Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/234

Rh

surest test of a nation's status among civilised nations is the esteem in which Universities are held. I need not say much about other faculties. In the Faculty of Arts greater attention must be paid to the study of history and to the study of the Vernaculars. A University which neglects the lessons which history has to teach neglects one of its first duties. History provides the data which are necessary to illustrate the development of other studies. No study of politics is possible without knowledge of history; nor of political economy, finance, legislation, art. I shall not enter into the controversy about the Vernaculars.To say that higher education has no concern with the spoken languages of the country, that they have nothing from which a student can derive advantage is a proposition which seems to be essentially unacademic, neither can it be regarded favourably from the utilitarian point of view. Colonel Lees' proposal, accepted by Sir Alfred Lyall, of an Oriental Faculty as well as an English Faculty of Arts, giving freedom to graduates in either, is one which I believe to be practicable and desirable. Last year we were able to cement our friendly relation with the French Orientalist school by conferring a fellowship on Mr. James Darmestetter, and this year we are again fortunate in having recruited a distinguished Arabic scholar in M. Gasselin, the French Consul. The Faculty of Arts has this advantage over other faculties that the institutions affiliated to it are more numerous. This will make it easy by a proper distribution of Work and a concerted programme to secure better results and to provide for a greater number of Chairs, each College taking up some special subject. The system of inter-collegiate lecturers is quite applicable to our wants. By it we can obviate the evils which result from the absence of a central control of our higher teaching Institutions. Where the State has absolute control of the Universities a systematic arrangement follows. Whatever may be the advantages derived from State control, in India we should lose enormously by such centralisation. Great benefits have accrued to higher education from the disinterested activity of private bodies, and any interference with that activity would deprive India of moral as well as of intellectual forces, which are of the greatest value. In selecting as the Vice-Chancellor a distinguished Principal of one of the aided Colleges—the successor of Dr. Wilson — Government have placed on record that they are fully alive to the merits of Institutions which contribute in such marked degree to our University life. Guizot's opinion : "de tous les monopoles le pire ist celui de I'enseignement" is