# Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 2/E. Thompson, Esq., M.A.

Principal, Presidency College, Madras; presented in 1864
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 Graduates, 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 unfortunate 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 difficult 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. Advice to Graduates in Law. classes individually. To begin with the Graduates in Law. You have before you a most honourable career indeed; I can hardly imagine a more important mission than the one to which you are called. ​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 professional ability, the strictest integrity of conduct, without which your career, however brilliant for the time, cannot fail to be attended 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 Advocates; 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 integrity; the advantages and opportunities you enjoy, far exceed his; 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. Advice to Engineers. His labours have an immense 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 the 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. ​ To the Graduates in Arts, of course I have nothing so special to say as their brethren of the other Faculties, Do not be disheartened by failure. but I Cannot pass on to my general remarks without 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 young men being so disheartened 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 Examination. 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 examination 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 congratulating upon the distinctions you have attained, the question naturally arises. What is expected from you? The secret of Englishmen's success. 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 consciousness, 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 improbable 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 ​these that I wish more particularly to call your attention. For instance, there is a duty which you owe to the State. Duty to the State. Every 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 education, 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? Duty to our Fellow-countrymen. And this brings me by an easy transition to another 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 Government, 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 immediate and permanent good would be the result. Again, to speak of the subject so proper to this particular time and place. Education—ought not you 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 ​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 teachers, may still do much to promote education. Promote Education. In the first 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 educated Hindu. It was remarked the other day by the Vice-Chancellor 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 ​and 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 call duties to yourselves. Avoid contentment in learning. It is a duty you owe to yourselves as well as a duty you owe to your Creator, not to suffer to lie unimproved the talents committed 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 understood, 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; Be true to yourself. cultivate a spirit of truthfulness, 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 England'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.