Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/242

Rh it means that a man can be implicitly trusted. Indian Universities should take as their motto "altiora peto," and I should translate it: Indian Universities train Indian gentlemen.

 

Mr. Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate,—The academic year of which this Convocation marks the close has been one of exceptional activity. This is apparent not merely from the number of University meetings which have been held during the past year, as stated in the annual report to which you have listened, but still more from the nature of the subjects which have engaged the deliberations of the Senate. A generation has passed since this University was called into existence. It has seen more than thirty years of continuous development, and it is natural that now, in the manhood of its growing life, it should address itself to those important problems which this development has called forth and with which this growing strength has made it in some measure fit to grapple. The University has sought to review its position in relation to almost every department of the varied learning over which it presides: it has been occupied with the recasting of the old and in some measure also with the devising of the new. It is therefore a matter of special regret to us all that on this important occasion we miss from the chair at this stage of our proceedings our academic Chancellor, whose address from this place at our last Convocation on the University ideal did so much to enlarge the horizon of our intellectual aims and whose further counsels would now have a special value for the sustaining and direction of the impulse which he has awakened. The accumulating work of the closing days of his high office deprives us of this privilege ; but neither his absence from this University nor his absence from India will deprive us of our share in that influence which has made itself so deeply felt in every part of the educational life of this Presidency. Under circumstances so disadvantageous it devolves upon me to address you. The task which I shall now attempt is the humbler one of endeavouring to place before you, gentlemen of the Senate, some views regarding our present position and some suggestions with reference to our future development which come not from without but from within the system which we are now called upon to review. I shall speak to you simply as one who has been in contact^ more or less intimate, 