Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 1/Mr. Justice Raymond West, C.S., M.A., F.R.G.S. (The First Special Convocation)
THE FIRST SPECIAL CONVOCATION.
A Special Convocation of the Bombay University was held on the 18th December 1884, to confer the Honorary Degree of LL.D. on the Marquis of Ripon. Sir James Fergusson, Bart., K.C.M.G,, C.I.E., Governor and Chancellor, was present. The Honorable Mr. Justice West, the Vice- Chancellor, said:—
Gentlemen,—By an Act of the Indian Legislature, No. 1 of 1884, this University has been vested with the power of conferring the honorary degree of LL.D. on any person who by reason of eminent position and attainments is a fit and proper person to receive such a degree. In accordance with the provisions of this Act the name of His Excellency the Most Moble the Marquis of Kipon has been brought before the Syndicate and Senate, and it has been voted unanimously that this degree be conferred upon the retiring Viceroy. Now, Mr. Chancellor, although it might be superfluous on the present occasion and in the present instance to enumerate the special reasons for which the bestowal of this degree is specially appropriate, yet this is the first occasion on which this degree is to be conferred; and the Syndicate of this University felt, as you yourself, Mr. Chancellor, also must feel, that we should be cautious and exact in setting up a precedent of what is to be done and what is to be provided before aught is done in relation to the conferring of honorary degrees in future. We are bound to establish well, in the light of day and in. the face of the public, the right of every recipient of such a distinction—the recipient ought to stand forth as a representative either of learning, which will give illustration to this institution, or else as one distinguished for eminent public services which make us proud of him who receiving our humble honor thus associates himself with us.
For this reason, therefore, the duty has been assigned to me, unequal as I feel to the function, of stating as I can to you, Mr. Chancellor, the particular public services which the illustrious gentleman, who has to receive the degree of Doctor of Laws to-day, has performed to entitle him to that distinction and to make us anxious to have him associated with us as a member of this University.
The Marquis of Ripon began his public services by entering Parliament at an early age in the year 1852. The Marquis of Ripon's public career. He succeeded to his Peerage in 1859 and was immediately afterwards made Under-Secretary for War. In 1861 he became Under-Secretary of State for India, and so commenced that association with this country and its interests which has been of such manifold advantages to all the inhabitants of India. In 1863 he became Secretary of State for War with a seat in the Cabinet. In 1866 he returned again to the care of the interest of India in a still higher position as Secretary of State for India. In 1868, and from that time till 1873, he was Lord President of the Council. During that period, I need hardly remind any of my English hearers, that great measure was passed under the care of Mr. Forster which has made a revolution in the educational condition of England, and will probably be looked back upon in the ages to come as constituting one of the great eras in our history. Certainly we may look forward with hope and confidence seeing what education has done for Scotland and Germany, and considering the extraordinary advances made in England, as every one revisiting the country must have noticed, during the last twelve or fourteen years in the education and intelligence of the people. We cannot but bless the name of one who has brought such manifold blessings upon our Native land. Now this work was carried on very much under the care and guidance of Lord Ripon, who was at that time Lord President of the Council which had the controlling power and direction over the work of education in England. In 1869 his Lordship was made a Knight of the Garter and in 1870 he received the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws at Oxford.
