Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/566

 position to which, by the degrees conferred upon you, you have attained. This implies that you give due heed to the cultivation of your intellectual and moral character for their own sakes. Self-culture is, moreover, an indispensable pre-requisite for the fulfilment of those other duties incumbent on you as graduates of this University. You have now become members of a body corporate, and can no longer as individuals live for yourselves. Your aims and pursuits must henceforward be in harmony with those of the society into which you have been admitted. And what are those aims? They are the advancement of learning, and the promotion of morality and human welfare. Freely ye have received of the gift of knowledge, freely give. Strive not only to increase the stock of human knowledge, but also to spread it among the ignorant. Be it your aim not only to elevate and purify the ideal of duty, but also to encourage and help your fellow-men in their endeavours to live a better life. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what-soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: these things it must be your ceaseless endeavour to realize in your own lives and in those of your fellow-men.

If our graduates would earnestly strive to promote the cause of morality and sound learning, and to advance the welfare of their fellow-countrymen, there would, I am fain to believe, be less of adverse public criticism at their expense. The opinion is widespread that the manufacture of graduates—for in this disparaging way is the course you have gone through referred to—that the manufacture of graduates is both harmful in itself and far in excess of the requirements of the country. This is a serious charge, and it is for you and your fellow-graduates to enquire into the truth of it.

Manufacture of Graduates

On the 31st March last there were on the rolls of the University 2,169 graduates in Arts, 351 graduates in Law, 78 graduates in Medicine, and 47 graduates in Engineering. Now, taking into account only the graduates in Arts, I would ask whether 2,169 is an excessively large number among a population of some forty millions. Compared with the audience assembled in this hall, you, the newly-admitted graduates in Arts, may seem to be a large body; and should your names appear in to-morrow's newspapers, the list will not be a short one. This year, as in former years, the question will be asked : What is to become of you ? People forget that before twenty-four hours are over you will have begun to scatter yourselves over the enormous area embraced by Southern 35