Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/306

 cause of education is on its trial. I have often heard it said, that education in India is a perilous experiment. I believe it to be neither a peril nor an experiment. I believe that it is our duty to spread education as widely as we can, and I believe that whatever is inherently right, must be more certain and more safe than any other course that can be pursued. But these truths are not established at once, and it depends upon you whether the proof shall be .speedy or slow. You will go into the world as the heralds of a new system. Take care that you do not disgrace it. You will find every one willing to receive you and trust you as something better than those whom they have known. But if they find that you are no better, then they will never trust your race again. I appeal to you, not merely as individuals who have to make your own way in life, but as patriots who are going forth under new banners, to a new fight, to rescue their country from that worst of slavery, moral degradation. You have the noblest opportunities before you which I believe were ever offered to the natives of this country. Everything is open to you if you will only prove yourselves fit for it. Will you show yourselves worthy of the occasion, or will you not? In your persons, the mass of your countrymen will be judged. Will you betray them, or will you not? I am certain that you will not. I am certain that you, as far as in you lies, will strive to keep the hoods which you have this day received, without tarnish or stain. I trust that you will be the foremost of a long race of whom the University of Madras will have cause to be proud, men as remarkable for their integrity as for their learning. I trust that you will prove that virtue knows no distinction of country or colour. That India, as well as Europe, can rear up her own sons to be gentlemen, without fear and without reproach.

FOURTH CONVOCATION.

Gentlemen,—Under the instructions of His Excellency the Chancellor of this University the duty devolves upon me of addressing you on an occasion which I trust will be memorable, not only as that upon which you attained unto a coveted dignity, but as that from which you set out upon a career, honorable to yourselves and beneficial to your fellow-men. Gentlemen, in the name of all here present, I offer you my hearty congratulations and best wishes upon the academic distinction which you have this day received; distinction, intended both to attest the ability and diligence of those who receive it, and to stimulate others to