Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/128

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1879.—The Honorable J. Gibbs.
113

you must mainly look at to spread abroad to others the benefits you have gained in your own course of education. Remember also the responsibilities which a good education places upon you, namely, that you should be examples of loyalty, truthfulness, industry and sobriety, that when you are known as graduates of the University, men may find in you—as in the majority of the present graduates I trust they can now find—that the old Latin lines in praise of learning are still true:

" --- iugenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros."

Finally, I would, ere I close, say to those who are still in the schools—of whom some may be here present—seek not High Education simply for the sake of Government Service. Higher Education and Government service. I see the Native Press still harping on this point and blaming Government for not providing for all graduates. In the first place, such a view of the value of High Education is insulting to it—it would lower, nay, prostitute the highest instrument of civilisation. Learning, Science, Art, all or any, must be courted for their own sakes. But I may also add that if Government were willing to take a view which is too common, they could not possibly find employment for a tithe of the Graduates this University has passed. Speaking as a Member of Government, I may say we have, following indeed in the steps of our predecessors, opened more widely the gates of our service to Graduates, and we are willing to do even more ; but this is not so much to encourage our youth to seek High Education, as to enable Government to benefit by it in obtaining as public servants the men best fitted to fill these posts with loyalty, honesty, and ability.

And now, Gentlemen of the Senate, brother-Fellows of this University, the time has come for me to say farewell. We have worked together for many years; we have seen, in some respects, our labours bearing the fruit we hoped for; but the great success of this Institution is, I feel, yet in the future. May many of you remain here to see it approach more and more to what we would have it become, and witness the beneficent result of its civilising effects spread more and more generally over this portion of the Empire. May your efforts be blessed by Providence to this good end, and while saying again the words 'farewell,' "floreat Academia," let me assure you that my thoughts and the affections of my heart will ever recur to the happy time we have worked together, and that no one will hail with greater satisfaction each prosperous step this University may take in the spread of learning and science than he who will hereafter be your ex-Vice-Chancellor.