Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/417



It is befitting that on this the first day of our assembly in this Hall, I should congratulate the Senate of this University in having, at last, found a home worthy of its reputation, in a Temple erected by one of its Fellows, which adds to the list of magnificent edifices by which he has gradually changed the features of our city; and, although some of us who have gazed upon the Taj could wish, at the risk of being deemed hypercritical, that the domes of this building partook somewhat more of the aerial gracefulness of those seen in that marvellous structure—revealed more of themselves and less of their supporting columns—yet must we give our unqualified admiration of the rest of this beautiful building, and especially of the noble room wherein we are now assembled. I have been long enough in Madras to remember what the style of our public buildings was before Mr. Chisholm came amongst us, and when we contrast this Senate House, the Presidency College, and the Railway Station, to say nothing of other buildings, with the old stereotyped structures of the Department Public Works, the Madras University may well be proud that one of its Fellows has added so much to his own and their reputation by his beautiful science. And the situation of this building seems to me so happily chosen, so full of the highest auguries. It is almost the first, if not the very first, building of any consequence in this continent which catches the rays of the rising sun, as if Southern India greeted the Glorious God of day—fabled also of old as the God of Learning—with a building consecrated to his beloved pursuits. Let us hope the influence of this University may be as beneficent and lasting, and that, like the luminary whose advent it daily greets, it may shed a never-failing stream of intellectual light over the land, chasing away the darkness of ignorance and superstition.

Some twenty years ago when this University was first called into existence, and for years after, it was customary on these occasions to hold forth on the advantages and delights of learning as an inducement to the youths of this country to come forward and fill our colleges. To do so now would be, I feel, an act of supererogation. There is no need for us now to go into the bye-ways and hedges for guests to fill our banquets. Each year sees an ever-increasing number of candidates for matriculation and graduation in Arts, but I fail to notice any increase for degrees in Medicine—a matter, I see, on which our gallant and respected Director of Public Instruction touched upon in his address last year. In twenty years the faculty of medicine has produced three