Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/179



Gentlemen of the Senate,—When I succeeded to the office of Vice- Chancellor on the departure of my friend Mr. West, I did not anticipate that I should so soon be called upon to undertake the duty of addressing you in this place at the Annual Convocation of our University. I should have accepted with more pleasure a responsibility so honourable, if I did not deeply regret, as you also must regret, and it is a feeling which the Chancellor has begged me to say that he entirely reciprocates, the absence from the Chancellor's seat at the last Convocation which falls within his term of office, of a Governor of Bombay who is so steadfast and liberal a friend of education, so cordial in recognizing private educational enterprise, and so unwearied in encouraging our scholars by his kindly presence at school anniversaries, as is Sir James Fergusson.

The Registrar has read to you portions of the report of the proceedings of the University since the last Convocation, and the full report will shortly be placed in your hands. You will find therein the results of the University Examination, of which let it suffice to say that they are generally satisfactory, and prove by the increasing number of successful students in nearly all branches of study that the demand for higher education is still extending. The unprecedented number of 2,036 candidates presented themselves for Matriculation. As three-fifths of these candidates were unsuccessful, I note, without disparagement of others almost equally meritorious, the New English School at Poona and the Native State Schools of Bhavanagar and Junagad as distinguished by passing all or nearly all the candidates they sent up. Of the successful candidates, 22 were female students. I have been asked to observe that for the first time two members of the community of Beni-Israel have received University degrees to-day. There has been an addition to endowments in the shape of a medical prize and indeed I do not know that any year has passed without adding something to the endowments of this University.

But beyond the ordinary statistics of business, there is much in the record of events which give a special significance and importance to the history of the past year. The spontaneous energy in education which is manifesting itself in our large towns may perhaps owe some of its vigour to the invitation held out by the Government to private enterprize, but chiefly it marks the fact that forces which have