Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/183

 out last year, the University dwells serene. I propose only to suggest the answers to this question. What out look has the Indian graduate in active life and to what purposes can he apply his acquirements? First, then let me say that, with the great and urgent needs of your country, intellectual, moral and material, your career should be one of life-long and devoted labour, if it is to be worthy of your University and fulfill the expectations of your Government. You have won nothing as yet but the means of usefulness, the weapons of your warfare, and you will do well not to look for a premature reward in some inglorious stipend or rest content with a cheaply earned, unproved and unfruitful reputation for ability. You can act more worthily by entering into the competition of the learned professions, law, medicine and civil engineering, which are open to all according to their capacity and in which field the Indian graduate has already established his place. Then there is the public service of the country—a most legitimate object of aspiration. And although impatience is often expressed at barriers and restrictions in the official career, yet when I see natives of this country in the Legislative Councils, on the Benches of the High Courts, in the Magistracy, the Civil Service and in nearly every department of State, I cannot admit that the obstacles to the higher offices are such as need depress or discourage. I would remind you that under your Government barriers are temporary and are surmountable by the force of proved merit and worth. And no victory over difficulties is of much ethical value which is achieved without serious effort. The great field of local public business has been made your own to occupy and possess. And I hold that whatever limitations must in this day be imposed on access to higher office, the selection of men to conduct local affairs should be subject to no other conditions than the selection of men to serve the public in the liberal professions. The man who is best fitted by education and character to perform the services which the public requires should be the man who is employed. But besides all these there is a boundless field of useful activity open to those who have acquired in this University the habit of research, and will apply it to investigations useful to Government and their country. Reflect, for instance, on the imminent problem connected with the growth of population under the Roman peace of this empire. How shall these multiplying millions be sustained? By what resources of agricultural science may the land through higher cultivation be enabled to support a larger number? What products can be grown for export which will bring wealth in return from other lands? What alternative