Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 1/Sir H. B. E. Frere, K.C.B. 2
The Chancellor Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, K.C.B., G.C.S.I., then replied as follows:—
Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate,—I feel it very difficult to find words to express the deep and heartfelt gratification with which I have listened to the address which you have just read, following upon the Registrar's Report of the steady and most satisfactory progress which has been observable in the proceedings of this University during the past as in every preceding year since its foundation. I cannot but feel that you have estimated the share I have personally had in promoting the success of the University more favourably than I deserve, but I prize that estimate because I feel assured that the favourable view you have taken of what I have done while Governor of this Presidency is founded not on mere personal partiality, but on sympathy with the great objects we all of us have had in view.
I have endeavoured ever since I came to this Government Independence of the University. to promote, as far as lay in my power, the efficiency and independence of this University, because I believe that it contains the germ of some of the most valuable gifts which England could bestow upon India. You have spoken of the "forbearance" which, as head of the "Political Government," I have exhibited towards the University, and you do me no more than justice in inferring that what you term "forbearance" has not been the result of lukewarmness or indifference but of a clear conviction that the Political Government of this country could hardly commit a greater mistake than by attempting to convert the University into a "mere office or department of the State." I have ever felt most strongly the importance of those truths which you have so well expressed in your address that any loss of dignity or independence in the University involves also a loss of the highest kind of efficiency. During all the years that I have passed in this country I have felt a continually deepening conviction that, whatever absolute power may do to impress any particular image on the material with which it works, it cannot create any principle of life in institutions or communities, and that the vital force which lives, and grows, and has the germ of further life and further growth, can only result from true natural organization, and is infinitely more potent and valuable than any dead image which external power can impress. The valuable services of the Senate. It has been the object of this Government to draw to the Senate of this University all the independent thought and educated ability which is within our reach, and we firmly believe that no man worthy to be a Fellow of this University would consent to serve as a mere nominee of Government, bound in any way to prefer the behests of that Government to the dictates of his own conscience or independent convictions. It is a noteworthy circumstance that this University stands almost alone among the great institutions of this country, as managed by the unbought exertions of those who direct its action; and we of the Government attach a double value to whatever it does, because the progress it achieves affords an excellent practical refutation of the doctrine that no good or useful service to the State can be expected unless directly paid for in money or money's worth. We have a strong conviction that here, as in every part of the world, men will serve their fellowmen truly and laboriously for honour, for love, and for conscience sake, and we thank you for teaching this among other truths that great service may be done the State though it be not paid for in money. Trust and forbearance. Under these circumstances. Sir, I and my colleagues in this Government have felt that, if forbearance on the part of Government is sometimes needful, still oftener is forbearance called for on the part of the Senate when the habits and language of the Government may seem to imply a desire to dictate which in reality does not exist. Generous trust and forbearance on both sides are needed to insure life and growth in the joint work. You have alluded to the jealousy which centralizing and absolute Governments naturally feel as regards any independent institutions, the main object of which is the cultivation of free thought. I would say a very few words on the reasons why we believe that the Government of British India need entertain no such fear. Policy of other governing nations. In almost every other parallel case that we know of it has been more or less the object of the governing nation to treat a dependency like British India as a conquered possession, to be administered for the benefit direct or indirect of the governing power, and, in proportion as this spirit animates the action of the Government so will it have good reason to dread the independent growth of institutions like this. But England has, as I need not remind you, no such purpose, and need have no such fear. From the day when the sudden brilliancy of the achievements of her sons in this distant country first startled the Parliament and people of England, from the days of Clive and Warren Hastings to this hour, India to be administered as a trust from God. there has ever been a continual protest on the part of those who mould the thought and direct the action of the British nation, against the doctrine that India is to be administered in any other spirit than as a trust from God for the good of government of many millions of his creatures; and, however fitfully and imperfectly this purpose may have been carried out, it has in every generation grown in strength, and was never more powerful than at the present moment. However firmly England may resolve that no force shall wrest from her the Empire of India, the root of that resolve has always been a deep conviction that to surrender that Empire would be to betray a high trust. England desires to administer India as she would administer her own colonies with a single eye to the benefit of the dependency and with a strong assurance that whatever is truly good for the dependency must benefit the Empire at large. University "a most valuable auxiliary" to Government. To a rule of this kind