# Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 1/Sir Raymond West C.S., M.A., F.R.G.S. (Twenty-Sixth Convocation)

TWENTY-SIXTH CONVOCATION.
(By The Honorable Mr. Justice West.)
Gentlemen of the Senate,—On the occasion o£ your last assembling herein Convocation, I 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 Governor 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 Excellency and the exigencies of the situation have cast upon me. I will begin by what claims a word of tribute from a Vice-Chancellor 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 himself to the institution with steady, regular, and unfailing interest 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. Growing importance and influence of the University. Since I had the happiness of addressing the members of the Senate about four years ago, this institution has 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 ​University, and those that were affiliated before have been extending and enlarging and elevating their course of instruction. 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 colleges. If anything were "wanting to indicate the advanced position which the University has gained during the four years that elapsed since I addresed the 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 representatives 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 community.
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 ​human learning and study, of law and medicine and engineering, and, above all, of general literature and science. All these subjects have here their representatives, and these representatives have been chosen from every class and creed. Our University 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 advance of its people along the great lines of civilization and learning. 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 Professor James Darmesteter. James Darmesteter and other French savants. To say a word of the eminence of that gentleman in literature and 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 scholarship 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 ​and happiness to all the gentlemen who have taken prizes here to-day to be admitted on an occasion like this to such a distinguished 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 institution, 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 gentlemen 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 examinations 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 preparatory 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 ​institution which is responsible in a matter like this. Municipalities and Education. In every Roman city of the ancient days there were establishments for the education of the people which 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 schools 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 development, 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 interest 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 has 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 Committee for establishing a memorial to the late Mr. James Grreaves, have made endowments which demand our recognition and our gratitude. How to dispose of superfluous wealth. But perhaps there are not a few here who have a good deal of wealth to dispose of, whom 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 ​has formed so pleasing a topic of discussion to the jonrnalists 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, Greek 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 literature. No language and no literature could be more interesting, 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 ​plenty of opportunities, and they can gratify their own individual taste in supporting or endowing this or that particular line of research or mental development without in any way affecting the special susceptibilities of any members of this institution. Bombay, the modern Alexandria. There was a city in ancient days founded by a great conqueror,—I am speaking of Alexandria,-and 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, imperishable 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 independent 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 distinguished 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 learning, 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 their correspondents in all parts of the world for gathering up ​rich merchandise, but also to seek out learned men and to send home valuable manuscripts. There is an example for our citizens to follow. Municipality and University. Again, I find at the same stage in the world's progress that a city like Bologna spent half of its municipal funds in the support of its University. 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 to do a great deal for the University of Bombay. Excellent advice to Indian princes and noblemen. It will be familiar to those of you who have read history of that great period of the re-awakening of European life and knowledge that the new learning was but somewhat coldly received by the Universities 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 learning. 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 give a lakh or even two ​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 that 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 proceedings. Government and Higher Education. Now I dare say that the benefactions which I have had to acknowledge to-day would 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 conditions. 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 Government. 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 developed there, the Government may sever itself from schools and institutions for higher education. But a great deal of that ​depends on the special circumstances of the history of England, 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 Government is called on at this moment to consider what aid it can give to the advancement of technical education,and this is a matter of vast importance. Importance of Technical Education. Technical 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 Government 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 paramount claims to the support of the Government and the community 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 Government 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 strait, and submit to the necessity in the hope that better times will come. Government's indifference to Technical Education. This subject of technical education has hitherto been, I must say, somewhat lamely handled as 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 ​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. Technical Education and the University. It is at this highest point that technical education comes into connection with the University 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 thinking and practical minds of Europe. One thing, however, is certain, 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 allotted 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 connected. 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 out of touch with the general movement of thought in the world, and when the general movement 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. Qualifications of Professors of Science. These University professors of science should be men specially devoted to their 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 ​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 pure science in the University, 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 instruction of those who again, in the descending scale, will communicate 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 occasion. 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. Mr. West's advice to Indians. I will reserve it, if ever I have the opportunity, for 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 their ​position in it the 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 presents the prevailing thoughts, passions, tendencies and aspirations of its people, as these are reflected by men of genius, and therefore 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 greatest of the earth.
