Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/180

 been gathering strength beneath the surface of society are beginning to show their vitality in a practical way. From much on which I might dwell, including the remarkable movement in the cause of higher female education at Poona^ and the acceptance of the management of primary schools by our Municipalities, I select for remark the foundation of the independent Arts College in the capital of the Deccan to which we have recently granted recognition. In the narrative of the origin and purpose of this college it is stated that it is designed as a private arts college which might become in time to come a source of continuous supply of graduates and under-graduates ready to carry education for a small remuneration into the remotest parts of the Deccan, and thus to cover, if possible, the whole country with a network of private schools under the direction and control of a central educational organization. There is a modest strength of purpose about this forecast, which commands our sympathy and respect. It recalls to me what I have recently read of the work of the Christian Brothers in France set on foot at the close of the sixteenth century By John Baptist de la Salle, who abandoned his prospects of advancement and devoted his life to the humble task of organising and spreading elementary education. He founded an institute, the members of which after a careful training for the office of school-masters, were to devote their lives to the work of primary education. The Brotherhood extended its labours over France, it survived the Revolution of the Commune and carried its operations into other countries, and although the present Government has unhappily withdrawn from it all countenance and support, yet in Paris alone it has 60,000 scholars and is largely aided by the private benevolence of all classes, both the rich and the poor. Here is a noble and encouraging example for the infant institution in the Deccan, and if its spirit is equally pure and disinterested, I doubt not that its success will not be less remarkable.

From the contemplation of this college of poor scholars—if I may so call it—let us turn to the college in Kathiawar, newly founded; and to be endowed from the revenues of Bhavanagar, by the ruler of that State, Sir Takhtsinggi, in memory of a faithful minister. This college is also a sheaf of the harvest returned by the education which we foster, for it is to the good principles grafted by liberal and judicious teaching in the Rajkumar College on an open and generous nature, that we must trace the public character of a prince distinguished above his peers for loyal affection to the Government which guided his youth, and wise munificence in contributing from his revenues to