Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/62

Rh you all feel the same. It is not only—in the words I addressed to each one of those who received at my hands a degree this day—it is nob only that they are in their life and conversation to be worthy of the distinction that they have now earned, but I would ask you, in the interests of the University, in the pride you take in her, continue the same desire to learn distinction: and I pray that your after-life may reflect lustre, may reflect credit, on the University with which you are connected. I ask you all to join with me in wishing "Floreat Academia."

 

Gentlemen of the Senate,—I am sure we all deeply regret the absence on this occasion of our Governor, the Right Honourable Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, our Chancellor. The deep interest which His Excellency takes in the prosperity of the University; his ready, eloquent, and effective advocacy of its claims; and the encouragement which he gives to it in various ways, we most highly appreciate. We all deeply sympathise with the object of his absence, that of welcoming, along with our distinguished Viceroy, the Earl Mayo, and the other magnates of this great country, the second son of our most Gracious and Illustrious Queen Victoria to the shores of India. We ourselves (I venture to speak not only for this large assembly, but for the whole of the West of India) most cordially join in that welcome. We, the dwellers on "Cambay's strand," unite our most cordial felicitations with those of our fellow-subjects sojourning near "Ganges' golden wave" on the arrival, in this distant land, of our Sailor Prince, who is gracefully carrying the expression of the imperial and personal interest of her Majesty in all her subjects to the remotest places of the globe. We go further than this, and humbly beg His Royal Highness to spare as much time as he conveniently can for this most populous and rapidly growing city, with its numerous and diversified tribes and tongues congregated together, with its capacious and beautiful harbour, with a commerce the most valuable of the "Greater Britain," needing the protection of the Royal Navy, with most curious and instructive antiquities within easy reach, some of which extend back beyond the Christian era, and with the most picturesque and sublime scenery in its neighbouring isles, hills, and mountains. 