In the period during which Lord Ripon was President of the Council, Lord Ripon and the Treaty of Washington. a serious question arose between England and the United States, and it became necessary to determine how that difference was to be settled, and to place matters, if it could be done, upon such a footing, as to remove all the motives of estrangement which might exist between these two sister nations. For this duty Lord Ripon was selected. He negotiated or helped to negotiate as a member of the High Commission the Treaty of Washington. It may be that some of us Englishmen think that in the final event when the treaty having been completed, active operations were transferred to Geneva and the Committee of experts sitting there gave their decision in the international cause, poor England came off second best. That may be; but let us remember that three or four millions to a great nation was but the price of a fortnight or less than a fortnight of war. By the Treaty of Washington was first established, and by the subsequent proceedings effect was first given, on a large and important scale to the great principle of settling international differences by reference not to the arbitrament of war, but to the decision of persons recognised as specially competent to deal with the questions in issue. This idea of a universal peace and of a council governing Europe in the interests of peace and reducing its jarring elements to one great harmony originated first in modern times in the mind of the great Statesman Sully, and was adopted by Henry IV of France, his equally great master. Our own sagacious Queen Elizabeth gave her adherence to the scheme, but in the then existing state of Europe it proved impracticable The conception was revived under Louis the XV by that prolific genius St. Pierre. He communicated his ideas to many of the Governments of Europe, whose Statesmen, however, received them with but an academic approval. Leibnitz, who wielded at that time an almost imperial sceptre in the world of thought, replied to the humbler philosopher's claim for approval and support in a half-cheering and yet half-jeering tone : "I trust, my good friend, you will live to see your noble plans carried out," and to another friend he wrote: "In one place I have seen the proclamation Pax perpetua, but that was over a cemetery. Till people reach that last retreat they still must go on fighting." Yet the plans and visions of the philanthropic speculation though hitherto it has been found impossible to give them any direct effect in the international concerns of Europe, have not been fruitless, as great and humane ideas seldom are fruitless. In several ways they have permeated the minds of Statesmen and the miseries of wars which have occurred in more recent times have been alleviated very much by the ideas which were put forward by the thinkers of two centuries or more ago. I feel certain that as he recollects the events of his active life, when he approaches the end of his distinguished career. Lord Ripon will look back upon no part, no transaction in this career with greater satisfaction than on the part he took in the settling of the Treaty of Washington. For many of his acts and much of his work he will occupy a distinguished place in the history of his country and of this great dependency; but with the Treaty of Washington he takes a high and distinguished position, one never to be lost, in the history of the progress of mankind. That progress, gentlemen, as we must hope, must involve at no very distant stage a universal or at any rate far more widely extended peace than has hitherto been known. As a messenger of peace, as a negotiator of a great international arrangement, Lord Ripon may congratulate himself on the position he has won in history.
With, these antecedents, and with these claims to public respect and confidence, The condition of India when Lord Ripon landed in India. Lord Ripon accepted in 1880 the post of Viceroy in India. He landed here at the end of May 1880. You will all remember who were here at that time, that it was the end of a somewhat troubled and depressing period. We had had during the preceding years a war which could hardly be pronounced aught else but inglorious in spite of some brilliant episodes. We had incurred a great increase of burdens consequent on the war, and there was a generally spread feeling of unrest and craving for some new departure in politics, some relief from the burdens of war, some definite movement in the direction of internal reform. To all who looked forward for these advantages the advent of Lord Ripon was welcome. His character and antecedents were such that the whole community joined in hailing his arrival. We looked to him who had negotiated peace with the great sister country of England across the Atlantic, as one who would maintain peace in this country, and that hope has never been disappointed. With a few most insignificant exceptions peace has been preserved all through the course of Lord Ripon's administration, and with peace have arisen the opportunities for all that progress and all those great measures with which his name must be indissolubly associated. The charm of his personal influence. How did he set about the work he had to do? He moved amongst the people, was facile of access, gentle and simple in demeanour, winning all hearts by his suavity of manner:
"Not with half disdain hid under grace,
But kindly man moving amongst his kind."
Whoever came within the circle of his influence, was charmed into communicativeness as when some kindly soul enters a house and draws the children of that household towards him by an irresistible attraction. They sidle up to him, whom they find really interested in their child nature; to him they reveal all their little troubles. In six minutes he has won all their love, and all their trust, and thus has paved the way for impressions which will extend all through their lives. Now such was the position taken up by the distinguished Viceroy on his arrival in this country; and at every moment of this close converse with the people with whom he was in communication he reaped the advantage of that freedom of intercourse. His was not a nature that needed disguising under any muddy wheel of mystery. He could afford to stand forth in the bare simplicity of steadfastness and sincerity before the eyes of the people he had come to govern, and being known to be received by them for all in all, or not at all. Thus he won their confidence, thus he gained their hearts, and thus entered into the spirit of the people in the way that best qualified him for the work he had to do.
