Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/308

 low and mean and unworthy; you are pledged to aim at all that is high and honorable and befitting; you are pledged to use your talents, learning, and influence for the repression of ignorance and evil and for the diffusion of knowledge and virtue; you are pledged to maintain and promote the peace of the Realm and obedience to the Powers that be; and, finally, you are pledged to further in every possible way, the best interests of your fellow-men. Gentlemen, if you fully comprehend the tenor of these promises, and if in good faith you have made them, then you understand the dignity and appreciate the responsibility of your position. Now, then, go forth on the career thus marked out before you, actuated by the highest motives and braced up with manly resolution. Call to mind, how of old the candidate for knightly honors, having first trained himself by long continued exercises of skill and strength was invested with the insignia of his Order after solemn vows to defend the right, and to maintain the honour of that Order untarnished. On this day, you, having passed the required ordeal, having been invested with academic insignia, after giving promises of a yet higher import. Gentlemen, stand by your Order and maintain its honour. Regard yourselves as knights-errant sent forth to do battle for the cause of Virtue and Learning. Then quit you like men, be strong; strong in principle, strong in purpose. Fulfil your honourable vocation, and justify by your future conduct the confidence which this University reposes in you by granting you its diploma. Let no blot stain your escutcheon or mar the credit of the body into the membership of which you have now been enrolled. Remember this, I pray you, that henceforth you are members of a Body Corporate; the honour of which is committed to your keeping. If one member suffer all the members suffer with it; if you obtain honor, it receives honor in your persons; if you incur disgrace, it sustains discredit also. Bear in mind that the eyes of your fellow-men will be upon you; and that the question will be asked, “Are these graduates of the Madras University better men, abler men, more efficient men than others?” Let your conduct and deportment give a practical answer in the affirmative. Aim to be good, aim to be useful, and so not only shall your Alma Mater be honoured in her sons and be compensated for her travail in bringing them forth, but the men of your generation shall receive benefit through you, and rejoice that such as you were raised up among them.

To you who have attained the degree of Bachelor o£ Arts, I would say more particularly that to you we look for aid in the furtherance of sound learning. If ever this great Country is to be pervaded with the