Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/392



Gentlemen, these are the pleasures which knowledge has to give, and for the encouragement of which the Indian Universities were designed. They have already done good work. And it is a fact of happy augury for India that the people so generally recognize them, and that the leaders o£ Indian society are so aware of the importance of education that one of the first gentlemen in the country (the Rajah of Vencatagherry) is now urging on Government a scheme for the public education of all the sons of the Zemindars of the Presidency, and has backed his proposal by an offer of a munificent donation. Already the Universities have done much, but they are still infant institutions. I wish I could give you an idea of an English University. Imagine a venerable city, standing amid sweet English meadows, embowered in immemorial trees, washed by the waters of a classic stream— picture to yourselves her streets flanked not by the emporia of trade but by solemn shrines and time-encrusted colleges, redolent with the piety and learning of 1,000 years; here are cool cloisters and long arcades and the trim gardens where learned leisure walks and thinks : youngest but not least fair among the sister edifices is the Temple where the votaries of physical science may study and adore : towering amid the rest, and presiding over them is a noble Library rich with gathered treasures of the literary world; there is a sweet stillness in the air, for it is learning's chosen home; the genius of the place breathes calm around; here you will find a thousand students, the flower of England's youth, all busy with the exploration of some field or other of learning's wide domain—you will find mind opening to mind in the healthy commerce of opinion, competition without a touch of envy, and controversies unlike those of later life, without a drop of .gall. "How sweet to linger here," one cries


 * "With fair philosophies,"
 * That lift the mind!

How natural the great poet's vow,

"Let my dne feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embow'd roof With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light; There let the pealing organ blow To the full -voiced choir below, In service high and anthems clear As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstacies And bring all Heaven before mine eyes."