 through it your new knowledge and your new ideas. 1 am not 
 one of those who think that much can be done at present in the 
 way of imparting scientific thoughts and facts to the people 
 through the Vernaculars, because I believe you must educate 
 the people first on Western methods through their own Ver- 
 naculars before you can rouse sufiicient interest in what you 
 have to tell to insure intelligent listeners, 
 
 ** Charm you never so wisely." 
 
 But the number of those whose interest has been roused is 
 increasing, perhaps rapidly, and such as these you must be pre- 
 pared to address in the vulgar tongue. We may yet see an 
 awakening similar to that which recast the whole social and 
 ideal life of Europe, when the thoughts of men of " light and lead- 
 ing " of the ages past and of the then present were communi- 
 cated to its people '^in their own tongue wherein they were 
 bom." No one can feel more strongly than I do that, if the 
 peoples of India with their numerous Vernaculars are ever to 
 rise to a nobler life and to greater wealth, the proportion of 
 those who know English must be ten, nay, twenty-fold of what 
 it is, and be equally distributed amongst men and women ; but 
 no one more strongly believes that the great mass of people can 
 never be truly regenerated until each Vernacular is made a 
 fitting vehicle for carrying on that knowledge. Only those who 
 have had to do with the translating of little works of a scientific 
 character into one of these Vernaculars can appreciate how 
 difficult the task of interpretation now is. But this interpre- 
 tation must be done. For it is folly to imagine that the rapidly 
 increasing millions of South India can ever be English-speaking 
 or depend mainly on English literature. The growing circula- 
 tion of Vernacular Journals and Leaflets show how rapidly this 
 demand for something to read is spreading especially among the 
 Tamil population. Gentlemen, to whatever Faculty you may 
 belong, if you would spread abroad some rays from your own 
 lamp of knowledge do not fail to gain such a command over your 
 Vernacular that what you write may be read and understood. 
 
 So far I have spoken only of Language and Literature. 1 
 fiave brought these subjects into such special prominence, 
 because I feel that in them "is hid what may be called the 
 wisdom of life, the rich store of experience of human nature and 
 of conduct," and that unless you acquire this wisdom of life, 
 absorb into your nature the mental and moral conditions which 
 have rendered progress possible, you cannot reap the full ben&fit 
 
1892.— iifr. H. B. Origy. 
 
 of specialising in any branch of scientific knowledge, for know- 
 ledge 
 
 " is the second, not the first, 
 A higher hand must make her mild, 
 If all be not in vain ; and guide 
 Her footsteps, moving side by side 
 With wisdom, like the younger child." 
 
 The ground-work of all higher education must be the study 
 of the noblest thoughts and of the noblest exem- 
 thfscien^s^ °* P^^^® ^^ mankind. But no society can advance 
 unless it has in every branch of scientific know- 
 ledge an adequate number of persons possessing such knowledge. 
 Now the branches of knowledge^ which at present are necessary, 
 so far as higher education is concerned, seem to me fairly well 
 represented by the various branches of study in this University, 
 It is true that the necessities of the people are as yet simple, in 
 that nine-tenths of the population live by agriculture, on a small 
 scale. The people, moreover, are generally simple in their 
 habits, have little desire for the conveniences of a more highly 
 civilised life, and seem to care little for accumulating wealth 
 except on the old beaten paths. In such a society no doubt the 
 first demand is for good men to regulate its public affairs. For 
 such men it seems to me that Mathematics and History are the 
 most important. Mathematics will fit them to deal logically 
 and unerringly with all great social, revenue and industrial 
 questions, the solution of which depends so greatly on their 
 power of collecting accurate statistics and of applying to them 
 the strictest methods of mathematical reasoning. I have only 
 to refer you to the absence of data on which the Government 
 can deal safely with such questions as Agricultural Economies, 
 and Life Insurance, to illustrate my meaning. And yet how 
 few graduates of this University possess any thorough knowledge 
 of Mathematics. Only about five hundred graduates now living 
 have specialised in it, and few of them have shown great ability. 
 With such a supply how can the work of the country be per- 
 fectly done. Again, as regards History. It has only been 
 studied in adequate breadth and depth and as an important 
 Branch of Science during the last decade. Yet who can deal 
 satisfactorily with finance, legislation, economics, commerce, 
 politics, who has not studied History. Only about two hundred 
 graduates of Madras have specialised therein, or have any- 
 thing better than a smattering of historical knowledge. History, 
 however, is the most generally attractive of all studies, — 
 and one which you can pursue in after-life, with success, if 
 during your University course you have grasped what are 
 the true ends of historical study and the right method of 
 
300 tiniversity of Madras. 
 
 pursuing them. Of all branches of study after Letters, this 
 is that which is most necessary for a public man, more espe- 
 cially for those who are connected with the public Press. 
 But besides such men your country needs more and more for its 
 development, men possessed of a sound knowledge of Physical 
 and Natural Science, partly in the r61e of teachers, partly as 
 
 actual workers in industrial activities. They are 
 Scf^^^to^^^d ^* required as teachers to give the mind of the people 
 tries. a more inquiring turn, a greater interest in Nature 
 
 and its Laws, and some knowledge of the natural 
 resources of their country. The industrial enterprise of Euro- 
 peans may raise local interest and attract labour and capital, but 
 it is only when the mind of the people is set in a new direction 
 by the general spread of scientific knowledge that much result 
 can be attained. Why is it that with but one or two solitary 
 exceptions, which but prove the rule, every enterprise for devel- 
 oping the wealth of the country comes from Europeans ? The 
 reply generally is — the Natives are too poor, they have no capital 
 for great or novel enterprises. There is truth in this, but it is 
 not the whole truth, because your capitalists, as a rule, do nothing. 
 The new energy of a people does not require great enterprises 
 to test it. It may be shown as well in small things as in great ; 
 in the making of a brass- vessel, in the planting of a hedge, in 
 the digging of a well, or in the introduction of a new seed or of a 
 new plant. If intelligence and a love of progress are there a 
 poor people can do much. The history of the world has shewn 
 how poor and isolated peoples have risen high in the scale of 
 peoples when fired by such a spirit. It is through an education, 
 which teaches the child to use its hand, its eyes, its reason as well 
 as its memory alone, that such a change can be wrought in the 
 mental attitude and in the habits of a people. But you need the 
 actual workers also, especially in the higher industries, for it 
 will not do simply to teach. There is some reason to think that 
 this decade may show a marked advance especially in the devel- 
 opment of the mineral wealth of the country ; and if you have 
 not practical workers of your own people in the scientific depart- 
 ments of such industries their place must needs be taken by 
 Europeans. You must push in and secure your place, or make a 
 place for yourselves. But what is the course you usually pursue ? 
 You take to Law or to the Public Service, instead of seeking out 
 a road, painful though it be, which will in the long run make 
 you of as real service to the country. Men can in a way create 
 their own destiny. The conditions of industrial life in Southern 
 India require all the vitalizing power that you are able to afford. 
 Prove yourselves true friends of your people, and furnish this 
 
1892.— Jtfr. jgr. B, Qrigg- ^01 
 
 power, although it may seem temporarily against your interests. 
 Scientilic knowledge is good, in itself, but it must have its own 
 practical end, or it cannot flourish. A science cannot flourish in 
 a country unless it has its corresponding art activity therein. 
 The science of chemistry can make nu permanent home for itself 
 in Southern India, if there is no opening for it as an applied art. 
 At present such activities hardly exist. You must help to create 
 them. 
 
 Thus far to you. Graduates in Arts. To you, Graduates in 
 Law, in Medicine and in Teaching, I will say but few words. 
 Graduates in Law, the danger, which will chiefly beset you in 
 applying the knowledge you have acquired to the active work 
 of your profession is that of gradually ignoring the principles on 
 which a sound system of Law is based. To avoid this you must 
 remain always students of Law as the science of gradually per- 
 fecting the social relations of mankind. You must ever bear in 
 
 mind what is the end of all Law, *' the harmony of 
 .The end of Law the world.^' Even in your daily practice remem- 
 of the%orld!°°^ ber that Law is the great schoolmaster which leads 
 
 a people to perfection — that, whether you have to 
 administer the Law, or to assist those who come within its opera- 
 tions, one of your duties is to endeavour so far as in you lies, that 
 Law be the friend and not the enemy of man — that liberty be not 
 sacrificed to order, though order be '^ heaven's first law.'' Law em- 
 bodies the enoBgies of social-life. By its operation the old civiliza- 
 tion of India is giving way to the new, not so much as the result 
 of the written laws of your legislators, as by the new ideas and 
 new sympathies of those who administer justice, and of those 
 who are directly or indirectly connected with that administration. 
 How great then is the necessity that you, who will be in a way 
 leaders in your profession, should by continued reading and 
 studying of the best masters, fit yourselves for this beneficent 
 work. Your preparation for this work, useful though it has no 
 doubfc been, has, I need hardly tell you, fallen far short of what 
 a perfect system of law instruction demands. Medicine and 
 Engineering and the Arts had independently organised institu- 
 tions fitted to prepare their students for their life's work, whilst 
 such an organization in Law is only now being created for you. 
 Ere long, in your Law College, future students will find the 
 means of a legal education suflScient to place the Law graduates 
 of Madras on an equal footing with any lawyers in the world. 
 Whilst you will find by attending special courses of lectures 
 hereafter the means of aiding you in that after study of Law 
 which is so essential to the beneficent exercise of your profession. 
 