Now there is a necessity for every man who enters in a career such as that of a Viceroy of India, Principles of Lord Ripon. whether he will or not, he needs must frame some plan of action, some theory of human affairs, and of the affairs of the nation or the community whom he comes to rule, unless his rule is to be misrule and the consequent confusion and chaos. Such a theory, no doubt, Lord Ripon formed reposing on the communications to which I have adverted. He found India in one of those critical stages which arise at times in every nation when men's minds having become imbued with a new set of ideas and desires, certain changes in the spirit of the administration are absolutely necessary, unless there is to be a decided falling back in policy, and thence dissension leading on to strife. There is a period in the progress of every community, in the history of every government, when the rulers of the community must adapt themselves to changed circumstances, to new and enlarged views, for, if they do not, from the divergence of the views of governors and subjects must surely spring in time a total alienation. It is the part of a Statesman to anticipate any such events. He must look back on history and consider such periods as when Christianity invaded the Roman Empire and the Government based on a too narrow set of conceptions found itself unequal to the direction of the new moral forces that thus grew up around it. That faith and that spiritual enlargement which might have been the saving of the ancient civilisations were hence felt to be a cause of enfeeblement and disintegration. Again, when the spread of new learning in Europe gave to men's minds a fresh stimulus and a first standpoint from which to survey the problems of individual and social actions, the Governments, fast-rooted in old prejudice, were blind to the portents that pressed on their attention. The questions had to be settled in foreign and domestic wars which provident Statesmanship would have averted. A kind of half repose was gained by exhaustion until once more in the last century an audacious literature, sapping the foundations of the existing social structure, filled men's minds with new questions, with discontent and wild dreams of what might be effected by better institutions. Once more the Statesmen lagged behind the march of ideas and then the moral earthquake of the French Revolution carried waste and desolation over the fairest fields of Europe. These are examples which no doubt presented themselves to the mind of our distinguished Viceroy, and he felt that everywhere and in every country the highest utility unites itself with the highest benevolence, and that the lesson that philanthropy dictates is responded to by history and philosophy.
Such, then, were the principles with which our Viceroy entered on his active course. Review of Lord Ripon's Viceroyalty. The whole of his career has been a working out, a development of those noble principles, and here to-day we come to recognise both the principles themselves and their rich and manifold fruits. I have stated that we have had peace, and peace having been secured. Lord Ripon turned his attention immediately to a measure which the public voice in India had already cried out for in unmistakable tones. That was the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act. That Act, I believe, and we all here believed from the beginning, was passed under a total misconception of the necessity for it. It was opposed to the spirit equally of Englishmen and of Natives, who have been brought up not in vain to English ways and habits of thought. It could not effectually be carried out, by an English administration and by English officers whose whole life and training had been in a different atmosphere. They could not deal with such a measure without falling into contradictions and a constant sense of a false position. It was abortive, and it was well got rid of, in the opinion of the general public. Next let me refer to the financial and fiscal measures. First, I will refer to that which met with anything but universal approval, and specially on the part of my Native friends and associates, that is, the abolition of a large portion of the import duties. I believe that Lord Ripon and his Government in abolishing these import duties were doing what was perfectly right in the interests of this country and in the interests of England and of the world. But whether that was so or not, the spirit in which Lord Ripon met with such an opposition as he encountered on that occasion showed him to be a man not to be deterred from what his conscience bids him to do, by any outcry of the crowd. Next I will mention the resolutions of his Government which go to determine in a way more favorable to the cultivator and the landowner, the calculation of the land revenue in times to come. This subject has been treated by a very able and distinguished Native friend of mine, and it has some technicalities about it which are not well fitted for discussion on an occasion of this kind. I call attention only to the careful watchfulness with which Lord Ripon's Government have set themselves to alleviate the unnecessary burdens of the people.
But, then, comes a measure of greater importance for the future than one of revenue. Lord Ripon, as Lord President of the Council, had had the educational department in England under his charge, and one of the greatest measures of his Viceroyalty will doubtless be commemorated in the future as the institution of the Education Commission and the resolutions of his Government consequent on its report. It is now a generation since the working upon the basis of the Despatch of Lord Halifax began in this country, and to one who can look back at the early years of progress of that great measure, the amount of advancement that we have enjoyed is something almost marvellous. We could hardly credit it but for the evidence that is before our eyes. I believe that the investigations made by the Education Commission, and the Resolutions of the Government of India on the report of that Commission, will in future be the starting point of a new and equally great advance. It depends on Native intelligence and Native industry to take advantage of the policy adopted by the Government of India; and if they do, if the enthusiasm which is burning in the breasts of many of my young friends of the Native community be burning as brightly at the end of thirty years, I venture to say they will stand, if not foremost, yet equal in rank at least as regards a large class with the most educated nations. My valued and respected friend. Principal Wordsworth, the other day congratulated this University on the fact, that higher education was not to be set aside or degraded in favor of lower education. I felicitate the public and the Senate on this arrangement, and I have only to add, with regard to the educational policy of Government, that I do trust they will see the advisability of taking measures soon, and taking effectual measures for the spread of the education of those who are not to become scholars, but engineers and workers in other walks of life which do not require high scholarship, but rather a trained faculty and a technical education. I believe they will be seconded in that by the universal voice in India, and that all reasonable burdens will be readily borne for such a purpose in preference to almost any other that can be named.