TWENTY-SEVENTH CONVOCATION
(By Sir Raymond 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 withdrawn 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 perhaps 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 somewhat 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-Chancellor of this University, who has so often to represent it before the public and before the Government. I feel also that the duties which have now devolved upon me and the changed position I occupy since I last addressed you, as they call me away from Bombay through the greater ​part of the year, must interfere with my presiding at the meetings 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 resigning 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 examination this year, University culture for ladies. and you will recognise the propriety of my first of all dwelling on the circumstance that this year we have our first lady bachelor. This University was one of the first in Her Majesty's dominions to recognise 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 devoting themselves to the pursuits which have hitherto been monopolised 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 ​proper line, and that 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 arrangement 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 which is of very great interest. Stirring of the Mussulman mind. You will have been 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, refused 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 educational movement spread themselves far beyond the immediate point to which the impulse was directed, and now we see this year a ​gentleman coming up from the Free General Assembly's Institution 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 perseverance and devotion to duty of the Mussulman youth of our community? 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 gentleman 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 by 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. ​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 Examinations, 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 disappointments on any other cause than the cause which rests within themselves. Advise to disappointed candidates. The bringing into question the verdicts of examiners or the decisions of bodies having authority tends to create doubt and hesitancy, 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." ​ We have this year, as in past years, had many expressions of the general confidence of the great community, in which we are placed, in this institution. University, the pillar of people's hope. To them it is, as it 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. Endowments to commemorate valuable services. To begin with, an endowment was presented to the University in honour of the late Mr. James Greaves, a gentleman who, 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 subscription 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 advantage 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 commemorate the services rendered to this University especially, and in other departments of public life, by our distinguished fellow​citizen Ráo Sáheb .V 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 Ráo Sáheb has adopted, either in politics or social movements, or any other ways, every one will admit that in this University he has been a faithful and a devoted sustainer and supporter of learning. His services have been constant and unremitting, 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, Ráo Sáheb Granpatrao Moroba Pitale, I believe, is to be shortly commemorated. A movement is on foot for presenting 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 paulo majora canamus, Sir Dinshaw Manockjee Petit's liberality. and although the bounty which I have next to speak of is not 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 Government 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 ​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 be 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 Technical 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 awake to it when it was founded. The blessings conferred by the University. The University has in no wise fallen short of its high calling. It is only necessary to look back to the Act of Incorporation to see how difficult it was then even to form a Senate by which the Institution could be carried on, and it was necessary in those days of comparative backwardness for the University 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 ​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 wanting 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 Presidency, our engineers, who are evolving and developing a new 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 accomplished 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 ​we see the openings to reform pointed out and a general hope of greater things for the future 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 presided over by the University and directly in influenced by it, Movements concurrent with and parallel to the University. there has been a concurrent and and 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 remarkable 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 commerce 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 technological 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 corresponding 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 ​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 development 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 technological 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 means of locomotion, to give us better clothes to wear, better houses to live in, and make the conditions of our physical existence altogether 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. Evils of isolation. No human institution can afford to live isolated, and if a University divorces itself from the 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 insignificance, 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 ​there 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 complained 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 themselves 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 institutions, 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 ​have thus united themselves once more to the general movement of 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. Moral training in schools. The Government of India in that resolution insist on greater efforts being made towards moral training in schools and colleges. Now, 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; and I do think that that part of the resolution of the Government of India, which directs or recommends that the teachers 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 experience 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 distinguished 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? ​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 Government, which is very pertinent to the subject. He says something 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 instructors of his youth." The way to secure true ethical instruction. Then, I say, the ways in which you may secure true ethical instruction and influence, the way in which you may fill the minds of your students with those tastes, and ambitions and desires, those fine sensibilities, which form a lofty character, 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 capacity 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 ​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. The Independence of the University. It must be independent of the Government, because it ought to have, and must have, if it is to live, a character and vitality of its own deeply rooted in the needs and nature of the people amongst whom it is placed. It must also have another kind of independence. Turning once more to history we find the early Universities 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 hardfought 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 deemed inspiration. The Universities must be made and kept independent 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 completeness 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 necessarily 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, ​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 confluence 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 University, as a striking and permanent sign of our readiness to admit 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, Wordsworths, and Macaulays, we may find a place also for our Faradays 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:—
Hæc est in gremio victos quae sola recepit
Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit
Matris non dominæ ritu ; civesque vocavit
Quos domuit.
All you are invited to come in and realize these blessings of a peaceful and beneficent dominion, and share the pride of a common 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 ​to do. Accept this as a command from Heaven, as a divine impulse to work and wait for the complete regeneration of your people, and resolve to act worthily of so high and sacred a behest.