S02 University of Mad/ras. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am sanguine enough to think that this College will 
 yet perform a beneficent work for your pec^e in 
 lege ^ providing not only for Law students proper,, but 
 
 for public servants generally, and also for citizens 
 engaged in the ordinary avocations of life, opportunities for the 
 study of Law and of social regulations and customs, as yet 
 afforded by no institution in the Empire. It must also, I consider, 
 become a society of Lawyers. An institution of this kind will 
 help to maintain your noble profession in a thoroughly healthy 
 condition. The courts as the final authority in matters of 
 discipline may do much, but I am persuaded that you, Lawyers, 
 must feel yourselves to be members of a society having its own 
 sanctions, before you will in any true sense be members of a 
 profession. Workers in one branch of activity must thus be 
 linked together or society must suffer. 
 
 To you, Graduates in Medicine, I say — remember that you 
 Adrioe to ^^long to a great profession by virtue of the vow 
 Gra*aates in you made this evening. You have no Medical 
 Medicine. Practitioners^ Act in this country to bind you 
 
 together, no legal sanctions peculiar to your profession. It there- 
 fore is all the more necessary that you should make that vow a 
 bond of honour as strong as the Freemason's oath. The progress 
 of your profession in this country depends in great measure 
 upon your so holding together. Those of you who may enter 
 the Medical Service will have its regulations to guide you — but 
 an increasing number of the Medical Graduates of Madras will 
 have no such support. Therefore in your calling voluntary 
 obligations must take the place of legal. You will not, I trust, 
 have only to look to a distinguished name, and to the monetary 
 rewards which justly follow on such a reputation, but I trust 
 that as time goes on the Schools of Medicine and the Hospitals 
 of this city will afford you the opportunities of gaining public 
 recognition for your work. The progress of scientific Medicine 
 in this country cannot for ever depend upon work done through 
 the Government, or Local Medical Services. It must, as in any 
 other great department of life, depend partly upon private effort, 
 that is, on the work of private practitioners. I have in my 
 capacity of Director of Public Instruction, tried in a small way 
 to bring such men forward, but as things now stand the oppor- 
 tunities are so few that they can have but little effect. I can 
 only hope that the time may come when to such may be afforded 
 the means of doing good and useful work in public institutions 
 for the public. The change is beset with many diflficulties, but 
 it must come in time if those among you who take to private 
 
1892.— Mr. E. B. Qrigg. 303 
 
 practice prove to the Government and to your brethren of the 
 Service that you are worthy of such confidence. 
 
 Graduates in Engineering. Your course has been^ especially 
 Advice to Gra- ^^ *'^® practical side, superior to that of most of 
 duates in Engi- those who preceded you. You have thus been 
 neering. enabled to begin your life's work on a vantage 
 
 ground, and through your work in the field and in the workshop 
 you have been able to test your real aptitude for your profession — 
 and, if you have discovered this aptitude your profession will, I 
 doubt not, become the passion of your lives. There are few 
 vocations which call forth this passionate devotion like that 
 of Engineering, — a bridge, a tower, an eagine, becomes per- 
 sonified, an object of almost personal affection. I can well 
 remember with what a sad heart, as of one parting from a 
 loved child, Mr. Brassington, the designer of the noble 
 edifice that is now rising to the north of the Fort, said 
 farewell to that work but just begun, and I would that he may 
 yet see its domes and minarets standing out as they now do 
 against the rich glory of your evening skies. If you are to 
 succeed in your profession you must not only continue the 
 study of engineering and architectural literature, and of draw- 
 ings of the noblest engineering and architectural work, but you 
 must cultivate this enthusiastic and passionate feeling which 
 will give you eyes to see, and a brain to imagine things, which 
 would never strike across the brain of the uninspired engineer. 
 To be a great engineer or a great architect you must have a 
 powerful imagination, and that quality can be cultivated like 
 any other of our mental gifts ; you must have the power " to 
 body forth the forms of things unknown" and then only can you 
 by your pencil, and by your trowel give to these '^ airy nothings 
 a local habitation and a name." But remember these things 
 only come to those who work with the hand as well as with the 
 brain. This new feeling of the necessity of cultivating the 
 working side of your profession is, I rejoice to think, beginning 
 to extend to classes which have hitherto stood aloof ; witness 
 the excellent manner in which a Brahman student, the son of a 
 distinguished member of this University, has gone through bis 
 course in Mechanical Engineeriog in the workshops of the Madras 
 Railway. Only a few years have elapsed since Brahmans in 
 Madras began to take to the profession of Medicine and Surgery, 
 and not in a dilettante way, but with a determination to do the 
 rough work as well as the agreeable, to regard nothing as 
 *' common or unclean," of which their science demands a know- 
 ledge : and now, it must gladden the heart of every friend of 
 
304 University of Madras. 
 
 India to see yontlis of the same race, filled with the same spirit, 
 pursuing the study of engineering, like men who believe that 
 the " drudgery " of a profession is also " divine," because by such 
 pains alone can a mastery of its noblest branches be attained. 
 One word more of advice I would give you. Try and establish 
 a body of independent engineers outside the Public service. 
 Your numbers are still few, but that is no reason why you should 
 not draw together, and draw to you, as your coadjutors, the 
 engineers of the service. Remember that such an association 
 will add greatly to your weight and your usefulness in the 
 country, and will help to direct the mind of the educated and 
 wealthy classes towards the development of its vast resources 
 through private enterprise. There is also one other duty I 
 would urge on you — the encouragement by your advice, and 
 co-operation of .the small efforts which are being made here and 
 there to give to education, through the teaching of Drawing and 
 Carpentry and other industrial subjects a practical turn. These 
 efforts often languish, and sometimes die, because there is no 
 one possessing sufiicient technical knowledge to guide and help. 
 You can, if you choose, do much in this way, and you have in 
 3^our Professor, Mr. Chattertou, an admirable example. Remem- 
 ber that such simple work is after all a humbler portion of your 
 own work, and that your profession can never secure a firm and 
 wide basis, independently of the State, unless the sympathy of 
 the people tends towards the development of their industrial 
 activities. 
 
 Graduates in Teaching. Yours is a new degree. It was 
 Adrice to Created with the intent not only to provide a course 
 Graduates in of study, which should prepare you adequately to 
 Teaching. f^jg^ y-Q^. i^\^]^ calling, but also to add dignity to 
 
 your noble profession. It is strange in a country in which the 
 Gruru is regarded with the greatest reverence and is not permitted 
 by public sentiment to barter his knowledge for fee, that the 
 teacher of knowledge on new and scientific methods should be 
 so little esteemed ; and that a profession, on which the future of 
 India so greatly depends should attract to it but few of the best 
 of the rising talents. Here is not the place to discuss the 
 multifarious causes of this, but there is one characteristic of your 
 people which seems to me to lie at the root of it, the absence of 
 a love of any line of work apart from its pecuniary rewards. • One 
 would not have expected this in a country, which has a peculiar 
 literary class, numbering one-thirtieth of the people, a class to 
 whom literary callings are as congenial as is cultivation to the 
 ryot, or trading to the Chetty. But it is none the less the case, and 
 
1892.— ilfr. E, B. Grigg, 305 
 
 unless it can be corrected it demands the faith of an optimist to 
 believe strongly in the future of your country, because unless the 
 leaders of the great branches of public activity are capable of pur- 
 suing each activity at the expense of selfish or monetary interests, 
 that activity or department of public life can fulfil but indifferently 
 its special work. Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and 
 whosoever loseth it shall find it. It is true with prominent 
 exceptions that generally professions attract candidates in propor- 
 tion to their lucrativeness, but with all noble minds the stipend 
 is regarded as a " due and necessary adjunct only and not as 
 the great object of life." All true men have '' a work to be 
 done irrespective of fee, or even at any cost, or for quite the con- 
 trary of fee." Such minds, I fear, are as yet far more rare here 
 than in the West. But, gentlemen, it is such minds that are 
 especially needed now, and I would fain hope that in some of 
 you there is this mind. Every day the world is recognising 
 more fully that the education of the rising generation is the 
 chiefest among duties, that '^ the child is father of the man," 
 that that work is the most difficult problem society has to solve, 
 and that its solution depends rather on those to whom you 
 actually entrust the teaching, than upon the literary knowledge 
 imparted. Your profession is not therefore one that can remain 
 ill-esteemed. It must, as knowledge advances, be held in greater 
 honour. With you is the future. Prepare yourselves for it, by 
 learning, by virtue, by industry, by sympathy, by unselfishness ; 
 and seek to win for yourselves that place in public esteem, which 
 is now held amongst the great mass of the people by the Guru. 
 It must come unless you as teachers are untrue to yourselves 
 and to your calling. Few things will hasten its coming like the 
 gaining for yourselves the reputation of men of knowledge, and 
 of men also who love to impart knowledge, apart from pecuniary 
 rewards. It was this unselfish spirit that won for your Guru 
 ancestors so high a place in the people's affection. It will, as 
 new things become old, be yours also if you work in this spirit. 
 
