Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/48

 failed in your political capacity to give high recognition to the value of all the Degrees and honours conferred by the University. By bestowing many personal distinctions on our graduates, by opening to them generally appointments in the Revenue Service, and by assigning to them rank with the Sirdars of the Presidency, your Excellency's Government has held out the most efficacious encouragement to perseverance in academical studies.

The period of your Excellency's administration is nearly co-eval with that of the public existence of this University. During that period the number of our graduates has risen from 8 to 70, that of our under-graduates from 106 to about 500. The number of our Fellows has been increased from 36 to 175. During the same period, by the munificence of eminent citizens, three noble college buildings for affiliated Institutions have been commenced and are now nearly finished; two splendid donations have been received for the erection of a University Hall and Library, which we hope shortly to see rising on the Esplanade; six endowments in the form of Scholarships and Prizes have been entrusted to us; and handsome gifts in the shape of a University Seal and Mace have been received. With the history of all these things the memory of your Excellency's administration will remain associated. And, as the noble-minded Lord Elphinstone was regarded as the founder of this University, so we shall take the liberty to regard your Excellency as our Second Founder. Lord Elphinstone's Arms were incorporated with those which we bear, and we will now ask your Excellency to permit your bust, (to be provided at the expense of the existing Fellows and Graduates) to be placed in our future University Hall, surmounted by a shield bearing your Excellency's Arms, in perpetual token of our grateful appreciation of your rule.

In conclusion, we respectfully bid your Excellency farewell, and wish you a long and happy life, in that high sphere to which you are now going, and where we feel sure you will continue to watch over the welfare of the University of Bombay, as being the part not least interesting to you of this Empire of India.

The Chancellor, K.C.B., G.C.S.I., then replied as follows:—

Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate,—I feel it very difficult to find words to express the deep and heartfelt