Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/69

24 the diffusion of enlightenment and the propagation of virtue, to discharge with loyalty and integrity the whole round of your duties in life and to further the best interests of the community and of humanity to the utmost possibility of your opportunities. Thus, in eloquent symbol, your gown is the robe of a Dedicated Life; your hood, the budge of an ever-growing League of the Leading Light; and the diploma now handed to you, the Lamp of Learning more constant and more potent than Aladin’s 'Wonderful Lamp’. These form the charter of your franchise in the Republic of Letters. By your graduation you have been admitted to the freedom of the world-wide Commonwealth of Culture. Your Degree is thus a pearl of great price. I exhort you to use it with wisdom and to wear it with honor. I wish you all the, happiness of its possession.

It goes without saying that the Degree the possession of which entitles you to the esteem of all lovers of learning, has been won with incalculable pains. ‘Tendrils strong as flesh and blood’ intertwine the several