Time presses, and I pass by the well-worn topic of local self-government. The next point which I venture to observe upon, is the bearing of Lord Ripon's Government on the subject of the High Court at Calcutta. We are all familiar with the circumstance that in the High Court of Calcutta a necessity arose some time ago for appointing an acting Chief Justice. I believe that even amongst those who doubt the policy of the appointment made by Lord Ripon's Government, there is no question as to the noble motives and high courage which dictated its action. For myself and in my own humble person I will venture to go a step further. It has been said that when you give power it is useless to hamper it, or attempt to hamper it with useless restrictions; and I add to that that it is futile to introduce amongst a body of enlightened and distinguished men a fertile principle and then to deny or refuse the fruits of that principle. It is for a Statesman to take care before he introduces a principle what are the logical consequences to which that principle leads; but when the principle is introduced, to follow it out loyally to the end, trusting to its intrinsic soundness to prevent all evil results. Next there is one other subject, and I believe for me—who enjoy, as I trust, the confidence and in a certain measure the respect of most of those who are sitting near me—it is not necessary to avoid even that subject, the glowing embers of which are still led beneath the ashy soil. I refer to the amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On the policy of that measure I do not intend to say anything; but I do call your attention, gentlemen of the Senate, to the noble and magnanimous bearing, the self-respect, charity and kindness and absence of all retort by Lord Ripon in relation to that measure and the clamour with which it was received. Probably Lord Ripon knew practically the spirit and the character of his countrymen so much better than those who have retorted ill for ill and hard words for hard words that their outcries made less impression on him than on the volunteer defenders who were comparative strangers to the rough struggles of intense political life. There is in truth not much to wonder at, and but little to resent now that the contest is over. We know that the Englishman, who has conquered in all climates and peopled the waste places of the earth, is an energetic and self-willed being with unbounded resolution, but also with a large share of the faults of his high qualities. These defects could no more be removed from his nature than the wart from the portrait of Cromwell. The man would no longer be the same. Lord Ripon knows this well, and no doubt his historical reading has taken him back to the passage in Milton—certainly a liberal, if ever there was one—where he describes our countryman in his time as having minds not readily accessible to civil wisdom and a sense of the public good, "headstrong and intractable to the industry and virtue of executing or understanding true civil government, valiant indeed and prosperous to win a field; but to know the end and reason of winning injudicious and unwise, in good and bad success alike intractable." These are the characteristics of an Englishman. These are the characteristics which have prevented him so often from knowing when he was beaten and often gained him an unscientific victory. Come down to Goldsmith and he paints our ancestors with
'Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
and when as the poet conceives them they are
'Intent on high designs'
Lord Ripon knows, and we all know, that there is no nobler breed. Let this be said of my countrymen in relation to the measure which Lord Ripon as a part of a great policy and as an act of great justice to the Natives of this country thought it his duty to make law. It cut sharply across the masterful instincts, the intuitions and the cherished habits of our British race, before their intelligence was enlightened and convinced. The soreness of the struggle has not quite passed away. But I feel certain that when a generation has elapsed they will feel not less kindly to Lord Ripon than he now feels to them. In their reflections of the future, they cannot as Englishman but admire the tenacity of purpose, genuineness of character, and command of temper which they individually bow down to in the circle of their friends.
