Page:Essays and Discourses.djvu/88

42 name and forwarding it to the chairman (Lord Roseberry). Imagine my trepidation when in response to summons from the chair I ascended the platform, the more so as I was preceded by so great a master of Physical Science as Sir J. J. Thomson. I ventured to point out that the Indian degrees, based as they are upon teaching imparted in India, are often stamped with a badge of inferiority simply because they are labelled as "Indian ware!" Speaking with some degree of confidence about my own branch I further took the liberty to lay stress upon the fact that the contributions of our students were being hospitably received in the columns of the leading chemical Journals of Europe and America and I made bold to assert that their researches, if embodied in the shape of theses, would be readily accepted for a Doctorate in a European University. A distinguished chemist, whose name I am not at liberty to disclose, on going through the published papers of Mr. Nilratan Dhar, has expressed his opinion that he would not hesitate for a moment to award him a Doctorate, so far as his own University is concerned. Two of our late pupils, Messrs. Biman Behary Dey and Hemendra Kumar Sen Gupta, who have lately returned home after winning golden opinions of their Professors at the Imperial College of Science and the coveted distinction of the London D. Sc., may also be cited as instances. Messrs. Brojendranath Ghosh and Sudhamoy Ghosh, who have also just won Doctorates of the London and Edinburgh Universities respectively, on