Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/35

 able to count travellers of other races by units. Every religious and domestic objection which ingenuity could raise has now been dissipated, and the educated youth of this part of India must be well aware, that if they would save themselves from the contempt of their fellow scholars in every other civilized country of the universe, they will talk and think of no other obstacle to foreign travel than such as the benefactions lately made to this University for the benefit of its poorer scholars are intended to remove.

You have been often reminded that the object of a University would be very imperfectly attained if it did not in some sense separate its members from the general crowd of learners around them, and stamp them with a character peculiarly its own. This is in fact a part of the work of every great place of education, and any one versed in the social peculiarities of Englishmen can tell with some approach to certainty at which of our great public schools or Universities any man with whom he associates was educated. I cannot doubt that here as elsewhere similar results must follow similar causes, and I would wish in this, as in every thing else, that you should set the best models before you, and that you who, in time to come, will be looked on as the founders of whatever character the University is to bear, should consider betimes the immense importance of a correct standard in manners as well as in weightier matters. I would urge this with the stronger emphasis on all the under-graduates and younger members of the University, because the results must come by an impulse from within. It cannot be impressed, however much it may be modified, by action from without. No course of study, however elevated, no distinction of separate buildings or peculiar costumes, though all tending to the same end, can avail much, unless there be among yourselves the spirit to create a standard for your own guidance in all minor morals, distinct from and higher than that of men who do nob belong to so honoured an institution. You. can hardly doubt what answer I would give to any question as to what standard I would prescribe. When a mighty Emperor, who a few short years ago was reckoned one of the ablest as well as one of the most powerful potentates of modern Europe, desired to describe his wish to discuss matters with perfect frankness and confidence, he said he wished to discuss them "as a gentleman," and he used an English word to express a character not peculiar to any country or race, but which his sagacious observation had shown him, plays in England a more important part than in any other country in the world. He had there seen that the character may exists apart