Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/74

 graduate who successfully passes the LL,B. Examination with the highest number of marks for a paper on Hindu and Muhammadan law. This is another instance of the yearly increase of the endowments of this University.

And now, gentlemen, let us in conclusion see what answer the experience of the past ten years enables us to make to the questions suggested by your late Chancellor in his first address. Has the University answered the great end for which it was founded, viz., "the encouragement of Her Majesty's subjects of all classes and denominations within this Presidency in the pursuit of a regular and liberal course of education"?—have those who have won its laurels proved themselves true children of their Alma Mater?—has the University established its reputation by providing men fit to be teachers of its students?—has it proved, as Sir Bartle Frere hoped it would prove, that Oriental intellect is not worn out; that while it possesses great capacity to receive and retain knowledge, it also has the power to analyse and combine, that it can now produce the same results of a high order of intellect as those of which the ancient literature of the country gives such abundant evidence?—above all, has it produced men who, while rising high in the ranks of scholastic ability and scientific learning, have shown themselves valuable citizens of the world? I trust the results of our past experience enable us to answer much of this in the affirmative. Already have three of the professorial chairs been filled from its graduates, besides many of those important posts, the headships of the High Schools; papers on abstruse questions have been produced; the ranks of the Bar and the Medical Services of the State have been recruited from its alumni. These are indeed subjects for sincere congratulations. But doubts have been breathed as to whether the University will turn out as valuable citizens of the world as did Professors Bell and Henderson, Harkness and Green, in the days of the old Elphinstone institution; it has been hinted that our best men will prove to be but pedants; that, however full of classical and mathematical learning they may be, they are not so well fitted for mixing with the world, for taking their part in the government of the country, or for forming for their country a healthy and just public opinion, as were those who preceded them in their educational career. I mention these doubts as existing, and therefore as being worthy of a careful investigation by teachers, by graduates, and by students. At home most of our best men in all the professions, in Parliament and in the