Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/563

270 I now conclude, but before concluding, I congratulate you in the name of the University on the honors you have attained, and bid you go forth into the world, and win your spurs in the battle of life. The University to which you belong will watch your career with anxious solicitude, and expect you not simply to do the best you can, each for himself,—but also to do the best you can for your fellow-men and your mother country.

 

When Lord Connemara appointed me to deliver the customary address on this occasion, it was with mixed feelings that I undertook the duty. And the more I have thought of it, the more divided have my feelings become. On the one hand, I feel gratified to be associated with the distinguished men who in years gone by have stood in the place I occupy to-day. On the other hand, I cannot but reflect that this high privilege brings with it great responsibility. My predecessors have on behalf of the University, offered to graduates of former years a cordial welcome to the world of letters and science. It is for me to see to it that the welcome offered to you shall not be less warm and sincere. An ideal of duty, pure and lofty, has year after year been presented to graduates on their admission as members of the University. It is for me to give earnest heed that, in presenting this ideal to you to-day, it shall not be lowered or tarnished.

I am reminded to-day of twenty years ago, when for the first time I attended as a spectator at a Convocation of this University. However much this graduation ceremony may, by reason of repetition, lose in attractiveness to a superficial on-looker, it has an abiding charm for the man who retains through life his sympathy with the struggles and triumphs of the youthful seeker after knowledge. I can recall as if it had been but yesterday the eloquent words in which your predecessors of twenty years ago were addressed by one who was even then coming to be recognized as a power for good in Southern India; though at that time he had not secured the hold on the affectionate esteem and gratitude of your countrymen which his great abilities, his liberality, his self-sacrificing devotion have now deservedly won for him. On that occasion the Rev. Dr. Miller sought to instil something of his own enthusiasm into the breasts of the young men just admitted to be members of the University, appealing 