Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/554

 the attention of the youth of the country to courses of study and branches of knowledge that the University omits, and rightly omits to include in its curricula. This rapid increase in the numbers presenting themselves for the lower examinations may not in itself be a matter for rejoicing, seeing that only a small fraction of those that pass the lower examinations go on with their studies till they obtain a degree; but looking at the matter from another standpoint, and noting what expansion of Primary and Middle School education must have preceded it as a necessary condition, the great help that the University has given towards the successful working of the multitudinous agencies, public and private, that are carrying on the work of educating the youth of this country, deserves thankful recognition. Weighty testimony has been borne by previous speakers at Convocation to the services rendered by the University in providing the State with servants of a better stamp than it formerly had. The men that the University has given have been found to be superior to their predecessors in "method and regularity and also in the tone of morality" If these are all the benefits that the University has conferred, and I shall not pause to inquire what more it has, it must be acknowledged to have done a great and useful work, and to deserve the lasting gratitude of those who have profited by its labors. Tot hose who failed to pass the recent University Examinations, I would say, do not lose heart. Work with greater zeal and method than you have yet done, and if you deserve to succeed, succeed you will. Painful as it must be to you that you have failed, you will not be surprised to hear that there is a point of view in which your failure is a thing to be glad of. It is obvious that a University degree will cease to be of any value if the undeserving gain it as much as the deserving, and it is in every sense a more desirable thing that you should fail once, twice, thrice, and then succeed, only if you deserve to succeed, than that the value of a University degree should fall in men's esteem.There never was a greater necessity than at present for the University keeping a jealous watch over the standards of its examinations. The time may be far distant when the best graduates of this University can claim to be the intellectual equals of the best graduates of the West. Perhaps that time is a dream never to be realized. But there is no doubt that such equality is the ideal to be aimed at. Anything that tends even in a slight degree to cause a divergence from the policy hitherto pursued of raising standards gradually but to a definite and appreciable