Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/236

Rh been unveiled, and with which they deal with the arrogance which always waits on ignorance. Because they mistake the distance which separates them from those who have not tasted the fruits of higher education, they forget that the distance by which they are separated from the men who are really educated is much greater, and that they are not even on the threshold of the regions where the highest culture reigns supreme. No man is highly educated who does not approach with awe and reverence any subject with which he must deal authoritatively.There is a French expression which better than any other stigmatises this unwarrantable precocious self-confidence : "II ne se doute de rien" which may be translated, 'he has not fathomed the depths of his own ignorance.' Higher education leads to the exactly opposite result. Indifferent teaching must inevitably lead to self-conceit in those who receive it, and self-conceit is the certain road to decay of individuals and of nations. All history is there to prove it. Democracies are especially prone to it. They are impatient of rebuke and of restraint. Higher education is largely made up of rebukes and of restraints. It is merciless on all preconceived theories, on all unsound doctrines, on all that is unreal, and it rejects all that is unfinished and superficial. It condemns to exile those who are not continually grappling with their own ignorance. It laughs at those who, not having begun the ascent, think they enjoy the view which is only visible from the summit. If Indian Universities do not produce such results then they are only Universities in name. The sooner we recognise the fact the better. The remedy is not far to seek. You must be hypercritical in the selection of the men to whom you confide this enormous trust. We must recruit for our Indian Universities in England, in India, if necessary on the Continent of Europe men who, fully alive themselves to the exigencies of higher education, will refuse to be satisfied with any thing less than the reality. In Indian Universities we can build up a stronghold in which a high tone will prevail capable of resisting the adverse and vulgarising influences which are ever at work endeavouring to poison even the most intelligent strata of society. But we can only hope to do so if the garrison of those strongholds is composed of the elite of both nations. It is only by the combined efforts of the wisest men in England, of the wisest men in India, that we can hope to establish in this old home of learning real Universities which will give a fresh impulse to learning, to research, to criticism, which will inspire reverence and impart strength and self-reliance to future generations of our and of your countrymen. The sooner we recognise our weakness on the academic side the better. Intellectual wealth