Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/562

 or a more agreeable kind of play-thing, but that which will make her fit to sympathize with her husband's aims and aspirations, to other him wise counsel, and so to bring up her children as to turn their natural endowment to the best account.

It has been often pointed out that there is among you much industry but little thought, great power of acquisition but small power of production. The charge, I fear, is well grounded. This unsatisfactory result is, I have no doubt, in some measure due to the vicious methods of teaching necessitated by the demands of the long series of examinations that our young men have to pass, and the small scope allowed for the free play of the intellect when its whole energy is spent on the mere acquisition of knowledge, and there is little power and less inclination for assimilating and organizing the knowledge acquired. You do not need to be told that your education has but just begun. It has begun not only in the sense that you have to go on adding to your stock of knowledge to keep yourself abreast of the times in which you live, but also in the sense that you have to reflect on what knowledge you have already gained, and make it a part of your intellectual furniture. Most, if not all of you, will have to discharge professional duties of one kind or another. Your education up to this point has been intended to fit you for every path of life. You have now to choose some one path. See to it that the path you choose is such as is suited to your tastes and capabilities. I count it superfluous to advise you that professional success cannot be attained without a careful study of principles, and without that skill in the application of principles which is to be gained only by constant practice. The tendency to study almost exclusively codes and acts, rules and regulations is a survival of scholastic habits that needs in your case to be checked and counteracted, rather than encouraged. Let me warn you, therefore, of the danger you have to guard against in your ardent pursuit of professional success, —the danger of learning only what bears on your profession and of neglecting altogether those humanizing studies, which are necessary to keep the intellect fresh, active and healthy; the danger of your letting the mind move in well-worn grooves, —the danger of your becoming slaves to routine. Remember that while you have to improve your professional knowledge and skill, you have also to keep up the habit of studying the wise and noble thoughts of the living and the dead. It is only by doing so that you may hope to have a well-balanced mind, —a mind with a clear sense of the true and the just, —a mind with a keen sense of the beautiful in nature or art, —a mind instinct with noble feelings.