 But, Graduates in all Faculties, you have duties iai connec- 
 tion with education beyond the limits to which your University 
 is by the nature of things confined. It is to these external 
 
 activities that I would invite your attention. The 
 mMBes!* ^ ^^^^ concerns the education of the great masses of 
 
 the people. It has been the fault of most academic 
 societies and classes that they fail to recognise that their real 
 honor, their true function, is to be the natural leader^ of an edu- 
 cated people, i.e., of a society each member of which has in 
 childhood had his moral and intellectual faculties and his hands 
 trained to do his life's work, however humble, as efficiently and 
 39 
 
306 University of Madras. 
 
 as intelligently as a reasoning creature can. But your position, 
 gentlemen, has hitherto been of a different kind. You are in 
 a way exotics, foreign — you have in a measure been taken out 
 of your people, and made peculiar. Now this is not a healthful 
 condition of things, and it cannot be permitted to continue. No 
 country can flourish with an academic class which is out of 
 sympathy with the people from which it springs. Therefore I 
 urge you to take your fitting place in the work of levelling down 
 your knowledge, and of permeating all classes of the community, 
 from the conservative temple Brahman, to the poor extern 
 Pareiya, with this new leaven of light. Your duty seems to be 
 clear, if you accept the doctrine that a people rightly taught is 
 more industrious — more productive and happier than a people 
 untaught, or wrongly taught ; that the ryot, the artizan, the 
 cooly, who can read and cipher, will, other things being equal, 
 be a better ryot, a better artizan, a better cooly than he that 
 can do neither. It is for you, wherever you are placed, to seek 
 to establish schools, and to make these schools as efficient as 
 possible, and to help by your example and by your work to make 
 the people believe that what is being done for the education of 
 their children is for their good, that school training sharpens 
 the intellect, strengthens the reason, and produces better 
 manners. This part of elementary education they will more 
 easily apprehend, because from time immemorial certain classes 
 of the community have in a defective way practised it, and thus 
 your task is only that of bringing them gradually to see that 
 the system of teaching and the matter taught are better 
 than their own. But your task will not be so easy when you 
 come to deal with the industrial classes, such as the Weavers, 
 who regard education as their enemy, because they fear it 
 will draw away their sons from their hereditary calling. 
 Indeed it will be all the more difficult because the plea is too 
 true, so far as it goes — a temporary evil which can only be over- 
 come by the very means that cause it. You will have to 
 show them that, though some may be led away, yet those who 
 remain will become more effective workers, and by their 
 increased intelligence and their increased knowledge be able to 
 make good the loss. Your best plea for the education of 
 their children must be that the elementary education we impart 
 to them will not be confined to the three Wa, but will gradually 
 include a knowledge of the things they should know for the 
 intelligent and progressive use of their art, the cultivation of the 
 eye, the dexterity of the hand, — that in the school must be laid 
 the basis of special knowledge, on which the efficiency of the 
 individual worker can best be cultivated. Gentleoien, the possi- 
 
1892.— ifr. H. B, Qrigg. 807 
 
 bility of such a system of education may to some of you seem 
 visionary, but I believe if you will consider tbe 
 Jw'''''^^'^''' fact that the spread of knowledge is beginning to 
 stir up some of the best spirits in the caste, or 
 labour organizations of this country, and to make them see, 
 that if they will not educate their children, if they will not take 
 in new mechanical ideas, they must inevitably sink lower and 
 lower, you will not regard the task as hopeless ; but will acknow- 
 ledge that if these organizations once recognise that general and 
 special education is necessary for their own protection, they will 
 adopt such a system, and develop it in a way that will astonish 
 the world. Take for example Drawing, which is the basis of 
 industrial education. Five years ago the children throughout 
 the Presidency learning Drawing could be numbered by tens ; 
 now they may be numbered by scores, and ere long they will be 
 numbered by hundreds. And what is more noteworthy is that 
 a large portion of those who learn belong to the artizan classes. 
 This movement has now a solid basis in the growing belief that 
 Drawing, and a knowledge of better forms of articles of com- 
 merce, such as metal-vessels, have a better sale if they are better 
 designed and of greater variety. Your task is to fan this smok- 
 ing Bax into a flame, and thus like true lovers of your people to 
 seek through scientific instruction, however humble, to do for 
 the ancient industries of India, what scientific scholars are doing 
 for its literature. And I doubt not with the marvellous manual 
 dexterity, and patient industry of your workers, who love like 
 true artists to linger over details which would weary the artizan 
 of the West, that India may regain her place as the mother of 
 the finer textile, and of other minor arts. But not only must 
 you promote this departure in the lower industrial regions, the 
 regions of the artizan, but you must also do what in you lies to 
 promote the same movement by bringing all classes within it, 
 more especially the mercantile and the substantial landholders — 
 and you must thus bridge over the great gap which lies between 
 the artizan classes and the Science graduates of the University. 
 The movement towards industrial development and the applica- 
 tion of scientific knowledge to every branch of activity connected 
 with the material interests of the country must, to be really 
 effective, permeate every class in the community — and people 
 of every calling. Your counsel to your countrymen must be, 
 get wealth, not by the devices of the usurer but by those of the 
 prudent farmer, who will leave no clod unturned, no spot un- 
 planted, no subterranean spring untapped, no labour-saving or 
 labour-supplementing machine untried, if from such labour, 
 such outlay he may hope to add to the productiveness of his 
 
308 University of Madras* 
 
 land^ in other words, to his wealth, to the capital of the country. 
 You are thrifty people in most respects, but it seems to me that 
 you are too apt to wrap up your rupees in a napkin, when they 
 might be judiciously expended in providing for some sound 
 industrial enterprise. You need not imitate the wild specula- 
 tions of the West, but you may well adopt that spirit which will 
 not rest until it has wrung from nature all her secrets, and made 
 the Earth-goddess grant to her worshipper her richest boons. 
 In your Brahman community you have the passion for literary 
 pursuits. As yet Western higher education has done little more 
 than nourish this passion. Consequently it is the classes follow- 
 ing clerkly callings that have chiefly responded to our educa- 
 tional efforts. Witness the occupation which you, graduates, 
 chiefly affect. But there is nothing in the nature of thiugs why 
 the classes whose vocation is towards commercial and industrial 
 callings should not respond with an equal enthsiasm, when the 
 education of the State is recognised by them to be as much in 
 their interests as the system heretofore in vogue has been in 
 the interest of the literary classes. The changes which were 
 begun, when Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff was Governor of this 
 Presidency, had this object in view, and although the details of 
 that great measure are in many respects still defective, although 
 the outlay required to promote such a departure has been neces- 
 sarily restricted, and although the public intelligence is generally 
 as yet too uninformed to comprehend the necessity for this depar- 
 ture, still, thanks to the stimulus of public examinations, to the 
 labours of the gentlemen who have conducted these examinations, 
 to the efforts made by the Heads of such Institutions as the Col- 
 lege of Engineering, the College of Agriculture, the School of Arts, 
 Lee Chengalroya Naick*s Commercial School, the London Mis- 
 sion High School, the Art Industrial Schools at Nazareth and 
 Karur, and of other similar institutions under private manage- 
 ment, and last of all of the Keformatory School, — people are 
 beginning to seek knowledge of a more practical character con- 
 nected with their vocations in life, and classes which till recently 
 did not acknowledge that Western educations could do them 
 aught but harm are beginning to turn an attentive ear to the 
 teacher who tells them that Western education will bring to the 
 farmer, and the artizan the material benefits it has brought to 
 the literary classes, and that their own need of special as well 
 as general knowledge is the anxious care of the State. But 
 your duty is not simply to counsel your people, but to strengthen 
 that counsel by example — and how so — by yourselves attending 
 technical classes, by requiring young persons under your autho- 
 rity to attend such classes, more especially those in Drawing 
 
