Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/51

 never more powerful than at the present moment. However firmly England may resolve that no force shall wrest from her the Empire of India, the root of that resolve has always been a deep conviction that to surrender that Empire would be to betray a high trust. England desires to administer India as she would administer her own colonies with a single eye to the benefit of the dependency and with a strong assurance that whatever is truly good for the dependency must benefit the Empire at large. To a rule of this kind such a University as you would form can be nothing but a most valuable auxiliary, training minds to understand and appreciate as well as to promote the great purpose of the ruling power. And even in the short life of this University and the schools which furnish its Graduates, I think we find practical proof that this view is the sound one. As I once before remarked from this chair, I remember the opening of the first English High School in this Presidency, and now, wherever I go I find the best exponents of the policy of the English Government, and the most able coadjutors in adjusting that policy to the peculiarities of the nations of India, among the ranks of those educated natives, for increasing whose numbers and for raising whose standard of attainments this University is designed. It is not only here in Bombay but from every part of the Presidency I receive testimony to this fact. From Sind and from Canara, from Kattyawar and Guzerat, and from the furthest parts of the Deccan, I have the concurrent evidence that, wherever progress, whether intellectual or material, is observable, there the natives who have received a good English education are among the most active in the good cause. And it is to be remarked that this is not observable of Government servants only. It is a healthy result of extended education that it has contributed to cause a diminution of that craving for Government employ which in former days was almost universal. No close observer can fail to have been struck by the increasing popularity of independent employment of every kind. But I do not find that this has been accompanied by any increase of what we in England would call Radicalism. On the contrary, I find among the educated natives, who are independent of Government service, the strongest appreciation of the benefits of British rule. It is not among the best educated natives that we generally find the warm admirers of native misrule or those who sigh for the restoration of effete dynasties. This is remarkably evident in the native press, which from being