Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/549

 your less fortunate countrymen. You will teach them to observe those great laws that cannot be broken with impunity. That for them to preserve their bodily health and escape the ravages of such relentless avengers as cholera or small-pox, attention must be paid to the sanitation and conservancy of their homes and villages; that the water to be used for food must not be that green filthy liquid taken from the little tank into which the sewage of the village runs or percolates; but it must be pure and clear, carrying with it refreshing and life, not decay and death. You will use your influence to dispel many of the prejudices that prevail amongst your countrymen, such for example as that against vaccination, so that many a home may not be left desolate, many a lovely face not disfigured by the scars of a loathsome disease. Your scientific knowledge should enable you to help the manufacturer to produce a higher quality of goods, and if as the latest writer maintains, the country plough is the best suited to the requirements of the land and the climate, you can at least impress upon the ryot the importance of a rotation of crops, and that land, if it is to be a bountiful giver, must be treated generously and liberally.

Students you have been, students you must continue to be, and students of more than books.

You are going out into the world and will come into living contact with living men. Your lot may probably be cast in times when great social and, it may be, religious questions will have to be considered and faced. It will require of you the utmost caution, the most careful study of the questions themselves and of their apparent adaptability to the times in which you live, and from your knowledge of the history of the human race and human institutions, from your study of the great movements that have convulsed nations, at one time hurling them into darkness and despair, at another time carrying them on to a brighter and happier and more glorious era than had ever previously dawned upon them, you will have to determine for yourselves whether things shall remain as they are, or whether customs, consecrated by a hoary antiquity, and deeply rooted in the hearts of an ancient people, shall not be changed or done away with. You will have to make up your mind as to whether, for example, infant marriage and enforced widowhood is to be perpetuated, and every year the lives of thousands of young, bright and tender hearts to be blasted and reduced to wretchedness. And with the light which you have received, if you are persuaded that such customs are detrimental to the happiness of your country, that they are contrary to human nature and