1892.— Mr. H. B. Glriyg. S09 
 
 and Design, by promoting the establishment of such classes in 
 the leading schools in your neighbourhood, by offering prizes, 
 by encouraging the reading of books and journals treating of 
 such subjects, and by illustrating by experiment, so far as your 
 means admit, . the knowledge you have acquired. Have you 
 learnt a cheaper and more effective way of raising water ? Test 
 the mode by experiment. Have you seen a tree produce more 
 fruit by special cultivation ? Try the system. Do you know that 
 certain sanitary regulations ensure the health of a household ? 
 Prove your faith by adopting these regulations. This experi- 
 mental attitude of mind, spreading through the people, — will 
 work changes in their economic and industrial proclivities, 
 which will not only ensure vast increase and greater variety in 
 India's productiveness of raw material, but also wonderfully 
 develop her power of converting by the labour of her own 
 people these products into manufactured articles of commerce, 
 
 I have spoken of the arts connected with the industrial side 
 of life. I would now ask you not to ignore or 
 Ar^^ ^"*^ undervalue the cultivation of the Beautiful in art, 
 which is needful to the completeness of the human 
 being. Kemember that the Beautiful is very near akin to the 
 Good — so near that one people, intellectually the foremost of 
 races, had the same word to express both ideas — or rather they 
 recognized in them but one idea, for they felt that the Beautiful 
 must include the Good, and regarded the cultivation of what is 
 beautiful as the cultivation of what is highest in the moral 
 nature also. Of this Beautiful that part which comes to you 
 through the sense of hearing you may cultivate in literature, 
 especially in Poetry, and in Music; the other part is that which 
 comes to you through the sense of sight in Architecture, 
 Sculpture and Painting. Of the cultivation of the Beautiful 
 through Literature I have already spoken. Bear with me whilst 
 I urge on you to cultivate the other branches. The history of a 
 people may be read in their arts as clearly as in their language. 
 And no people can reach a high standard of culture, or fully 
 develop the social and unselfish elements of its character, the 
 aesthetic side of whose nature is left uncared for. In your his- 
 tory what do we find ? The Beautiful has been cultivated 
 chiefly through Poetry, through Architecture and Music in a 
 lesser degree, but hardly at all through Sculpture and Painting. 
 Take them in order. Architecture should appeal most directly 
 to your sympathies. For what is it but the art of making the 
 building in which you have to live and work, or to transact your 
 public affairc>, or to pray, as convenient and as beautiful as in 
 
did UnwersUy of Madras, 
 
 tlie fitness of things it should be. At present it seems to me 
 your energies are chiefly confined to making your houses of 
 worship beautiful, and the houses in which you live comfortable. 
 But even when you aim at the Beautiful, it is in mere imitation 
 of old forms, which no doubt appealed to the ^ heart of your 
 ancestors, but which have little meaning to you. Now I would 
 ask you to try and understand for yourselves through reading, 
 and the study of drawings of the most beautiful buildings in the 
 world, or by studying with your eyes any beautiful building that 
 may be within your ken, what is beautiful, what is ennobling, 
 what is delightful in such structures, what it is that makes you 
 feel that you would like to see, or to pray in, or to live in the 
 building you admire ; and then apply the ideas you have con- 
 ceived to the forms that meet you in your daily life ; and when 
 applying try to imagine how you, if you had the power, would 
 remedy the defects you notice, or beautify, when only the 
 beautiful is lacking. Picture to yourselves the perfect home, 
 all local circumstances considered, in which to live, and the 
 most beautiful temple in which to worship. Believe me, if 
 you study architecture in this practical way, and cultivate 
 your imagination in regard to convenient and beautiful forms of 
 building, you will gain for yourselves a pleasure -giving faculty, 
 and render yourselves, though indirectly, the means of helping 
 your people as they rise in civilization to make their habitations, 
 their buildings of assembly, rise in the standard of beauty too. 
 And I would not have you forget how great an educative effect 
 the good and beautiful in buildings has upon the people who 
 inhabit or frequent them. To this sentiment is chiefly due the 
 erection of some of the noblest buildings in the world, — Churches, 
 Palaces, Courts of Law and Houses of Convocation. Music you 
 have cultivated from generation to generation, but as yet it has 
 only reached the point at which the Greeks left it. And now it 
 remains for you to add to melody harmony, without which Music 
 can be but the art of the individual. Melody is the most perfect 
 expression of emotion, for where words end music begins, but 
 without harmony music can hardly be a great social cementing 
 force. Who can say how great has been the influence of the 
 German chorale in giving cohesion to the heterogeneous elements 
 of the German people ; or how great has been the moral, and 
 social, yes, the political effect too in promoting the harmonious 
 life of the English people, of the gathering together of men and 
 women of all grades of society in rendering under one leader the 
 great choruses of Handel, of Haydn or of Mendelssohn. In 
 asking you therefore to develop on scientific lines your system of 
 music, I am only asking you to add to your means of promoting 
 
\S92.-Mr. H, B. Grigg. 311 
 
 the union and regeneration of your people, — and I would add of 
 strengthening your human sympathies and your sense of order 
 and proportion. By Sculpture and by Painting mankind is enabled 
 to body forth and express its sense of what is highest — its ideal — 
 of the Beautiful in the world around. No nation can rise high 
 in civilization which does not cultivate this divine faculty — nor 
 can any art be satisfactory which does not gather into itself and 
 reproduce what is most refined and best in a people's life as in 
 that of the individual artist. '^ The value of a work of art/' says 
 Veron, '^ depends entirely upon the degree of energy with which 
 it manifests the intellectual character and sesthetic impressions 
 of its author.'' Sculpture — the most sublime and most difficult 
 of the arts — that which concentrates within itself more than any 
 other power, passion, individuality and beauty — has been culti- 
 vated almost only in connection with religion, and even there 
 how few of the forms which your sculptors have produced repre- 
 sent what is grand, beautiful or ennobling. In Painting, the 
 faithful interpreter of nature in all her moods, you have done 
 but little, although your power to become painters is shown by 
 the promising productions of more than one living artist and in 
 the great beauty of your textile designs and embroideries. In 
 the early period of the history of your race you seem to have 
 possessed a high sense of the Beautiful. Your ancestors were 
 the worshippers of the Divine through the powers of nature. 
 Otherwise you could not have produced the poets of your early 
 literature. Will you not then train your eyes to see and your 
 hearts to feel, that you may return, not to the broken idols of your 
 youth as a nation, but to yield a more discerning and enlightened 
 reverence to the beauties of the material world about you. If 
 you do, believe me, you will find " books in the running brooks, 
 sermons in stones and good in everything." And not only so, but 
 the cultivation of these arts will bring your several peoples closer 
 together — for art is an aesthetic language — and as a common lan- 
 guage unites races different in stock, so will it bring you together 
 who cultivate the same ideals. Whilst through that portion of it 
 which relates to the pourtrayal of the beauties of nature — the sub- 
 limity of your mountains, the grand progresses of your golden 
 rivers, the smiling verdure of your fields of grain, the mysterious 
 influences of your vales and groves — you may kindle to stronger 
 flame your love of the beautiful country which gave you birth. 
 
