Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/537

 Be manly. Book-learning alone never yet made a nation and never will. Be manly. Thanks to the untiring efforts o£ Certain gentlemen to whom the youth of Southern India can never be sufficiently grateful, at the head of whom is now His Excellency the Governor, you have ample opportunity for athletics and gymnastics, and for all games from cricket down to epicene lawn tennis, opportunity of which may take advantage. The reproach cast in the teeth of your brother of the Ganges would be idle in your case. But even though you should cultivate the body till it reaches the perfection aimed at in Greece that would not be enough. There would then be the machine and the brain to direct the machine, but the motive power would still be wanting. You must have the manly spirit. Look for noble examples, and follow in their footsteps; they may be found in the living world, in history, in art. Both by precept and practice discourage petty squabbling and quarrelling. Discourage appeals to the Police Court on every trifling occasion. Possibly the very excellence of the Penal Code does harm in this direction. Its provisions are so elastic and so easy of application that they must often present irresistible temptation to an aggrieved person. This was put very nicely by a candidate at a law examination some years back. I had asked what safeguard there is against the excessive litigation that would arise if the provisions of the Code were literally enforced, and the young man replied "there is no safeguard so long as one lives in society, the only way is to retire from the world and become a hermit." So melancholy a solution of the difficulty suggests much unhappy experience.

Be brave. You come of a land that has bred brave men. The fables of antiquity tell of no nobler exploits than those performed by the Madras Army. Not alone Amboor, Arcot, Assaye, and such familiar instances; but numberless deeds of heroism, endurance, self-denial, done by knots of men all over the Presidency, deeds so common in their day as to pass almost unnoticed, and which now live only in obscure chronicles forgotten by all but the curious. These things should however find a place in your memories, for it is the Madras Army which has made your presence here to-day possible.

Be thorough. Whatever you are doing, do it with all your might. Strive to earn the character of always trying your best, and thus beget a confidence which no amount of mere cleverness can ever hope to win. Then if you fail, as all must fail sometimes, there will be no disgrace. Now