Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/402



little leisure for considering the parts of a subject in their several relations to each other and to the whole, and digesting and assimilating what they had learnt. This defect is probably not peculiar to the teaching of the graduates of this University. After a good deal of labour spent in the mere reception of knowledge, there is a very natural shrinking from the further mental task of taking that thorough survey of the subject which is suggested as necessary to the proper comprehension of it; and the requisite habit of mind is not very readily acquired. The study of Physical Science now made compulsory for the Matriculation, and which I hope will henceforward be more generally pursued in the University course, is calculated I think, though indirectly, to supply this defect in some degree, as it must tend to arouse and stimulate the mental faculties, and endow with reflective activity minds which are now only too content with a mere passive reception of what they are taught.

I look upon the study of Physical Science as very important on account of the mental discipline which it necessitates. It entails steadfast labour and accurate observation, and the development of the perceptive faculties is one of its most prominent results. But what is its most distinguishing feature as a study, is that it is based on freedom of thought and opinion; and insists upon verifying all its conclusions by original research. It may indeed be said that this is necessary for the full and complete prosecution of every branch of learning, though not perhaps for elementary studies, and that Physical Science offers therefore after all no such excep- tional advantages as those attributed to it. But in fact, very few pursue their studies in other branches of science to the point at which original research requires to be resorted to, and the superiority that Physical Science claims in this respect is that from the very first rudiments of the study it allows you to take nothing on trust. You stand at once face to face with the forces of nature. Every step taken must be verified, and familiarity with its secrets is closed except to immediate contact and experiment. It is to Physical Science that we owe the greatest triumphs of man over inanimate nature; and to it is mainly due the vast expansion which civilization has attained in the last hundred years. It has been successfully applied to the advancement of innumerable industries, and has especially opened to us a better knowledge of our mineral resources and of the means of multiplying the earth's productive powers.

To Physical Science is also due the faculty which we now possess of the rapid transmission of thought, which makes bo