 I have striven, feebly striven, to induce you in the life which 
 
 now lies before you to cultivate every god-given 
 
 Education of faculty in your nature — to perfect your manhood — I 
 
 had almost said your humanity. But " Humanity 
 
312 University of Madras. 
 
 has two sides : one side in the strength and intellect of manhood ; 
 the other in the tenderness and faith and submissiveness of 
 womanhood. Man and woman, not man alone, make up human 
 nature." Gentlemen, will you whose lips have tasted of the 
 " new joy ineffable ^' of the feast of knowledge, keep the nectar 
 and ambrosia of that feast selfishly to yourselves and not invite 
 to join you at the board the other half of your humanity — your 
 wives, your sisters and your daughters ? Remember if you will 
 not bid them to share that feast with you, if you leave them to 
 stand without, humbled and unsatisfied, you must pay the penalty. 
 The laws of our nature are inexorable. You cannot split human- 
 ity in two and expect to attain for yourselves moral and intel- 
 lectual completeness. That which God hath joined together let 
 no man put asunder. No people recognises more fully, I might 
 say more beautifully, than your own, so far as the family is 
 concerned, this truth, the mutual dependence of the sexes, — but 
 as yet you have not recognised this union in knowledge and 
 culture as necessary for your social well-being and moral advance. 
 But so it is. It is a law which science more and more acknow- 
 ledges. If in man were collected all the excellencies of our 
 many-sided nature and women only possessed them in a lower 
 degree, something might be said for that view. But it is not so. 
 In woman this aptitude for the perfection of some of the qualities 
 of our nature is stronger and capable of a higher development 
 than our own. To these virtues, the distinctive virtues of 
 womanhood, how much does the world not owe ? To the influ- 
 ence of woman is due in no small measure the exercise of those 
 gentler vii'tues which have become characteristic of the most 
 progressive races on this planet. To woman are they indebted 
 for much of that reasonable spirit of self-sacrifice and obedience 
 which is rendering the social, nay, the political, progress of 
 mankind possible. But assuming that this is not so — that woman 
 is but '' undeveloped man " and feebler intellectually and morally. 
 Are you even so acting wisely in not educating her, in not 
 strengthening her intellect, in not substituting principles on 
 which to base right conduct for moral rules of thumb ? It is the 
 boast of the people of Madras that they of India's peoples have 
 been the first to welcome the rays of this new gospel — for of the 
 two hundred and fifty thousand girls who are under instruction 
 in India one-third appertain to Madras although its population 
 is but a sixth of the total population. But this progress is after 
 all but the twilight which precedes the dawn. It rests with you, 
 gentlemen, by requiring for, and affording to your women the 
 highest instruction in knowledge, especially in those branches 
 which chiefly concern their side of humanity, to make these 
 
18U2— il/r. U. B. Griyy. 313 
 
 *' hues of the rich unfolding* morn'' brighten into a glorious 
 Hood of sunlight which shall illumine the homes of the poorest 
 and meanest of your peojile. It rests especially with you. 
 
 Brahman s of 8outh India, whose fathers brought 
 thjfBiuCns^'^ much light and knowledge from the north to the 
 
 south, and who have at least twice in your history 
 given a mighty reformer of religion and morals to India, to follow 
 the lead of Dewau Bahadur Raghanatha Kau and to render a 
 more signal service to the people of this land by making it an 
 accepted principle of all Indians that women shall be taught as 
 well as men, in a word that education shall not be one-sided bub 
 complete. 
 
 I have pleaded with you for your women ; and now I would 
 pray you to do what in you lies to raise the condi- 
 reiyar^ ^^^® ^''" tion of the Pareiya and other kindred races. No 
 society can be in a wholesome condition, a large 
 ])ortion of which is by custom or prejudice deprived of its proper 
 share in the work of the country and in its privileges ; which 
 has not in reality as well as in name the same facilities as its 
 other members for ameliorating its condition or of contributing 
 to the wealth of the community. These races form one-sixth 
 of the population of Madras. Your Grovernment many years 
 ago set the pra3dial slaves free so far as the Law can do this and 
 is now considering what measures will best elevate these races 
 and remove their disabilities. But much remains to be done, 
 and it rests with you, gentlemen, to supplement the liberal action 
 of the Government and the work of benevolent societies, by 
 helping to break down the conservatism of the large sections of 
 society which at present form the great obstacle to the progress 
 of these poor and unreasonably despised people. I say unreason- 
 ably because there is ample evidence, witness the Madras Sappers, 
 that when given a fair chance in life they can prove themselves 
 valuable members of society. 
 
 And now I wish you God-speed. 
 
 To you, Brahmans, the outcome of the self-denial and culture 
 of three thousand years, I would say, " He is truly great that is 
 great in charity." 
 
 To you, Sudras, who have been the sharers in that culture 
 and who have risen through your virtues to a higher social 
 sphere than that assigned to you by your early Law-giver, 
 *' As you have received so give and more abundantly/' 
 
 To you, Mahommedans, the descendants of a courageous 
 race, "Quit you like men — be strong — not with the sword, but 
 with the pen, the spade, the hammer and the anvil." 
 40 
 
314 UiLiverdity of Madras. 
 
 To you. Native Christians, who have broken with many of 
 the religious ideals of your forefathers, be filled with the enthu- 
 siasm of humanity, and in keeping the letter forget not the spirit 
 of your most catholic faith. 
 
 And to you, Europeans and Eurasians who claim the 
 privileges of your fathers, be true to their best characteristics, 
 and show by your actions that like them you believe that " all 
 true work is sacred; that in all true work, were it but true 
 hand-labour, there is something of divineness/' 
 
 To one and all, I say, cultivate each heaven-given faculty, 
 remembering too that the body cannot be divorced from the 
 mind, that in the perfect man the body must be perfected as 
 well as the soul, that the body should be not merely the setting 
 of the soul but the expression of it. And above all, be just, be 
 merciful, and humbly but with firm and onward-pressing foot 
 pursue the highest, the noblest, the purest ideals that have risen 
 or may yet arise upon your souls. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 A beantiful sfmHe ... ... ... .•. ... «. ... 142 
 
 Acknowledge »nd respect God ... ... ... «,. ... 17 
 
 Aoquikintauce with sons of fame ... ... ... ... ... 76 
 
 Acquire a taste for learning ... ... ... ... ... ... 34 
 
 Action ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 105 
 
 Action and dnty the guides of life ... ... ... ... ... 58 
 
 Adhei-ents of Truth ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 20 
 
 Advice to Bachelors of Arts ... ... ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 of Laws ... ... ... ... .. ... 16 
 
 Adviod to Graduates in Law ... ... ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 Engineers ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 
 
 Advice to those who seek office ... ... ... ... .. 178 
 
 Agriculture ... ... ... ... ... ... ••• ... 1U6 
 
 Agriottltural College, Saidapet ... ... ... ... ... 120 
 
 Aims of life ... .. ... ... ... ... ... 225 
 
 Ancient coins ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 214 
 
 Another poorly represented faculty ... ... ... ... ... 116 
 
 Antiquity the Champion of Error ... «.. ... •„ ... 19 
 
 Architecture ... ... ... ... ••• ... ... 209 
 
 Aristotle, the First Philosophy of ... ... ... ... ... 277 
 
 Art, the field of ... ,.. .<. ... ... ... ... 208 
 
 Associations ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 233 
 
 J formation of ... ... ... •.. ... ... 157 
 
 Attain moral excellence .•• ... ... ... ... •.. 14 
 
 Attend to details ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 187 
 
 Ayeid contentment iu learning ... «•• .•• ••. ... 3i 
 
 Be brave ... ... ••• •.• ... ••• •• •.• 244 
 
 Be brave with the bravery of conviction ... ... ... ... 257 
 
 Be faithful interpreters ... ... ... ... ... ... 53 
 
 Be independent ... ... ... ... ..• ••• — 242 
 
 Be manly ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 244 
 
 Be m«^e8t ... ... ... ... ••• ... ... ... 36 
 
 Be not a mere book-worm ... ... ... ... ... ... 177 
 
 Be thorough ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 244 
 
 Be true to yourself ... ... ... ••. ... ... ... 32 
 
 Blemish of the Caste System, a ... ... .. . ... .. 1^'^ 
 
 Books, do net grudge money for ... ... ... •.. ... 295 
 
 Botanical aid to education, that invaluablo ... ... ... •>. 239 
 
 Brahmins, an appeal to the ... ... •*. ... ... ... 313 
 
 CalHng (a), do not choose solely on pecuniary grounds ... .,.. ... 239 
 
 Callings, a vast number of other ... ... ... ... ... 196 
 
 Cai-eer of a Teacher ... ... ... ... .. .. ... 36 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas and his works ••• ... .- ... ... 150 
 
 , the days of .. ... ••• ... ••» ... •• 151 
 
 , an Indian ... .•• ••• ... ••• ... ... 152 
 
 Cbaraka ... ... ... •» ... ... ... ••• 126 
 
ii Index. 
 