We have thus seen history as it were in the making and watched the influence of a calm commanding mind over the current of events and the form of constitutional growth. The Christian spirit of Lord Ripon. Let me further remind my Native friends that here they have as their friend not only a politician, but a Christian man. We had a few years ago to commemorate an eminent and able man, a late Vice-Chancellor of this University, Dr. Wilson. I ventured then to say in the presence of a large majority of Native friends who were not Christians, that it was not in spite of his Christianity but in virtue of his Christianity that Dr. Wilson became all he was to their people, and I say now that the Christian spirit which has animated Lord Ripon and so many of his predecessors, has been of untold benefit to this country. Hence should some charity and love be learnt from this Christianity even by those who reject its dogmas. The same invincible moral courage that has supported martyrs at the stake and block is fruitful still in making men submit to toil and suffering and obloquy for the sake of their fellow-men. Viewed from this standpoint the career of Lord Ripon in this country has given to Englishmen and Natives alike reason to be proud of the association between the two countries. He, too, comes from that land not only of the pioneers of the forest and wilderness, but of Howard, Clarkson, Wilberforce, of Mrs. Fry and of Miss Nightingale, and in their spirit he has conducted the administration. It has been by his love and tenderness for the weak and those who needed aid that he has won a return of affection and confidence beyond any other Viceroy amongst all who have ruled this country. The manifestations of popular opinion and popular approval such as Lord Ripon has been overwhelmed with during the last few weeks are calculated not only to give him just joy and satisfaction, but they are calculated also to produce a great effect upon the great people of England. Never before I believe, has the community of this country shown so well that it possesses strong elements of political life and how capable it is of entering in due time into the wider and nobler future These impressions would surely be deepened and intensified should our countrymen but look for a while upon this present spectacle. The very hall in which we are assembled is the gift of a Native donor—a Parsee. The neighbouring library and tower are due to the munificence of a Hindu, who in his days of great prosperity showed his countrymen how wealth could be worthily expended, alone at that time, almost like Vespasian, amongst the Emperors, showing himself improved by his great fortune. I shrank from his acquaintance then, but often since have I admired the cheerful stoicism with which he has borne a reverse of fortune and harder lot. Indian University—their importance. Then, apart from the building, Mr. Chancellor, I invite you to look at this assembly. A foreigner not long ago, a man of great acuteness and observation, told me that he had seen many striking things in India, but what had struck him most was the working of this University. "Here," he said, "I find a liberality and single-minded pursuit of knowledge to which nearly all Continental Universities in Europe are strangers." On a Board of Examiners one finds on his right hand a Jesuit and on his left a Presbyterian Minister. Facing him are a Parsi and a Jew. Amongst them all a common spirit prevails, of disinterested zeal in diffusing the light of science. Men of every race and creed unite without chicane in the simple furtherance of learning. It is a glorious work of English principles and wisdom. The teaching by which our young members are trained is equally single-minded and equally free. There is no educational police, no Government scheme of morality or politics to hamper the intellectual action and the influence of our Professors. They throw their whole energies into their work and under such teachers as Principal Words- worth our students learn how to the burghers of the Middle Ages in Europe their clock tower was the centre and the symbol of their civic life. They look up to the noble tower that rises over this group of buildings and resolve that, gathering round this centre of their new intellectual being and aspirations, there shall for them too be a civic life, and an effort to win for India an honourable place in the society of nations. Such is our University and such is the University life in India. It is only on these grounds that we could venture to ask so distinguished a man as Lord Ripon to accept the humble tribute we offer him. Montesquieu said, "I don't like small honours; they seem to fix your position and measure your merits too exactly." And so it were no wonder if Lord Ripon, who has held the greatest office of State, and gained the highest tokens of approval from his Sovereign, had declined the compliment we desire to confer. But when we take up, not without warrant, a representative position, we gain confidence; the case is greatly altered. We presume to call ourselves the spokesmen here of India, and sure I am that every emotion of admiration and regard that stirs your breasts, gentlemen, to-day will be repeated a million and ten millions fold as the electric wires like nerves radiating from this centre convey to the cities and villages of this great country the tidings of our celebration. We may venture, then, to ask Lord Ripon to inscribe his name first on the roll of our honorary graduates. I trust, it will be followed in that roll by many distinguished names, and certainly each one of the honorary graduates in that golden book of fame may well look up to the one which stands first there as an encouragement to be just and fear not, and to put great powers and opportunities to worthy uses. Our departing Viceroy when he has left us in a couple of days will be attended by the good wishes of none more than of the members of this University. His whole spirit has been in accordance with the spirit of the University, and the University trusts that when he has returned to his beloved country he will still find occasions to render us some service and often turn his thoughts towards those who will never forget him. Love and sympathy can bridge an intervening ocean, and many a patriot and philanthropist here will feel the spirit of his friend beside him in his struggle to do good. It will bid him to be of good cheer in adversity, to maintain fortitude, patience and faith, to meet opposition with firmness, gentleness and charity. And so we bid our guest farewell with hopes for his happiness, whether he choose the active or the meditative life, and until at the call of his great Master he can with calmness pass
"To where beyond these voices there is peace."
