Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/351



"suitably unto the position to which, by the degrees conferred upon you, you have attained." In fulfilling the duty confided to me, I would more especially address those of you who, having gained the higher honors of this University, are about to enter upon the practical duties of life; though the remarks made will be found, I trust, more or less applicable to you all.

The open book of the past is in your hands, and all can read in it how arduously and how well you have pursued the task set before you. You have fought and won. Your success this day is a source of gratification to the Senate, of honest pride to yourselves and of satisfaction to your parents and friends. In the name of the Senate I congratulate you. May the honorable and successful past be the omen of an honourable and successful future.

At this important crisis of your lives your Alma Mater would give you her parting advice. She would speak to you not so much of the past or even of the present as of the future. She would stand as a monitor athwart your pathway, not to obstruct the sunshine, but to moderate its glare; not to damp your joy, but to give it a noble aim by pointing out to you a future of action and of duty. Gently would she take the closed volume from your hands, and opening it inscribe on its earliest page the significant words "the path to happiness is the path of action and duty." The rest of that solemn volume, the record of a useful and well-spent or of a useless and mis-spent life, each of you must con for himself. Often in joy, often in sorrow, often in hope, often in fear, often in perplexity, often in disappointment will the leaves of that book be turned over. Heaven grant that the closing page may be found to bear the assuring words "Action and duty were the guides of his life," and now—


 * "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

Your future career and character will be mainly of your own making, for the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands; pause therefore and reflect how and after what pattern you will mould yourselves. Your mental training has fitted you more or less as Athletes to run the race of life with fair prospect of success. But the race itself is yet before you, and he alone in that Isthmian struggle will win the nobler than pine-leaf crown, who, to culture and discipline of the mind adds culture and discipline of the heart.

Your true education, that is to say the education of yourself by yourself and your true life-work begin to-day. To-day you