Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/68

23 cultivated intellect, chastened tastes, refined susceptibilities, worthy aspirations, considerate demeanour and disciplined character. The studies whereby you have qualified for the degree have ‘learnt’ you one supreme lesson— the tasks of the student are in themselves enlivening and elevating, that ‘labor is life’ and ‘labor is glory'. Those studies were designed and directed to evolve in you the true spirit of the scholar—the spirit noted for passionate quest of knowledge, cheerful submission to discipline, unswerving adherence to duty, keen appreciation of the realities of life and an inexhaustible fund of humane impulses. The ‘promises’ which you have had to guarantee with your honor before you could be admitted to your degree, constitute a comprehensive covenant that you would bo ever alive to your obligations as an individual, as a worker, as a citizen, as a member of society, as a factor of humanity. Through these pledges you have bound yourself to eschew whatever is low and unworthy, to strive after whatever is high and honorable, to employ your talent and influence for