Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/16



Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate,—I am sure it is a subject o£ very sincere regret to the Senate and to every one here present that this meeting could not be presided over by the great statesman who has lately left these shores: to one whose heart was so full of sympathy with everything connected with the welfare of India—who loved India with a large and generous heart as Sir George Clerk did, the present would have been an occasion of no ordinary interest. But while I regret he is not here among us to-day, I cannot but feel grateful to Mr. Vice-Chancellor, for the arrangements he so considerately made, which have enabled me to be present.

I cannot help going back in memory to the occasion shortly after my arrival in this country, when I met  Messrs. Bell and Henderson, who had then just landed, the two first oi the highly educated teachers who were selected by Mr. Elphinstone to commence his great system for the education of the youth of this presidency. I recollect, too, when Dr. Harkness, your present Dean of the Faculty of Arts, arrived here with Professor Orlebar in 1835, as the first Professor of the then infant College. Looking to the great difficulties with which they had to contend, I think