such a University as you would form can be nothing but a most valuable auxiliary, training minds to understand and appreciate as well as to promote the great purpose of the ruling power. And even in the short life of this University and the schools which furnish its Graduates, I think we find practical proof that this view is the sound one. As I once before remarked from this chair, I remember the opening of the first English High School in this Presidency, and now, wherever I go I find the best exponents of the policy of the English Government, and the most able coadjutors in adjusting that policy to the peculiarities of the nations of India, among the ranks of those educated natives, for increasing whose numbers and for raising whose standard of attainments this University is designed. The usefulness of educated Indians. It is not only here in Bombay but from every part of the Presidency I receive testimony to this fact. From Sind and from Canara, from Kattyawar and Guzerat, and from the furthest parts of the Deccan, I have the concurrent evidence that, wherever progress, whether intellectual or material, is observable, there the natives who have received a good English education are among the most active in the good cause. And it is to be remarked that this is not observable of Government servants only. It is a healthy result of extended education that it has contributed to cause a diminution of that craving for Government employ which in former days was almost universal. No close observer can fail to have been struck by the increasing popularity of independent employment of every kind. But I do not find that this has been accompanied by any increase of what we in England would call Radicalism. The loyalty of the Native Press On the contrary, I find among the educated natives, who are independent of Government service, the strongest appreciation of the benefits of British rule. It is not among the best educated natives that we generally find the warm admirers of native misrule or those who sigh for the restoration of effete dynasties. This is remarkably evident in the native press, which from being generally in the hands of educated natives, writing anonymously, would naturally betray, if it existed, any prevalent spirit of disloyalty to the British Government. But I bear willing testimony to the fact that, whatever may be its defects in other respects, the usual spirit of the native press in this Presidency is one of spontaneous respect for and sympathy with the British Government. Individual rulers may be criticized severely, perhaps unjustly, but as regards the Government at large the prevailing tone of the native press is at least as respectful as in England, and its criticism is often expressed with remarkable ability. I would, before concluding, once more state very emphatically my convictions of the soundness of that policy which has led the University to insist on strict and severe examinations, which by limiting the number of admissions to the University, and by raising the tests required for its honours, has made its growth appear less rapid than it otherwise might have been. I am convinced that what has thus been lost in rapidity of growth has been gained in soundness and permanence of result, and it is this rigour of selection which has justified the Government in recognizing the University Degrees as a mark of social rank and official qualification. Benefactors. It has every year been a pleasing duty of the University to acknowledge the munificence of its benefactors. The benefactors have been hitherto almost exclusively citizens of Bombay; but I am glad to observe in your report the record of a scholarship founded by the Jam of Nowanuggur, a Kattywar Chief. This is, I trust, the precursor of other foundations of local scholarships which will perform for this University the same service as has been rendered in earlier days to our English Universities by their local foundations. A graceful farewell. In now taking leave of the University of Bombay, it is a satisfaction to me to know that I leave behind me colleagues who I believe concur with me in the views I have endeavoured very inadequately to express regarding the work of this University, and the soundness of the foundation which has been laid by yourself and by your accomplished predecessors in your great office as Director General of Public Instruction in this Presidency. I feel assured that you will have every support in your good work from my successor, who will come among you with a name not undistinguished in one of our great store-houses of active thought and learning to which the freedom and the power of England owe so much. It is a great gratification to me to know that you propose to perpetuate the memory of my tenure of office as your Chancellor. Few things will give me greater pleasure in other lands than to know that I have contributed to carry out any great work begun by one who was loved and lamented like Lord Elphinstone, a work which was foreseen and hoped for by his great namesake and predecessor, and for your purpose in connecting my name with theirs I heartily thank you. But whatever we may attribute to individual agency or may hope for from individual exertion, there is ever present to our minds in this and in every other great work in this country a prevailing sense of an over-ruling power in comparison with whose agency the mightiest works of man are dwarfed to insignificance. Philosophers tell us of the evidence which is afforded by the shores of. some of the fairest regions of the earth that some great subterranean force is already at work gradually upheaving or submerging the whole continent. It has always seemed to me that this afforded no unfitting image of our work in this country. We may terrace and adorn the hill sides, we may trim the vine slopes and plant the olive and orange; but there is a power which, though unseen and often unobserved by us, is ever working with a silent energy of which we can have no conception to raise or depress whole nations. That that great power may bless and prosper the great work that you have in hand and make it fruitful in good results, of which we can have now no clear conception is my fervent hope, and in that hope I now bid you Sir, and this Convocation, farewell.