Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/297

4 course of students became far less numerically, and individual Teachers no longer captivated vast multitudes by their eloquence and other gifts, centres of instruction of a less ambitious character were established in different localities. In England, for example, numerous Grammar schools were set on foot, a course devised by the celebrated Wolsey before the Reformation, but carried out during the progress of that change and after its completion. In later times the two great English Universities have constituted an agency for finishing the education of the higher classes, and more especially of those among them intending to enter some of the learned professions. At this moment they may be regarded as in an unsettled state, many considering that with the progress of the age the constitution and aims of the Universities should undergo some changes, and that a wider range of studies should be embraced in their curricula. It is unnecessary for me to dwell upon this topic ; and I allude to it only to complete the brief and very superficial sketch of the rise and progress of University education in the West, and more especially in England. You will observe that the time-honored Universities of Europe are places of educational training, as well as institutions for recognizing and proclaiming degrees of proficiency in Literature and Science: not so our Indian Universities, which, as now constructed, are intended merely to present a standard of education to the Public, and to stamp with honor all such as prove that they have reached that standard. Perhaps the chief difficulty with us will be to secure the appreciation of Degrees by the Natives of this country: but we are entitled to hope that every year which passes away will see this difficulty rendered less by the general spread of intelligence, until at length we shall find the same feelings excited in the breast of an Indian graduate, that quicken the pulse of an English youth when he secures a place, however humble, among the ranks which in past ages contained Chaucer, Bacon, Milton, Newton, and a host of others, the master minds of their times.

Here I must recur to the question which I put to you at the commencement of this Address. Have you reflected on the nature of your Diplomas, and the obligation which they carry along with them ? You have this day been stamped with honor; you have by your industry, ability and good conduct, won the right to be presented to your countrymen as persons worthy of respect and fit models for imitation. This is undoubtedly a high, a most gratifying position; but allow me to remind you it is also a most responsible one. We all know the higher the station of an individual, the more incumbent upon him it is to walk circumspectly. But