# Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 1/Rev. D. Mackichan, M.A., D.D.

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 important 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 sustaining 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, ​throughout 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 Losses to the University. since we last assembled in Convocation. The Rao Saheb 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 positions 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 prominent 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 ​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 distinguished, 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 generous donors New Benefactions. 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 annus mirabilis in our history. The gifts announced at last Convocation, some of which were, however, offered to the University in previous years, amounted to more than a lakh 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​ciated. The Bai Shirinbai Ratansha Parakh Scholarship is another endowment of the same class, and intended to further the same object. Mr. Ratansha 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 men 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 entertainment fund raised in his honour to add to the above endowments 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 advancement 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 Presidency, 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 devoted 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 gratification 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 gift 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 ​by reading a letter which has just reached us and which runs as follows:—'Sátára 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.10,000 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 important 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 connection with the Grant Medical College cannot be classed amongst the benefactions 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 benefactions which from year to year continue to enrich our University 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 benefactors, Endowment of Chairs in Law. 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 important Faculties, when I place before you the endowment 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 ​year. The old system was too much 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 bonâ 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 Colleges 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 graduates 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 Some new beginnings. to which I desire to call your attention, gentlemen, because they will require your watchful and fostering care. The University School Final Examina​tion is in its infancy, and while it is impossible to predict the course of its future growth it is interesting to note such indications 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 diminution. 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 difficulty. 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 community 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, fulfilled 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 determined by the Matriculation Examination, and that if the door of exit from the school was also the door of admission to the University, many might be misled into paths which they could never follow with advantage or success. It has also been accepted ​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 temporis 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 University, and placing beside them the average results of our own day to deduce the conclusion that our progress has been inconsiderable. 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 élite 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 achievements 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 contact 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 separate so many chosen minds from the meaner influences of the ​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 surrendered 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 wield 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 expected 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 independently 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 readjustment 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 programme of reform upon which you have entered. I am one of 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 attainment of a degree, but to uphold the standard of intellectual culture 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 University education by redeeming it from the charge of being simply a pursuit of examinations and making it in reality a scholarly pursuit of knowledge, the time allowed for the study of the higher and more important subjects must be extended so that ​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 destruction 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 convenient 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 anticipate 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 experiences 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 afterlife 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 foundations 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 ​lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom." It must be admitted that the 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 intellectual furniture 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 University 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. Danger of premature specialization. To a certain extent the premature special Capacities of different minds must be recognised 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 development, 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 expansive knowledge irradiates it from many studies with the many-coloured hues of thought till they kindle by their assemblage, and blend and melt into the white light of inspiration." These are words spoken by one of our poets who was also a University 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 enjoyed 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 distinction 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 medical 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​sities. 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 include 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 susceptible 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 progressive 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 institution 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 misinterpreting the general feeling of the Senate when I say that until Agriculture 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 development of scientific agricultural instruction to a position in which ​it can fitly rank with the other sciences to which this University 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 University studies is both natural and desirable. Definition of a University. The question is not to be settled by any arbitrary 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 mediæval conception of the University held sway for a period of unexpected duration. But the spirit of the age proved too powerful for this conception, and one after another the most conservative Universities 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 knowledge 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 University and become a mere mill, grinding out arid conventionalisms and barren forumlæ good for no human spirit." The development of scientific instruction in our University is a subject to which increased attention will have to be devoted. About ten years ago a sudden start, almost a revolution, was achieved. ​But our subsequent progress in the new direction has 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 enthusiastically 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 important truth in this old conception, and that the inherited tendencies 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 prominent. 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 correct this one-sidedness, to awaken deeper convictions with regard to the absoluteness of truth and with this strengthened 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 A Want. 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 education, 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​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 professional 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. But how to make this influence a continuous influence in the life of our graduates and undergraduates, 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 consciousness 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 responsibilities 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 India, 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, ​and you who ought to be in the van of your people's life will be called, if you are found worthy, to suffer and to sacrifice most. 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 profess 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 countrymen 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 interpreters 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 knowledge 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 condition 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 ​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 best reward. The performance of tasks such as these will be the best fulfilment of the charge which has been delivered to you as you stood here to receive your degrees, "that ever in your life and conversation 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. Vice-Chancellor, Ladies and Gentlemen,—I wish to plead not guilty to the indictment which the Vice-Chancellor has at the beginning of his suggestive and admirable address preferred against me. The Vice-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 Vice-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 Vice-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 Vice-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 Government to look upon it in a different light. As Vice-Chancellor, with the authority which attaches to everything that falls from him in legal and educational matters, he would have undoubtedly justified the conditions under which it was introduced in the Senate. But Government—and I lay great stress on this fact—fully