Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/46

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,—Before this Convocation, the last at which your Excellency will preside, is dissolved, we, the Fellows of the University of Bombay, crave permission to approach your Excellency with an expression of our heartfelt gratitude for the many benefits, which as our Chancellor and as head of the Government of Bombay, you have conferred upon this University; and of our great regret that your connection with us in these capacities is now so soon to terminate.

Nearly five years ago it was your Excellency's first public act on arriving here as Governor of Bombay, to preside in this place and to award the first Degrees which were given by this University.

Not only at our first, but at all subsequent, Convocations, your Excellency has done us the honour of presiding. Every student who has hitherto been deemed by this University worthy of a Degree, whether in Arts, in Law, or in Medicine, has received that Degree, accompanied by appropriate and impressive words, from the hands of the Governor of the Presidency. And annually in your place as Chancellor, your Excellency has never failed to address us on topics connected with our progress and policy. Your Excellency's speeches, delivered on these occasions, are preserved in our Calendars, and we trust that they may ever be referred to by our successors, as containing some of the most important principles by which, their course may be guided.

The part thus taken by your Excellency in our proceedings has given this University a peculiar prestige as neither of the Universities of Calcutta or of Madras has been similarly distinguished by its respective Chancellor.

While acknowledging the benefits of the lively interest which your Excellency, as our academical head, has thus shown in our welfare, we beg also to thank you for the equally valuable forbearance which, as head of the Political Government, you h.ave exhibited towards us.

A University like ours occupies necessarily a delicate position. Its members are all appointed by the Government; it derives all its current resources from the Imperial Treasury; and its acts are all subject to veto from the local administration. Under such