Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/50

 or independent convictions. It is a noteworthy circumstance that this University stands almost alone among the great institutions of this country, as managed by the unbought exertions of those who direct its action; and we of the Government attach a double value to whatever it does, because the progress it achieves affords an excellent practical refutation of the doctrine that no good or useful service to the State can be expected unless directly paid for in money or money's worth. We have a strong conviction that here, as in every part of the world, men will serve their fellowmen truly and laboriously for honour, for love, and for conscience sake, and we thank you for teaching this among other truths that great service may be done the State though it be not paid for in money. Under these circumstances. Sir, I and my colleagues in this Government have felt that, if forbearance on the part of Government is sometimes needful, still oftener is forbearance called for on the part of the Senate when the habits and language of the Government may seem to imply a desire to dictate which in reality does not exist. Generous trust and forbearance on both sides are needed to insure life and growth in the joint work. You have alluded to the jealousy which centralizing and absolute Governments naturally feel as regards any independent institutions, the main object of which is the cultivation of free thought. I would say a very few words on the reasons why we believe that the Government of British India need entertain no such fear. In almost every other parallel case that we know of it has been more or less the object of the governing nation to treat a dependency like British India as a conquered possession, to be administered for the benefit direct or indirect of the governing power, and, in proportion as this spirit animates the action of the Government so will it have good reason to dread the independent growth of institutions like this. But England has, as I need not remind you, no such purpose, and need have no such fear. From the day when the sudden brilliancy of the achievements of her sons in this distant country first startled the Parliament and people of England, from the days of Clive and Warren Hastings to this hour, there has ever been a continual protest on the part of those who mould the thought and direct the action of the British nation, against the doctrine that India is to be administered in any other spirit than as a trust from God for the good of government of many millions of his creatures; and, however fitfully and imperfectly this purpose may have been carried out, it has in every generation grown in strength, and was