Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/29

 grounded and advanced. Some particular schools sliow a marked improvement over last year, especially the Surat High School, which sent up six successful candidates ; and I trust that if our finances allow of our giving such a staff as the Director of Public Instruction desires for all High Schools, others will be found to emulate that of Surat. I regret to see no admissions this year from the Parsee Proprietary School. I am told that some improvement has lately taken place in its management, which, it is hoped, will produce a better result hereafter, but I would beg to repeat to the managers of that Institution what I said last year, that, as the only entirely self-supported school, as filled mainly with the children of our richest native merchants, we should look to the Proprietary School as a model to all other High Schools, and I trust the proprietors will not rest content, as they have done hitherto, with providing a merely commercial education for young men whose future position in life demands the liberal education of gentlemen. I am glad to see among the B.A's two pupils of the Free General Assembly's Institution. They are, I believe, the first B.A's who have been trained at any but Government Institutions, and the University and Government must equally rejoice at and congratulate the Institution on such success. I also offer a special welcome to the three Parsee gentlemen who have this year graduated as B.A's, the first, I believe, of their race. The spell once broken, I feel sure they will not be again left far behind in the honourable competition for University distinction. Their friends, of whom they have so many now in England, will tell them that, unless they add to the power of riches the power of knowledge, they cannot hope to stand on a par with the commercial classes of England, nor like them to deserve and obtain a really influential share of the government of their own country. It is a gratifying circumstance that one of the candidates for the M.A. Degree went up and passed in Sanskrit, and that four of those examined for what would be called at Oxford the "Little go," passed, I am told, a very creditable examination in Latin.

I made particular enquiry as to whether there had been any relaxation of the standard at the examinations this year, and I was glad to be assured that there had not. I trust the University will ever maintain the determination it has hitherto shown, to allow no desire for an early increase of numbers to tempt her to open her gates to an inferior grade of scholars. As far as I can judge, all the changes made during the past year have rather had a tendency in the