Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/76

 most distinguished of the academical institutions of his native country, I was much indebted for the constant and sedulous attention he paid to the interests of the University. To your predecessor, whom I also see present, I would tender my hearty acknowledgments, and I am sure I speak only the sentiments of everybody around me when I say that we are all glad to see Dr. Wilson once more among us, invigorated, and as young as ever, and as desirous to fulfil the same loving labours which have marked his course hitherto in the promotion of the welfare, moral and social, of the population of India. But, Sir, before I make the more general observations which are dictated by the recollection that this is the last occasion on which I shall address you, there are some particular remarks suggested by a perusal of the records of examinations in the past years which I wish to address to the younger members of this University. From the reports which I have perused to-day, it appears that in some respects the position of this University is satisfactory and improving.

As regards the Matriculation Examination it is satisfactory to find that there are less failures this year than in the one that has immediately preceded it. There are forty-one less candidates than there were last year, but ninety-five more candidates have passed, showing that young men who have come up to begin their studies at the University have come up better prepared; and it is a source of unmixed gratification to me, as I am sure it must be to every one who has the interests of the University at heart, that this result has been obtained, not by any lowering of our standard or requiring less information or less acquirements on the part of the candidates, but from the fact that the institutions throughout the country in which the preliminary education of our students is obtained, are successfully fulfilling the objects for which they were founded. I wish. Sir, I could say that every other fact which has been disclosed to me by a perusal of the records of past years was equally a subject of gratification, but there is one point upon which I desire to say a few words of warning and counsel to those who come to this University to receive these academical honours.

I find too much reason to believe that most of the young men who come up to this University are content with their first successes, and consider that in taking their first degree they have done all that is necessary. I find that out of 116 candidates who have passed here and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, only twenty-four, or about one-fifth, have taken the degree of Master of Arts. Of these twenty-