Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/33

Rh understand, they are able to feel the moral and social changes which are needed for the improvement and happiness of their country: and the time cannot be far distant when they will not content themselves, as for the most part they now do, with merely giving outward form and utterance to the expression of their inward thought, but will dare to act undauntedly and consistently, up to the full strength of their secret convictions.

"This is the great moral revolution which is preparing for Bengal, or rather which is already begun: this is the part which the students of our Colleges are destined to play in it, and it is for this reason that I look with so much interest on their progress and prosperity.

"There is one part of Sir Erskine Perry's speech, to which I desire particularly to direct your attention.

You are aware that natives educated in this Institution have evinced for years past not only such moral conduct in private life as has excited the admiration of every body, but also as high moral actions, as good citizens, as the youth of any country could display; for we see them, by their own exertions, unaided by the influence of rank or station, or patronage, spend their time in the erection of Institutions for the benefit of their fellow countrymen, their Vernacular Schools, their Literary Society, and their Vernacular publications: and these are owing to that moral training which they have had under the Professors from whom they have derived the varied attainments they possess. If then another argument was wanted in support of the demonstration I alluded to, we have a powerful one in the existence of these Institutions.—Having now discharged myself of the observations which I wished to make on this occasion, I hardly think that anything more need be said, except to encourage the young men before me in the course they are treading with so much distinction to themselves.'

"And again—

I need not now address you in terms of praise of the young men whom I see before me. It is not necessary: for you do not require any such stimulus to goad you on to distinction. There are two young men, however, whom it is incumbent on me to hold up to the admiration of the community, and to you as a bright example; that young man whom we have seen this morning distributing the prizes, and his worthy colleague Mahadeo Shastree. To these two youths, under the good guidance of their instructors, Professors Patton and Reid, is due the merit of the establishment of the Female Schools in connection with the Students' Literary Society.'