Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/471

 bookworm, fattening his memory with obsolete and forgotten lore, but he must live in the present, and whet the edge of his intellect by friction against modern minds, and the more he studies modern literature, and especially the literature devoted to a record of scientific thought and progress, the more capable will he be of forming a true estimate of the extent of his own knowledge and deficiencies for the work appointed him to do.

Most of you, graduates in Arts, have after due consideration, probably formed some schemes in respect to your future means of livelihood. Some will doubtless devote their lives to the education and training of the young, and surely, no noble career can present itself to those having inclination and aptitude for such work, than the influencing for good the character of the infant generation, which shall in due order be the manhood of the next. "The child" being "father to the man," see to it that your teaching and personal example shall always be employed to encourage and develop the finer instincts of humanity, and to keep down all that is ignoble and base, in the tender minds subjected to your leading. Others of you will no doubt aspire to serve the State in various capacities. This is a reasonable object of ambition, and although the State cannot undertake to find work for all those who are qualified to do it, there must always be a field in State service for the highest intelligence the country can produce. One caution I may give in regard to this sphere of labor. I advise you to be content with modest beginnings, and for this reason, that the higher offices in State service are only to be approached by those who have gained departmental experience. Remember that in the varied service of the State each department has its own special work, and that mere general culture and intelligence, as implied by your University Degree, will not enable you to dispense with the special training required for your special departmental duties. You may be inclined to consider it a grievance that men of greater departmental experience, but of less culture than yourselves, are preferred before you; but you should seek to prove to your official superiors that your scholastic training has enabled you to discharge your special duties with greater aptitude and ability; and having so done you may safely leave your claims to advancement in the hands of those who have the best means of judging of your actual and relative merit.

I am old enough to remember the time when no educational test was imposed on candidates for the Uncovenanted Service, and I have watched the develop of the system, system, introduced into this Presidency