Page:University of Calcutta Special Convocation Address 1921.djvu/7



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On occasions when Honorary Degrees are conferred in this University, the Vice-Chancellor is expected to dwell at some length on the eminent position and attainments of the distinguished recipients; but whatever may verily be pleaded in defence of this time-honoured custom, a departure may well be sanctioned when we are assembled to show our regard for the Heir-Apparent to the Throne. The event may rightly be interpreted as possessing a significance rather national and imperial than scholastic and academic. We rejoice to think that now forty-six years ago, when the Senate of this University desired to honour His Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, whom Queen Victoria of loved and revered memory, had sent out in our midst in token of her deep affection for the millions of her subjects in her Indian Empire, we were authorised to give expression to our feelings in a manner befitting an academic body and to open our roll of Honorary graduates with his illustrious name. We remember, again, with pride and pleasure that thirty years later