Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/510

 sorely is such a handbook wanted. Researches amongst the lower forms of insect life will probably do much to add to the comfort of human life, as well as to the wealth of the country.

When Dr. Bidie pointed out that the coffee borer did not thrive in coffee cultivated under shade, he did what I should like to see some of you doing. He made the results of the higher education directly contributory to human well-being. What is true of the Fauna is true of the Flora. Most of the phanerogamic plants of the Presidency are doubtless known to science, but I remember Colonel Beddome telling me that he thought it quite possible that, even so near our summer capital as the Sispara forests, there might still be trees, which had not been examined.

A great many of you will be wanted to take part in the thorough scientific survey of the Flora of the Presidency, of which we are laying the foundation in the Botanical Department, recently established under the admirable guidance of Kew and of Mr. Lawson, and a great many more will be wanted for the economic survey, which must bring into notice every fact, concerning the uses of your plants, which the long experience of your ancestors has (amidst much that is not fact but imagination) hived carefully up.

When we remember, however, that, below the phanerogamic plants, there is another great vegetable world which has hardly been investigated here at all, and which has quite certainly secrets of great, not to say portentous, importance to reveal, especially in relation to disease, you will see how wide a field is opened to you in this one department of research. Nor must you forget that for those of you who have no special turn for original research, there is an honorable career open, in imparting to your countrymen what it concerns them to know, about the labours of their scientific men. The educated youth of South India will not even have begun to fulfil his proper function in this respect, till there are two or three ardent native naturalists in every corner of the country.

There is no want of aptitude amongst you for these studies, so dignified and so repaying in point of happiness. I could mention the names of several native friends of mine, who shew a great turn for them, but I do not think they are graduates.

The weakest part of our system of higher education has, up to this time, been that which is concerned with the science of observation, but the men I have just mentioned bring into the Presidency the latest methods and results of the most renowned schools in Europe.