Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/413



B.A. degriee are permitted to drop their Mathematics altogether during the last two years of their course. Government has aided the efforts of the University by the appointment of a professor of Physical Science, whose lectures and laboratory are open to the students of all Colleges, and we already see the first fruits of the new system, as seven of those who have graduated to-day, have taken up Physical Science as their optional subject. The recent establishment at Sydapet of an institution in which systematic instruction is given in the science and practice of agriculture is also an event which may lead to important results hereafter.

But besides the various openings to which I have referred in connection with Medicine, Law, Civil Engineering, Teaching, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures and the public offices,  it is certain that in course of time many other outlets will suggest themselves to you or to your successors. We have had among us not very long ago a Parsee gentleman, who has proved that even the stage is not an impossible career for a highly educated native gentleman. The drama has, in all civilized nations, been a source of much intellectual entertainment, and the Hindoos at a very early period produced dramatic works, some of which have been the admiration of Europe. But the drama may exercise an evil, as well as a good influence, and its tendency in this Presidency has been at times of so pernicious a character that I should rejoice to see some well-directed effort on the part of native gentlemen of position and education, to purify and elevate the taste of their countrymen. The revival of the ancient Sanskrit drama and the creation of a modern vernacular school are objects in no way unworthy of your ambition. One of the gentlemen who appears here to-day has, in the intervals of his law studies, achieved the somewhat difficult task of presenting the Merchant of Venice in a Tamil dress, and another, who has not succeeded in establishing his claim to a degree on this occasion, but who will, I hope, be more fortunate next time, has still more recently brought out a Telugu adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Cassar, written entirely in Iambics—a bold but successful innovation in Telugu literature. It is not at all likely that Shakespeare will ever be naturalized in this country, but such attempts as these may, I hope, be regarded as indications of the dawn of that day of literary activity, for which we have been so long looking. If a new school of vernacular literature is to arise at all, it must be created by you or by such as you. It is sometimes said that we are premature in our