Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/447

 lible the opinions of those who seem a little wiser than yourselves,

'Give every man tliine ear but few thy voice, Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgment.'

Advance by cautious steps in the acquisition of knowledge, lest you should stray into the wrong path and hopelessly lose your way ; and, as a last word of counsel, let me repeat to you a saying of the present Lord Derby, that education to be worth having must aim at accuracy of thought, and accuracy of expression. Without accuracy of thought, your knowledge is dangerous to yourselves and to others, without accuracy of expression, however profitable your knowledge may be to yourselves, you may but confuse the judgment of others by endeavouring to impart your Make your knowledge to them. If a man sets out in the morning to walk from the East to the West, his shadow is projected before him but constantly grows less till at midday it disappears, and thereafter, till the sunset, his shadow again lengthens, but it lengthens behind him. So is it with us, as we and the works we do which are part of our substance, take our ways through life. In our youths there is projected the shadow of the hopes we are destined never to realise; they are the shadows of ourselves, they will be noble if we are unselfish and true. In our middle age, this shadow has departed with the fervid generosity of youth, but as yet no other has appeared; we have given up too sanguine hope, but are still conscious of capacity for action. But thereafter, as we plod on with steps growing more and more feeble, that other shadow lengthens out behind us, the memory of the opportunities we have lost or failed to make the most of, the memory of what we might have done, or have done better, and this too will be the shadow of ourselves. It may be an ignoble shadow of anger at what we choose to term our want of luck, or it nray be an ennobling shadow^ of consciousness of, and contrition for, our failings. Your shadows are before you, to make them what you please, aim at high and unselfish ends; though you may not achieve them, the effort has become apart of your very selves ; and when the shadows lengthen behind you, though they be, as all men's must, shadows that tell of failure, you will be able to lay this comfort to your hearts : —

'I take to witness That I loved no darkness Sophisticated no wisdom Nursed no delusion, Allowed no fear, And therefore, I know. • • It hath been granted me Not to die wholly, not to be all enslaved I feel it at this hour— the numbing cloud Mounts off my soul."