Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/450

 desultory individual efforts, as on the steady co-operation of various mental energies. In the gown and hood which you have been authorized to wear, you should recognize a badge of common service in the cause of your country, and a bond of brotherhood between you and those who advance the interests of civilization, and you should forget all differences in caste or creed, in social position, rank or wealth. Unless you learn to subordinate what is personal to what is due to the public, and to sacrifice individual idiosyncrasies to the requirements of your country, you will never succeed in materially aiding progress. I desire, also, to point out to you that your labours on behalf of your country should not be irregular and spasmodic, but that they should be steady and consistent, and be guided and controlled by organization and design. You should form in different parts of this Presidency associations of graduates and of men of intelligence, education and integrity for discussing, considering and dealing with questions of social and general interest; for it is only by meaus of organized associations that you will be able to establish a basis of healthy co-operation, and create an intelligent public opinion which will at once command respect and attention in the country. There is sufficient material in many districts for forming associations such as I mention, and there is also material in the Presidency Town for forming a central association which may give a consistency and unity of purpose to the labours of the several provincial associations. Remember that your value to this University consists not in the official position, or professional eminence you may attain to, not in the fortune, or name you may make for yourselves, but in the extent to which you disseminate the principles and influences awakened in you by culture, and convert them, as well in the case of others as in your own, from mere general opinions into impulses of action and rules of conduct.

And let me remind you of the important duty you owe to the Government, to whom you are indebted for the liberal education you have received, of extending to your less fortunate brethren, in such measure as your opportunities allow, the light of knowledge of which you have had so considerable a share. Several of you will doubtless enter the profession of teachers, and as such, will be directly engaged in carrying on that noble work ; but whatever may be the walk of life you may find yourselves in, there will be no lack of means and opportunities for ameliorating, so far as intelligence and knowledge can do, the