Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/140

Rh professions has been doubted. All things being duly weighed, I should consider the success of Natives as civil administrators to be the truest test of that combined mental and moral training which our education seeks to give.

In conclusion, permit me to express my satisfaction at meeting the Fellows of the University in Senate assembled. More than two years ago I found a Senate consisting of men notable for learning, or for science, or for social influence, or for public services. As vacancies frequently occur by reason of the shifting and changing of society in this Presidency, it has devolved on me to nominate many Fellows, and in every nomination I have striven to strengthen the Senate by adding to its body men of proved capacity in arts or in science. To this Senate I now confidently commend the observance of the principles which have been presented to their consideration. We should be considerate in not overburdening the students, remembering how few years there are for education and how heavy is the weight upon those who have to learn through the medium of a language not their own. The art of teaching should be cultivated, so that the labours of the students may be simplified, and that knowledge may be presented, not in a dull and uninteresting form, hard for the memory to retain, but in a vivid and striking light that pierces, penetrates, and fills the mind. The field of education should be restricted, so that its culture may be deep, rather than that it should be extended with culture of lesser depth. Our general instruction should strive to arm the student with those mental resources that may render him victorious in any special arena he may enter. Let us, as an University, proceed in the van of that beneficent movement with which natural science is stirring mankind, and which, if directed aright in India, will raise the Natives to an economic and social status unparalleled even in grandest records of their antique civilization. And to all our other instruction in whatever branch let us be mindful to add that moral culture which shall impress on every youth his duty towards God and towards his neighbour.

 Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate,—I cannot preside on this occasion—my first opportunity since assuming the Government of this Presidency—in the place filled 