Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/337



not until 1862 that there were decided and unmistakable symptoms of progress. In that year the number of students who passed the Matriculation Examination rose to 82, of whom 33 came from independent schools; and since that time there has been a continuous advance up to and including the present year, when the number of successful candidates has reached 338, of whom no less than 209 have been educated in other schools, either entirely independent of, or only partially supported by, the State.

The results of the First Examination in Arts, an examination which was introduced only five years ago, must be regarded as not less satisfactory, if due allowance be made for the higher standard which is demanded, the number of successful candidates having risen from 23 in 1864 to 117 in the present year.

One very satisfactory feature in these examinations is that nearly every district in the Presidency is represented in them. Districts in which not very long since English education was almost unknown, now send up year after year successful candidates for Matriculation and for the First Examination in Arts. At Combaconum and Tanjore, at Calicut and Trevandrum, at Madura and Tinnevelly, at Bellary and Vizagaptam, at Masulipatam and Rajahmundry, at Nellore and Chittoor, at Salem and Cuddalore, at Trichinopoly and Negapatam, at Mangalore and Cannanore, at all these places well instructed youths annually come forward to pass examinations which a few years ago would not have been attempted by a dozen students in the Presidency town.

The results of the examinations for degrees have not hitherto been so marked. Up to this time the degrees in Arts have been almost entirely monopolized by the Presidency College; but the Provincial College at Combaconum bids fair to become a formidable rival at no very distant date, and if we may judge from the large number of Presidency College graduates who have received the ground-work of their education in the College on the banks of the Cauvery, it will need all the efforts of the older institution to maintain her position in the examination list. The admirable school at Madras under the management of the Free Church of Scotland Mission, those maintained by the Church Missionary Society at Masulipatam and by the Gospel Society at Tanjore, and the High School supported at Trevandrum by the enlightened Rajah of Travancore, all give promise of carrying away in future their fair share of the honors which hitherto have been almost exclusively enjoyed by the Government College.