The Chancellor then addressed the Senate as follows:—
Gentlemen of the Senate,—The honour which has just been conferred is one which should always be rare, conferred with discrimination, and founded on general acceptance. The Chancellor's speech. I am sure that these requisites are fully satisfied by the degree that has just been conferred. It is rare, for it is, indeed, at this moment unique. That it will be conferred in future with discrimination I am also certain, and so will its value be maintained; but I am still more sure, that in the act of the Senate in electing the Marquis of Ripon to this honour, they have met the wishes and satisfied the heartfelt desires of every member of this University, and so this is the parting gift of the University of Bombay to the retiring Viceroy. Gentlemen, I would say, though the Vice-Chancellor has set forth fully the claims of Lord Ripon to this degree, that although there may be in this Senate differences of opinion, as there must always be about worldly affairs upon details of policy, by the whole Senate it has been heartily bestowed. For myself I would say that no act of duty could be more gratifying to myself than to be the spokesman in conferring the degree upon one whom I have served during his whole Viceroyalty, and in whom I have only recognized again a kind and considerate friend. And though it be to compare small things with great, I cannot but recall at this moment that nearly thirty years ago, at the outset of my parliamentary life, my noble friend introduced me and procured my election to a literary society at home. We then sat on opposite sides of the house, and here to-day I am proud to repay him in kind. May he long live to enjoy this and other honours. I do not hesitate to congratulate him on the honour so nobly bestowed, and congratulate you, gentlemen of the Senate, on the admission of a member so altogether worthy of the honour.
Lord Ripon expressed his acknowledgments as follows:—
Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen,—I have seldom had a task in some respects more difficult than that which falls to my lot at the present moment. When I entered this hall, I knew that a distinction was about to be conferred upon me which I highly valued, because I saw in it a proof of the approval of a body which had devoted itself for many years to the advancement of the cause of education in India. But I was little prepared to find that I should have, if I may be pardoned the word, to encounter so appreciative a review of my public life as that which has fallen from my friend, your Vice-Chancellor. I only wish that I could think that his friendly judgment rightly described the course of that life, but I may perhaps be permitted to claim for it that there has at least been about it a certain unity. Throughout more than thirty years that I have now taken part in public affairs in England, and now here, I have been actuated by the same general principles of policy, and I may say that I have adhered to them without wavering, I will not venture to occupy your time by following in any degree the observations which have been made upon the details of my public course either at home or in India ; but I will say this, that I esteem it an honour of the highest kind that a body such as this should have given such an unmistakable intimation of their approval of the policy which I have pursued. I should be the last man to take an unfair advantage of the signs of esteem which you have given me to-night, and to interpret them as meaning that all the members of this University approved of each indi- vidual measure of my Government. That of course is impossible, but at least I hope that I may interpret the meaning of this degree as indicating that this distinguished body has followed with its sanction and with its approval the educational policy of the Government of India since I have been connected with it. You, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, have reminded me that a large portion of my public life has been given to the promotion of education in my own land—of education in the widest and the broadest sense, of education for the most enlightened and of education for the masses. And that same policy which I endeavoured to apply when I had the honour to be connected with the Department of Education at home I have pursued in India. Gentlemen, it would have been indeed strange if I had not taken an interest in Indian education, for I have sat for many years at the feet of Lord Halifax, and I am proud to count him among my warmest friends, and to call him my honoured master. The principles of that great Despatch of 1854 were those which I sought to apply and develop when I came out to this country; but I knew that, however sound these principles might be, it would not be wise after a lapse of thirty years to take measures for practically applying them to the existing circumstances of India without first ascertaining exactly what these circumstances were and what was the best means by which the principles of that Despatch might be applied to them at the present time. I therefore thought it wise to institute a searching inquiry into the condition of education in India. That inquiry was conducted with great ability by those to whom it was entrusted, and it has resulted in the suggestion of measures which have been in the main adopted by the Government of India, and adopted, I think I may say, with general acceptance. I found, gentlemen, ever from the first moment that I accepted the office of Viceroy, that those who were interested in the progress of education in India were keenly desirous for its extension among the masses of the people. But the question of primary education