Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/202

 depends on the special circumstances of the history of England, and we think that those circumstances may not exist here, and that, therefore, the reasons why a particular line of policy may be expedient in England, at least deserves fresh examination and review before they are applied crudely and without consideration to the circumstances of India. However, in saying what I have said, I would not be understood, for a moment, as calling in question the necessities which press on the Government at this moment. We are living in a period of very great financial pressure, every one knows so much as that; but no one feels it, I am sure, so acutely as the Government. Moreover, the Government is called on at this moment to consider what aid it can give to the advancement of technical education,and this is a matter of vast importance. Technical education is that on which a great deal of the cation. future development of this country depends. It is one of the most striking phenomena of the day, the swift advance of the European countries in applying the resources of science to the advancement of technical education; and we cannot any more than England afford to be left behind in the competition and race for progress in this line. The Government must do what it can to support technical education; and technical education on its own behalf, even if there were no competition and no stress of necessity, has great and paramount claims to the support of the Government and the community itself. It is through technical education that the riches of the world are brought to our feet, that the weak are made strong, and the poor rich, and that the fainting soul receives the lightning-like communication that gives it peace. All these things are owing to the application of science in our day, and who shall therefore say that it does not deserve the recognition and support of the enlightened men of the community. The Government in supporting it deserves our sympathy, and if sacrifices must be made for it in some directions, we must be reasonable and enlightened enough to see that the Government itself is in a strait, and submit to the necessity in the hope that better times will come. This subject of technical education has hitherto been, I must say, somewhat lamely handled as far as one can gather from what has appeared in public by the Government. It seems almost sometimes as if they had called up a Frankenstein, and were afraid to look the subject in the face, and as if they were hesitating with the "blank misgivings of creatures moving about in worlds half realized." So much has been talked and so little has been done in this great and important sphere of