Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/501

 is, that you should cease to be yourselves. The fact is we cannot afford to forego the co-operation of any race, which is fit to take part in the work of civilized man.

Your remote connections, the aborigines of Australia, showed themselves incapable of doing so, and are disappearing fast.

You, on the other hand, increase, multiply, and prosper, in contact with the highest civilization known.

It is now as certain, as anything in the future can be, that,two hundred years hence, the race and language of Shakespeare, Burke and Byron will have beaten all other races and languages in the struggle for existence, but, good things as are our race and language, I, for one, should be very sorry to lose from the concert of humanity many other voices, and I should like to see the millions of Dravidians, who inhabit South India, taking all the good they can get from us, without ceasing to move on their old lines.

Like all Scotchmen, I am proud of my little country, of its history, and of the work it is doing in the world. But I should as soon wish you to look at the world through Scottish spectacles, or to desire for yourselves the things which Scotchmen desire for themselves, as, standing this March morning in the lovely gardens of Guindy, I should have wished to give you in exchange for your climate that "hunger of the North wind" which "bites our peaks into barrenness."

Mr. Foalkes, the Chaplain of Coimbatore, has drawn up a very instructive analysis of the Catalogue of books registered in Madras in 1 884. From this, we learn, amongst other things, that 744 books were registered during that period. Of these, 374 treated of religion, 189 were educational, and 181 miscellaneous. It would be interesting, though I fear impossible, to have a further analysis with a view to learn how far the higher education which our University has been promoting, has influenced this literature. The second field then, outside the professions and callings in which I wish to invite you to labour, is the field of literature. There are, however, many other fields.

There is for example the field of Art. It would be very gratifying to see more of you turn your attention in that direction. South India is not, and never has been, pre-eminently artistic. But one cannot go to the school presided over by Mr. Havell, any more than visit temples like Chidambaram or Madura, without seeing that there is a large amount of artistic ability here, which, under wise guidance, and I would add under wise restraint, may produce even