Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/438

 monopoly of the Indian races. But while I point to the conduct of irrigation, and to hydraulic engineering as one prominent field for the Indian engineer, yet it is by no means the only one. The line which separates architecture from Civil Engineering is but indistinctly drawn. Indeed, in all structural work the combined skill of both branches is essential to perfection. Without a considerable amount of engineering knowledge the architect will find himself in constant difficulty, while a shapelessness and absence of all grace in the outlines will mark the works of an engineer devoid of architectural skill and taste. Well, now in India, new buildings of various sorts from palatial residences and courts to the humbler buildings of an elementary school, or Tahsildar's cutcherry are constantly needed. How is it that we have to seek designs from European architects ? Not because the Indian races by nature, are deficient in taste or skill ; we have but to turn to the relics of the past, to the works of the latest age, for a contradiction to such a suggestion. Whether we look at the now unearthed relics of Buddhist architecture at Amaravati, at the beautiful monoliths now adorning the esplanade of Pondicherry, at the pillared halls of Chelembram, Srirungum and Tripatty, the highly finished sculpture of the ruined temples of Humpi, the grotesque phantasies of the Southern Indian carver as exemplified in the still advancing aisles of the Madura temples, with their vast and massive structures and granite roofs or the almost ruined halls of Thirumal Naick's palace, now being I trust secured from destruction. In all we see works vast in conception, beautiful in outline, graceful in execution. From such models at hand for instruction, architects should spring forth who should hold their own in competition certainly for any Indian buildings. Architects are not taught in a day, the more reason for commencing study therein. The recent changes in the Public Works offices, the placing of local fund expenditure under the officers of the local fund boards, opens to you a large field of future employment, and to my mind a more healthy field for the development of the ability of professional men, than the cramped field of ordinary duty in a public service. The most efficient engineers of England who have made her railways, her canals, her harbours, have earned their character, their position in private employment and been trained in youth in hard struggles for their daily bread. The harbours growing under our eyes in this very port are under the guidance and on the design of engineers trained equally in private work and selected for their experience in marine work. The chances of independent employ are now opening to you, and as you rise there