Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/464

 embellished the literature of Europe, came to its aid when doubting Orientalists weighed its claims with the literature of Asia. I allude to Macaulay, then the legal member of the Governor-General's Council. Listen to his glowing eulogy on the claims of his own language and be thankful for the glorious heritage which his pen secured for you:—

"It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical compositions, which considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equalled; with just and lively representations of human life and human nature; with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence and trade; with full and correct information respecting every experimental science, which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations."

The next twenty years witnessed considerable advancement, including in our presidency the advent of Mr. from Cambridge and the establishment of the High School, which nurtured so many distinguished men. Towards the close of the same period the sanction of the Court of Directors was received for the creation of Universities. Then came the Rebellion of 1857; the fate of Universities, the fate of Public Instruction in India trembled in the balance; but Lord Canning was firm; he felt that it was not liberal education, but the want of it that had raised the storm. Like Columbus, in spite of the mutiny of his crew and the remonstrances of some of his lieutenants, he refused to delay, much less to turn back from his course; but, unlike Columbus, he was not amongst the sea weed nor were the birds fluttering over his head; with the eye of faith he pierced the gloom and discerned the haven where he would be. I recollect that his assent to the Act establishing our own University was given on the 5th September 1857, a time when the seige of Delhi still proceeded under the most disadvantageous conditions.

It was in 1859 that the degree of Bachelor of Arts was for the first time conferred on students educated in this presidency. Taking the five quinquennial periods that may be counted from 1859 to the