Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/109

 girls at school should be cordially desired by every influential Native who cares for the good of his countrymen.

The fact that English ladies are becoming under-graduates of this University affords a notable example to the people of Western India.

I now approach the topic which is the last in the order we have been following, but which is one most nearly concerning you, graduates and under-graduates, namely, high education or superior instruction.

In the Colleges there are about 900 students and in the high schools about 8,000. Of the 8,000, more than half belong to those private institutions which flourish in our midst, and are doing a most beneficent work. The total number is comparatively small, and even from it a considerable abatement must be made for those students who do not stay long enough to receive the higher parts of the instruction.

The day may come, indeed ought to come, and we should all strive to hasten its coming, when the cost of high education will fall upon the State only in a slight degree, and will be defrayed partly by the munificence of the wealthy, and partly by those who seek for such instruction and who are to earn their living by it; and when every Native gentleman of rank and wealth in Western India will think it essential, that his son should be a member of the University of Bombay. You know, gentlemen, that the upper ranks of Native society are as yet but little represented in the rolls of our University calendars; that although the rich men of Bombay do often present their sons for our University examinations, yet such is not the general practice (as it ought to be) with the Native nobility and gentlemen of Western India; that for those who matriculate in this University the share borne by the State in the cost of their education is great, and that for those who take degrees this share of the State is greater still. It can hardly be denied that when the responsibility of educating the people has been accepted by the State, some considerable portion of the educational resources must be devoted to high education. To institute public education without providing for superior instruction, would be to make a spear without a spear-head, or a sword without a sharp edge. Without superior instruction we could not diffuse those thoughts, ideas, and aspirations, the diffusion of which forms the noblest part of the mission of England in the East. Without it, also, we could not find the agency for competently affording secondary instruction, or even primary instruction. The only point open to discussion