Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/222

 The most unfortunate event of the year has undoubtedly been the serious loss the University has sustained in the resignation of Sir Raymond West, its learned Vice-Chancellor. The loss of the University has been the gain of Government. Another blow was inflicted by the departure of the distinguished Principal of the Grant Medical College. In Dr. Vandyke Carter, the University has lost a man who lived for science, and whose whole life was devoted to its pursuit with a singleness of aim which, has left its beneficial influence behind, and established a tradition which, must be guarded as a precious heirloom. In the Law Faculty we have to mourn the death of Mr. Tyrrell Leith, the founder of the Anthropological Society, and an ardent lover of books. The Archaeological world will long venerate the memory of the late Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji, on whom my own alma mater, the University of Leyden, conferred the rare distinction of an honorary degree. Dr. Buhler was fully justified in writing: "I trust that all European Orientalists will join with his compatriots in order to do honour to the memory of their distinguished colleague who spent his whole life in the pursuit of disinterested scientific work." I need only refer to the Memoir of the late Pandit read before the Asiatic Society on the 21st of May by Mr. Javerilal Umiashankar Yajnik.

We have to congratulate two ladies on their attainment of the B.A. degree, and the Parsi and Jewish communities on their success, as well as Mr. Ardeshir Framji, one of the recently appointed Fellows, who at the same time has the pleasure of seeing another of his daughters pass in the First B.A. Examination and his son take the degree of B.A. with honours. The same Mahomedan student who was first last year in the Matriculation Examination stands alone in the first division of the Previous Examination, having obtained the Hughlings' English Prize and the Sir Frank Souter Scholarship. A Portuguese student is first in the Second B.A. Examination, and a Mahratta takes the first place in the Matriculation, so that several sections of our community divide the honours between them. This is as it should be, and shows that all classes of the community realise the necessity of exerting themselves.

It is an encouraging feature in the history of this University that it has become an annual duty to record the large and continually increasing benefactions which it receives. The gifts which have been accepted during the past year, together with those which