 Page, 
 
 Chndren, wTiat about your ... ... ... ... ,„ ... 280 
 
 Choice of a prut'ession ... ... ... ... ... ... 59 
 
 Cholera ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... 129 
 
 Cinch' tna alkaloids, the virtue of ... ... ... ,„ ... 195 
 
 Civil Kng necri g ... ... ... ... ... ,„ „. 194 
 
 Service, sinsultaneons examinatiou8 in India for the... ... „. 234 
 
 Clasai -al literature ... ... ... ... ... ,., ... 103 
 
 Colleges, the two Gov»^rnment... ... ... ... ... .„ 44 
 
 Collegiate educHtioD, hi.u:h ... ... ... ... ... 235 
 
 Comhine experience with knowledge ... ... ••. ..• ... 10 
 
 Ci^mpirative Philology ... ... ... ... *•• ... 61 
 
 Compromises ... ... ... .*• ..• ••• ... 228 
 
 Company and Conver8<»tion ... ... ... ... ••• ... 229 
 
 Conclusion (Sir Madhava Row's address) ... •.• ••• ... 236 
 
 Condition in which £nglaud found India m. ••• ••• ... 112 
 
 Contentment ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 226 
 
 Con'inental universities, practice of ... •«• ••• t* ... 57 
 
 Corton, Sir Arthur ... .. ... ... ••• ••• ••. 117 
 
 Convert principles into impulses ... ... ... ..• ... 157 
 
 Conviction, the courage of ... ... ... ■•• .«• ... 228 
 
 Counsel, a few words of homely ••• ••• •*. ... ... 242 
 
 Courtesy ... ... -, ... ••• ... ... 20 
 
 Cultivate the principle of honour ... .•• ••• ••• ••• 11 
 
 a tender conscience ... 
 
 Degree of Bachelor of Arts ... ... ... ••• m« *.. 8 
 
 Demonstrate what J ou have learnt in your livei .., ... ...254 
 
 Derby, Lord ... ... ... ••• ••• ... 35 
 
 Dhanwantri... ... ... ... ... ... ... 125 
 
 Difference between Indian and English Universities ... •.. ... 33 
 
 Difficulty of solitary studies... ... ... ... ..* ... 90 
 
 Difficult problem, a ... ... ... .•• ... .m ... 192 
 
 Disc ntented men, a classof ... ••• ... ..« ... ... 149 
 
 Divine help, seek ... ... ... ... ... ••• ... 185 
 
 power ... ... ,«, ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 Do not abandon your studies ... ... ,,, .^ ... ... 35 
 
 Do not be disheartened by failure ... ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 Do not denationalize yourselves ... ... ... ..• ... 168 
 
 Do not obstruct reforms ... ... ... ... ..• ..• 153 
 
 Drama, the ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 120 
 
 Duties of an .Advocate ... ... ... ... ... ... 2^ 
 
 Duty, a seriou-s ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 59 
 
 , a glori 'US— drfined in glorjons language ... ... ... ... 248 
 
 to the S ate ... ... ... ... ... 30,250 
 
 of teaching others ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 our fellow-countrymen ... ... ... ... 30 
 
 , high seii.se of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 I your) as seekers after truth ... ... ... ••• ... 71 
 
 , the straight path of ... ... ... ... ... •.. 156 
 
 East India Company, the ... -. .. .«• *2 
 
 Educated Indians and the Pablic Service ... ... ... ... 62 
 
 Educated man and an ignorant man ... ... ... •.• 87 
 
Index. ill 
 
 Page. 
 
 Educated natives and independent walkg of life ... ... ... 119 
 
 Education of the masses ... ... ... ... ... ••• 138 
 
 Educational system, a grave fauU in the ... ... ... ... 179 
 
 Educated man and uncultured woman ... ... ... ... 180 
 
 E-iucation (your) is notfiuished ... ... ... „. ... 2iJ3 
 
 Elementary education ... ... ... .,. ... ... 45 
 
 End of Law is the harmony of the world ... ... „ ...301 
 
 English Universities, their a«icieut origia and national growth ... ... 49 
 
 English language, superiority of •.. ... ... ... ... 54 
 
 ,the ... ... ... ... ... 102 
 
 importance to the Indians of ... .,, ... HO 
 
 homes at the time of Erasmus ... ... ... ... ... 129 
 
 Enlightenment of the masses, not prohibited" by the Shastras „. ... 140 
 
 English Demos, the ... ... ... ... ••. ... ... 204 
 
 language, value of a knowledge of the ... ... .,, ... 253 
 
 , the ... ... ... ... ... ...294 
 
 Equal, the sense in which men may be... ... ... ,,, ... 243 
 
 European language, learn a, besides English „, ... ... ... 2b6 
 
 Evidence from foreign sources... ... m. ... ... ... 127 
 
 Expedition to the North Pole ... .. ••• ... ••• ... 134 
 
 Explode innovations of your Yedas —, ... ... — .. 174 
 
 Failing of the Natives of India ... .., ••. ••• ••• 12 
 
 Faithfully interpret aims of Government ... ..» ••• ••. 83 
 
 Fault of our critics ... ... ... ..• ... ... ... 88 
 
 Famine, the late dreadful ... - ... ... ... ... ... 131 
 
 Fauna/ of the Presidency ... ... ... ... .. ... 216 
 
 Female education ... ... ... ... ... 84,161,180,189 
 
 , a necessary consequence of man's culture ... ... 181 
 
 Feminine temperament, peculiar virtues of the ... ... ... ... 250 
 
 Fellows, educate your ... ... ... ... ... ... 278 
 
 who died during the year (1891) .„ ... ••• ... 2*'4 
 
 First impulse of a student ... ... ... ... ... ..• 1 50 
 
 Fine Arts, the ... ... ... •.• ... ... ... 309 
 
 Flora, the ... .. ... ••• ••• ... ... ... 217 
 
 Form your own opinions ..%., •••. .... ••* ... •.. 73 
 
 Foreign Politics ... .... , ••• .... ... ... ... 90 
 
 Food ... ..... ... .M . ••• ..« ... ••• 1*^0 
 
 Forget all differences ... ... ... ... ... ••« 157 
 
 French, the merits of ... ... ... ... ... ... 55 
 
 Fresh detachment a, of the army of human progress ... ... m. 115 
 
 From cultivation fever flies ... ... ... > ... ... ... 132 
 
 Further the education of others ... ... *.• m. ... 24 
 
 Future of your society, reflect on the ... ... m* ,- ... 281 
 
 Games ... ... ... ■•• ••. ••. ... 66 
 
 Good handwriting ... .^ ..» ,- ..• ... ... 194 
 
 Go to Europe ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 204 
 
 Government, duty to... ... .« ... ... ... ... 264 
 
 ColleKes, two ... ... ••• ... ... ... 44 
 
 Great Charter of Nat've education ... ... ... ... ... 41 
 
 Graduates, responsibilities of . . ... ... ... ... 12,114 
 
 advice to.. ... ... ... ... ... ... 155 
 
IV 
 
 tnde». 
 
 Page. 
 
 Graduntes, advice to, in Medicine .„ ... ... ... ... 802 
 
 - in Engineering ... ... ,,, ... ... 303 
 
 in Teaching ... ... „ ... ... 304 
 
 -' ■ , charges against ... ... ... ... . ... ... 274 
 
 ■ , duties to the University and to the State of... .. ... 146 
 
 i ■ ■• , mortality among ... ... ... ... ... 262 
 
 , manufacture of ... ... ... ... ... ... 273 
 
 , prospects for ... ... ... ... ... 143,144,145 
 
 ', prospects of ... ... ... ... ... ... 186 
 
 , the distribution of ... ... ... ... ... 173 
 
 -, the obligations of .. . ... ... ... ... 148 
 
 Graduation not the crowning of the edifice of knowledge .. ... ... 271 
 
 Great social changes . ... .. ... ... ••• ... 152 
 
 Guard against temptations ... ... ... ... ••• •.. 63 
 
 Habits of Study ... ... ... ... ... .- ... 169 
 
 Heart and the Head ... ... ... ••• ... ... ... 68 
 
 Health, alcohol and meat not essential to ... ... ... ... IS-i 
 
 Health ... ... ..- ... ... ... ... ... 2;i5 
 
 Hewers of wood and drawers of water ... ... ... ... ... 172 
 
 Higher European education, the fruits of ... ... ... ... 50 
 
 education, opposition to ... ... ... ••• ... 87 
 
 .... , prejudice against ••• ... •». ... ... 108 
 
 ^— — — , expenditure on justified ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 , a defence ... ... ... ... ... ... 158 
 
 — , classes that take to ... ... ... ... 176 
 
 Hindu law, study of .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 society, its merits ... .. ... ... ••• ... 210 
 
 History of India ani its exceptional nature ... ... ... ... 94 
 
 Histoiy ... ... ... . 103 
 
 How Education was emancipated in India ... ... ... ... 169 
 
 India profits by English rule ... «,. ... ... ... 200 
 
 Ignorance, the cnrse of God ... ... ••• ... «.. ... 96 
 
 , cofct of ... .,. ... ,.♦ ... ... ... 98 
 
 Import of prooiises made ... ... ... ... ... ... 14 
 
 lrapn>ve your leisure... ... ... ... ... ... ... 23 
 
 Imagination, works of ... .. ... ... ... ... 66 
 
 Importance of pure water recognised in ancient India ... ... ... 130 
 
 Impossible, do not expect the ... ... ... ... ... 232 
 
 India cannot be independent ... ... ... ... ... ... 232 
 
 , condition in which England found ... ... ... ... 112 
 
 India, past condition of ... ... ... ... ... ... 67 
 
 Indian philanthropists, absence of ... ... ... ... ... 138 
 
 , self-respect of the ... ... ... ... ... ... 184 
 
 students, defects of ..% ... ... ... ... ... 91 
 
 Indians, singular apathy of ... ... ... ... ... ... 164 
 
 , the educated ... ... .. ... ... ••• 191 
 
 Inda.%tries, application of Science to ... ... ... ... ... 300 
 
 Influence of nu University indirect ... ... ... ... ... 143 
 
 Innovate quietly and by degrees ... ... ... ... ..., 122 
 
 Intellect of the average Hindu ... ... ... ... ... 103 
 
 latellectual cultivation must be ever progressive ... ... ••• 293 
 
Index. 
 
