Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/529

236 self-remediable miseries than any other society. Let every one of the associations with which the Presidency teems, distinctly ask itself at the end of every passing year the question, "What have we done to remove or mitigate any of those miseries."

Gentlemen, it is now time to bring these desultory remarks to a close. I bid you farewell, in the confident hope that you will be a blessing to your country and an honour to your University.

 

Graduates of the Year,—In accordance with the laws of the University an address is now to be delivered to you by one of the Senate, and I have been chosen for this honourable office. It is impossible to put aside the feeling that there are here present many far worthier than myself, far better able to perform this important task — but a glance at the list of those who have year after year spoken to your predecessors suggests a reason for my selection. That list comprises Governours, Administrators, Clergymen, Doctors, Educationalists, Lawyers; it is full of names familiar in our mouths as household words; it begins in 1857 with the then Director of Public Instruction, and it ends last year with the veteran Statesman who after a long and distinguished career is now spending the twilight of life in your midst. But with the exception of one who at the time in civil employment connected with education spoke in virtue of that employment, it contains no military officer. It may well be then that the reason for my standing before you to-day is a wish that the Army should in turn be represented. The honour is none the less, is indeed by much the greater.

First, on behalf of the University to congratulate you on your success—which I do most heartily. You have toiled and have found the reward. The long course of academic work will now be followed by the work of life. One education you have done with, the other and more important you have yet to begin. Success in this new path will much depend upon the nature of your previous training, for it is not what you have learnt but how you have learnt it that must now stand you in stead. You may practice for a quarter of a century in the Law Courts, you may sit decade after decade in a Revenue office, without finding an opportunity of edging in the date of the battle of Marathon or the formula 