in India is beset by many difficulties, the chief of which arise from the very common perhaps, but very vital, difficulty—want of funds. There were those who in their zeal for elementary schools would have been prepared to see secondary and higher education imperilled and its advance delayed, but the Government of India never yielded to views of that description—and they were always determined that, whatever measures they might take to spread primary education throughout the length and breadth of the land, they would do nothing which could endanger the advance of higher instruction. It is true that we made an appeal to private aid, and that appeal has already received many responses which are, I trust, only the first fruits of that noble harvest which will be gathered hereafter by those who come after us. For my own part, gentlemen, An explanation of Lord Ripon's policy. I can truly say that the more I have studied this question in India itself the more convinced I have become that it would be a very serious mistake to do anything which could interfere with the onward progress of higher culture—or which could tend to place it beyond the reach of youths of limited means. The resolution which has been recently issued by the Government of India, and which constitutes almost my last political act in this country, has been framed upon these lines, and inspired by that spirit. But, gentlemen, I am very strongly impressed with the conviction that the spread of education, and especially of Western culture, carried on as it is under the auspices of this and the other Indian Universities, imposes new and special difficulties upon the Government of this country. It seems to me, I must confess, that it is little short of folly that we should throw open to increasing numbers the rich stores of Western learning; that we should inspire them with European ideas, and bring them into the closest contact with English thought; and that then we should, as it were, pay no heed to the growth of those aspirations which we have ourselves created, and the pride of those ambitions we have ourselves called forth. To my mind one of the most important, if it be also one of the most difficult, problems of the Indian Government in these days is how to afford such satisfaction to those aspirations and to those ambitions as may render the men who are animated by them the hearty advocates and the loyal supporters of the British Government. It is in such considerations that those who care to seek for it may find the explanation of much of the policy which I have pursued in this country. Gentlemen, at this late hour I will detain you no longer, but I will assure you that the deep interest which I have felt, and ever shall feel, in the progress of education in India makes me esteem very highly indeed the honour which you have conferred upon me to-day. My best wishes will ever accompany the onward progress of this University, which is doing in India for England work so noble, and is binding together the two lands and their numerous races with cords more powerful than the strength of armies and more enduring than the craft of Statesmen. Gentlemen, I thank you heartily.
TWENTY-FOURTH CONVOCATION.
(By The Honorable J. B. Peile, C.S., C.S.I.)
Gentlemen of the Senate,—When I succeeded to the office of Vice- Chancellor on the departure of my friend Mr. West, I did not anticipate that I should so soon be called upon to undertake the duty of addressing you in this place at the Annual Convocation of our University. I should have accepted with more pleasure a responsibility so honourable, if I did not deeply regret, as you also must regret, and it is a feeling which the Chancellor has begged me to say that he entirely reciprocates, the absence from the Chancellor's seat at the last Convocation which falls within his term of office, of a Governor of Bombay who is so steadfast and liberal a friend of education, so cordial in recognizing private educational enterprise, and so unwearied in encouraging our scholars by his kindly presence at school anniversaries, as is Sir James Fergusson.
The Registrar has read to you portions of the report of the proceedings of the University since the last Convocation, and the full report will shortly be placed in your hands. You will find therein the results of the University Examination, of which let it suffice to say that they are generally satisfactory, and prove by the increasing number of successful students in nearly all branches of study that the demand for higher education is still extending. The unprecedented number of 2,036 candidates presented themselves for Matriculation. As three-fifths of these candidates were unsuccessful, I note, without disparagement of others almost equally meritorious, the New English School at Poona and the Native State Schools of Bhavanagar and Junagad as distinguished by passing all or nearly all the candidates they sent up. Of the successful candidates, 22 were female students. I have been asked to observe that for the first time two members of the community of Beni-Israel have received University degrees to-day. There has been an addition to endowments in the shape of a medical prize and indeed I do not know that any year has passed without adding something to the endowments of this University.
But beyond the ordinary statistics of business, there is much in the record of events Spread of Education. which give a special significance and importance to the history of the past year. The spontaneous energy in education which is manifesting itself in our large towns may perhaps owe some of its vigour to the invitation held out by the Government to private enterprize, but chiefly it marks the fact that forces which have