 Facje. 
 
 Interpret between the rulers and the ruled ... ... ... .*. 261 
 
 honestly between England and ludia ... ... ... ... 258 
 
 Investigate the institutions of the East ... . ••• •*. ... tl 
 
 J 
 
 Journalism, the yearly increasing force of ... m^ ••• ... 241 
 
 Judge, the power of the ... ... ... ... ... ••• 1G6 
 
 Justice ... ... ... ... ... •.. ••• •*. 21 
 
 Keep the authors yon have studied with you ... ... ... •.. 294 
 
 Knowledge, the acquisition and diffusion of ... ... ... ... 81 
 
 , diffuse among your countrymen ... ... ... ... 263 
 
 ■ 's Alpine regions ... ... ... ... ... ,.. 115 
 
 of Laws of Nature ... ... ... ... ... 97 
 
 , pleasures of ... ... ... ... ... ... 98 
 
 Know something of everything ... ... ... ... ... 224 
 
 Labour for the benefit of others ... ... ... .», ... 74 
 
 Lady graduates (1891) ... «. ... ... ,.. *.. 282 
 
 Latin and Greek ... ... ... ... ,„ .». ... 55 
 
 Law College, the ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 802 
 
 , a Science and an Art ... ... ... ... ... ... 165 
 
 — — , excitements and temptations of the profession of ... ... ... 240 
 
 Lawyer, a curious ethical problem for every ... ... ,„ ... 240 
 
 Lawyers, obligations of ... ... ... ... ... ... 165 
 
 Leading the people of India ... ... . ... ... ... ... 20.3 
 
 Learn Latin and Greek if possible ... ... ... ... ... 297 
 
 Line (the) which costs yon nothing to write ... .. ... ... 242 
 
 Literature, classical ... ... ... ... ... ... 103 
 
 , the Nasmyth hammer ... .. ... ... ... 241 
 
 , the study of, is the study of mankiad ... ... ... 295 
 
 Live and labour for India ... ... ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 Local and Municipal funds ... ... ... ... ... ... 83 
 
 bodies, management of ... ,„ ... ... ,„ ... 189 
 
 self-government, develop ... ... ... ... ... 205 
 
 Look at that picture and on this ... ... ... ... ... 113 
 
 less to the English capitalist ... ... ... ... ... 198 
 
 Loyalty, feeling of ... ... ... ^ ^ ^ ... 168 
 
 Make your shadows what you please ... ... ... ,» ... 154 
 
 Manners (good) ... ... ... ,., ... ... ... 227 
 
 Marriage, profuse expenditure on ... ... ... ... ... 183 
 
 of widows ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 189 
 
 Material prosperity ... ... ... ... ... .„ ... 198 
 
 Ihiasses, educate the ... ... ... ... ... „, 255,305 
 
 Mathematics ... ... ... ... ... „, ... 104 
 
 Mathematic-l attainments, a marked decline in... ... ... ... 262 
 
 Me«n8 to ends ... ... ... .„ „. ,„ ... 229 
 
 Medical graduates, total absence of ... ... ... ... „. 116 
 
 " , paucity of ... ... ... ... ... „. 124 
 
▼1 
 
 Indejt. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Medicine ID ancient India ... ... ... ... ... ... 125 
 
 not an honoured calling among Englishmen ... ... ... 133 
 
 Medical, the sciences and art ... ... ... ... ... ... 195 
 
 JVIental and moral improvement ... ... ... ... . 5 
 
 Metaphysics, Michelet's definition of ... ... ... ... ... 276 
 
 Mineralogy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 216 
 
 Missionary agencies ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 159 
 
 Monument of British rule in India ... ... ... ... ... loi 
 
 Mortality from fever... , ... ... ... ... ... .. 195 
 
 Munificence... .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 Mutiny, the dark days of ... ... ... .. ... ... 40 
 
 Muthusamy Aiyar, the Hon'ble T. ... ... ... ... ... 147 
 
 Napier's (Lord) advice to graduates ... ... ... ... ... 66 
 
 National Colleges ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 160 
 
 National Unity, want of ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 
 
 Native opinion, exponents of ... ... ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 Native Press, the ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 Nineteenth Century, the greatest man of the ... ... ... ... 49 
 
 No Indian politics worth the name ... ... ... ... ... 199 
 
 Nobler cycle of existence, a ... ... ... ... ... ... loo 
 
 Not what you have learnt but how you have learnt it ... ... ... 236 
 
 Object of seeking education ... ... ... ... .•• ^ 84 
 
 Objects of general education ... ... ... ... ,„ ... 22 
 
 Offer sound advice to the Government and the people ... ... ... 188 
 
 Official influence in India ... ... •.. ... ... ... 141 
 
 Ou what the reputation of the University depends ... ... ... 33 
 
 One respect in which the Madras University is less favourable to general 
 
 culture than other Universittes ... ... ... ... ... 118 
 
 Opinion, differences of ... ... ... ... ... ... 227 
 
 , change of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 228 
 
 Opportunities for doing good ... ... ... ... ,., ... 190 
 
 Other champions of error .... , ... ... ... ... ... 19 
 
 Other openings .... . ... ..... ... ... ... ... 120 
 
 Other .virtues ... ... ,„ ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 Our first winter in Crimea ... ... ... ... ... ... 133 
 
 Pareiyas, raise the ... ... ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 813 
 
 Parliamentary system, the ... ••• ... ... ... ... 200 
 
 Past of your country, compare with its Present ... ... ...257 
 
 Past political condition ... .•• .•• ••• «.• ••• 232 
 
 Patriot and politician ... .... .- ••• ... ••• 231 
 
 Peaceful warriors of Southern India .... , ... ... ... ... 134 
 
 Penal law (the) ... •;• — ••• — 227 
 
 People of India must work out their own salvation ... ... ... 282 
 
 Physical Science ... ... ... ... — ... •- ^^ 
 
 Training ... ... ... ... ..• ••. — 262 
 
 Pleasures ... ... ... — ... •.• •.• ••• °^ 
 
 Political life in England ... ... .- ••• ...199 
 
 population, transfer of ... ... ••• *10 
 
Inden Vii 
 
 Page. 
 
 Poor, the maintenance of the ... ••• •^ ... ... 184 
 
 Pcssibilities of an iniproved system of agriculture ... ... ... 131 
 
 Power, godlike power ... ... ... ... ... ... 241 
 
 PowoU, Mr. E. B. — a bright example ... „, ••• ... ... 85 
 
 Practical usefulness ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 94 
 
 Present and the Past ... ... ••. ... ... ... 45 
 
 position of Education... ... .^ ... ••• ... 142 
 
 Preserve habits of mental discipline ... ... ... ... ... 177 
 
 the honour of the University ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 what is good in the old and adopt what is good in the new ... 230 
 
 Press, advice to the Indian ... ... ... ... ... ... 266 
 
 Principles that lawyers should act upon ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 Profession ... ... .. ... ... .•• ... ... 225 
 
