Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/588

 mind, even this is better than a wholesale passing by the plank of all the words and thoughts of the men, whose minds during the past few years you have sought to understand. Unless you continue your study of the language and its literature, your English education will prove of little use beyond providing means of earning your daily bread. I do not despise this use, but you will indeed be poor in soul if you reap no greater riches therefrom than what can be tied up in a money bag. Let it not be said of you that you have sought to obtain a degree only and not also to raise yourselves to a higher life of thought and action.

In the course of your reading few of you will not have become conscious of the direction in which your taste or talent lies. Cultivate that taste by reading with especial care all that you find on the subject in the newspapers, the journals, and above all, in books—and make a real effort to economise and buy the books that give you special help and pleasure. Do not grudge this money. Such books are often more precious than rubies to the true learner. This taste for forming small libraries is I know here and there beginning to show itself, and it is all the more necessary in this country where at present not a single public library exists—though through the generous policy of your late Governor, Lord Connemara, that reproach will soon be removed from Madras. I have always felt a sincere sympathy for the young graduate who passes to up-country life, where he will rarely find good books available, notwithstanding that, the Government offers to help most liberally the formation of libraries. Do not be tempted to say "I have my work to do, and I would do that, with my might. What help will the continued study of literature be to me?" You can make no greater mistake in life than this, for the study of literature is in a sense the study of mankind. And you cannot be in sympathy with your kind, you cannot have a due sense of proportion with regard to your own special work, if you neglect to read, or rather to keep up your reading in general subjects as well as to pursue reading in connection with your special work in life. I do not say you should not have your favorite lines of reading or your favorite authors; by no means. Even in literature you should have your own department, your own book-case, so to speak, in the world's library. But do not narrow your sympathies. Most of you will make your living in the Public service. That service more and more needs cultivated men, men full of the thoughts of others as well