Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/115

 the fundamental structure of society, and the principles on which the science is based.

Follow up these principles in the economic works of the late Professor Cairnes. Note the introductory part of Buckles work on Civilization, and observe the method of examining the circumstances which make history and mould the fate of nations. Study especially the works of Sir Henry Maine, namely. Ancient Law, Village Communities, and the Early History of Institutions; these shew you the origin of rights, the foundation of law, the progress of jurisprudence. All such works teach you how to reach the pith, the kernel, the root of every matter. They are to several branches of study what the protoplasm is to living substances.

The practical study of the physical sciences, being itself the most cardinal instance of inductive reasoning, will eminently conduce to the same object, and will supply to the Native mind, as it were, that fibre and sinew, that solid strength, which it so much needs. Take Whewell's history of the absorbing labours of Newton; or the account of the German astronomer JSchwabe, who day by day for thirty-one years watched for the recurring spots in the sun; or the story of Sir Humphrey Davy's enquiries into the composition of water; or Tyndall's narrative of Faraday's experiments in electricity; or Darwin's observations of the habits of insectivorous and climbing plants; and you will derive benefit, not only from knowing the grand conclusions obtained from their labours, but from noting the processes by which they laboured.

As a preparation for such scientific study there is needed that general culture, that gymnastic mental training (as it is technically termed from physical analogy) which you have all received.

The relative proportions which should be allotted in our University curriculum to general learning and to physical science have of late demanded, and will still demand, special consideration.

Of the students in this University some will follow professions, such as the public service, for which general education alone is needed; others will follow professions, such as the scientific branches, for which special education must be super-added. Up to a certain point general education must be given to both classes of students. But afterwards such education will be prosecuted to the end of the College course by those who live by the learned professions, while it will be relinquished by those who are to live by the scientific professions, each one of