 : — , choice of... ... ... ... ... ••• ... 59 
 
 , master your . ... ... ... ... ••• ... 246 
 
 Prove all things, hold fast that which is good ... ... ... ... 267 
 
 Progress of sixteen years ... ... ..• ... ... „. 86 
 
 made between 1858 and 186S ,,, ,,, ... ^. 43 
 
 Promote education ... ... ... ... ... ... 31 
 
 Psychology... ... .... .... ,o ••« ... ... 61 
 
 Public. Service,, the ... ^, . ... •. ... ... ... 192 
 
 Pare air ... ... ... ... ••• ... ... ... 130 
 
 Qualifications of a medical man ... ... .— ... ... 5 
 
 Quest of truth ... ... ... „• ... ... ... 64 
 
 Question, an anxious... , «, ... ,^ .«. ... ... 138 
 
 Questions, three important ... ••• .., ... ,« ... 189 
 
 B 
 
 Raja Ram Mohtrn Roy • ... ... ... ... ... 123,170 
 
 Raise India from the slough of poverty ... ... ... ... 198 
 
 yourselves individually ... ... ••• ... ... ... 265 
 
 Ranganadha Shastry... ... ... ... ,,, ,„ .,, 14.7 
 
 Rate of success ... ... ... ... ,,, ,,. ,.. i7i 
 
 Reason for the unfounded charge ... ..." ... ... ... 89 
 
 Recapitulation ... ... ... ... ... ,„ ... 219 
 
 Reform in social customs, let come from without ... ... ... 249 
 
 Religion ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 231 
 
 scruples about dissection ... ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 Religious and social customs ... ... ,,, ... ... ... 201 
 
 Religions of Southern ludja ... ... ... ... ... ... 213 
 
 Representative Government in India ... ... ... ... ... H] 
 
 Respect others' feelings ... ... ... ,„ ... ... 227 
 
 Responsibilities of graduates ... ... ... ... „. ... 114 
 
 lawyers ... ... ... .^ ... ... 25 
 
 Result of honesty and reason for honesty ... ... ... ... 11 
 
 of past years ... ... ,. ... .„ ... ...175 
 
 Results of self-education ... ... ... ... ,,, ... 24 
 
 Retrospect, a (1890) ... ... ... ... ... ... ..1 260 
 
 Rise and progress of Universities in the West ... ... .,. ... 2 
 
 Road to eminence ... ... ... ... ... ,„ ... log 
 
 glory and happiness ... ... ... ... „. ... 75 
 
 8 
 
 Sasruta ... ... ... „ ,., ^. ... ... 12c 
 
 Schoolmaster, profession of ... ... ... ... ... ... 47 
 
 Sciences, knowledge of the ... ... ... ... ... ... 299 
 
viii Index. 
 
 Tage. 
 
 Secret of En^^liabmen's saccess ..• ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 Self-d«nial, the law of being ... ... ... „. ... ... 181. 
 
 Self-«4ucatieQ ... ■■■ ... ... ,,f ••. ... 22 
 
 Senate House ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 124 
 
 S ^rvice and subordination, the life of the Universe ... ... ... 74 
 
 Seshia Shaatry, the Hon'ble A, ... ... ,„ ... ... 147 
 
 Signs, one or! the worst, of the present age ... ... ... ... 242 
 
 Social conditions, study of the... ... ... ... ... ... 182 
 
 Reform ... ... ... ... ... ... 235,-J66 
 
 shastraic method of ... ... ... ... ... 268 
 
 system ... ... ... ... ..• ... ... 1(5.3 
 
 Society (a) composed of educated men and uneducated women ... ... 279 
 
 Sound mental aud moral training ... ... ... ... ... 179 
 
 Specialization, disadvantages of ... ... ... ... ... 27^^ 
 
 State aid ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 159 
 
 Strive to be true and enlightened patriots ... ... ... ... 107 
 
 Stadents, be through life ... ... ... ... ••• ... 254 
 
 Student the fat-her of man - ... ... ... ... ... ... 86 
 
 Study, a congenial ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 117 
 
 all your life ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 65 
 
 . books and m«n ... ... ... ... ••• ... 73 
 
 , follow your own line of ... ... ••• ... ... 275 
 
 institutioas on the spot ... ... ... ... ... 122 
 
 of Physical Science ... ... ... ... ... ... 109 
 
 Success in school and success in alter life ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Supplement what has been learnt ... ... ... ... ... 293 
 
 System of our teaching ... ... ... ... ,.. ... 92 
 
 T 
 
 Take a leading part in reforme ... ... ••• ... ... 182 
 
 Teaching, the profession of ... ... ... ... ... ... 119 
 
 Technical Education... ... ... ... ... ... 197,307 
 
 The truest beneficence ... ... ... ... ... ... 140 
 
 The tyrant cn^tom ... ... -. ... ... ... ... 121 
 
 Theory and practice ... „. ... ... ... ... •.• 226 
 
 Think straight and see clear ... ... ... ... ... ... 188 
 
 Thought, independence of ... ... ... ... ... ... IW 
 
 Time, the art of losing wisely... ... ... ... ... ... 263 
 
 , value and spend it well ... ... ... ... ... ... 223 
 
 Titlf», the — a comparifcon ... ... ... ... ••• ... 18 
 
 Too much, do not attempt ... ... ... ... ... ... 247 
 
 Translate knowledge into action ... ... ... ... ... 65 
 
 Trash, what is trash ... ... ... ... ... •. ... 214 
 
 Travancore, liberality of the First Prince of ... ... ... ... 36 
 
 Truth, search for ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 104 
 
 Turn#ir's (Sir Charles) advice to Iniians «. ... ••• •• 15 ^ 
 
 Twenty years ago ... ... ... ... ••» .«• 270 
 
 Two remarkable documents ... ... ... »•. ... ••• 203 
 
 u 
 
 University, description of an English ... ... ... ••♦ 99 
 
 men, advantages of employing ... ... ... ••• 178 
 
 , mother of a new CommoH wealth ... ... ... •.• 51 
 
 , nature of Indian ... .. ... ... ... ••• 1*^2 
 
 , products of an English ... ... ... ... ••• 100 
 
 , the fair fame of ... ... ... ... ••• ••• 78 
 
 — , The objects of the ... ... -.. ... ... ••• ^3 
 
Index. ix 
 
 Page. 
 
 Uniyersity, the reputaiiou of the ... .. ... ... ... 191 
 
 extension lectures ... ... ... ... ... 290 
 
 , representation of graduates iu the ... ... ... ... 200 
 
 ■ study, improved schemes of ... ... ... ... 291 
 
 University a short sketch of the history of ... ... ... ... 286 
 
 what is this ... ... ... ... ... ... 288 
 
 Universities, ancient English ... ' ... ... ... ... ... 28!.) 
 
 , the main function of *., ... ... ... ... 118 
 
 Unsuccessful candidates, advice to ... ... ... ... 261 
 
 counsel to ... ••• ... ... ... 237 
 
 Vakil's Association ... ... ... ... .. ... ... 166 
 
 Value of education ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 148 
 
 Indian Agency ... ... ... ... ... ... 173 
 
 Science ... ... ... ... ... •• ... 104 
 
 Vantage ground of age and experience, some practical advice from the ... 238 
 
 Vernacular literature... .. ... ... ... .. ... 206 
 
 ^, creation of ... ... ... ... ... 47 
 
 , revival of ... ... ... ... ... 162 
 
 Vernaculars, improvement of the ... ... ... ... ... 288 
 
 , improve your knowledge of ... ... ... ... 297 
 
 Vidyalaya, the old ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 170 
 
 Village sanitation ... ... ... ... .. ... ... 196 
 
 Virtues of a real student ... ... ... ... ... ... 86 
 
 Visit to Europe ... ... ... ••• ... ... ... 161 
 
 Wage war against ignorance and vice ... ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 Warning, a timely ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 222 
 
 , Ulysses' ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 247 
 
 Wealth and civilization ... ... ... ... .- ... 205 
 
 West, daughter of the East ... ^ ... ... ... ... ... 67 
 
 What educated Indians may do * .. ... ... ... 135,136,137 
 
 is common between the East and the West ... ... ... 95 
 
 • — this art of Medicine ... ... ... ... ... ... 128 
 
 India would be in the absence t-f Europeans ... ... ....199 
 
 success in examinations implies ... ... ... ... 186 
 
 p- the University offers ... ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 When can we look for original research ... ... ... ... 106 
 
 Why Perjury has grown ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 • some men of great learning fail ... ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Will, development of ... ... ... ... ... ... 60 
 
 Wisdom, ancient ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 229 
 
 Wise men build themselves ... ... ... ... ... ... 176 
 
 Withdrawing girls from school at an early age ... ... ... ...279 
 
 Witnesses, duty to ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 240 
 
 Women, educate your ... ... ... ... ... 255,273 
 
 education of ... ... ... ... 203,249,268,311 
 
 Worthies, some of the most conspicuous of India's ... ... ... 43 
 
 Wynaad ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 Youth (the), at the cross roads ... ... „. „. ,., 115 
 
 Z 
 
 Zemindars, cducatiuu of ... ... ... ... „. ... 99 
 
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