Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/378

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
1873.—Mr. W. A. Porter.
85

your own countrymen and many Europeans now thus employed who have so labored as to gain the respect and attachment of all who know them. Mr. E. B. Powell-a bright example. But if I would single out for your admiration one bright particular example of a long life honorably spent in noble work conscientiously performed, then I must needs speak of him who entered on his labors long before you were born, who educated many of your fathers, and whose stainless purity of character has always been so recognised as to hush even the very whisper of malice. If there is any one of us now living and laboring amongst you who deserves that, after he passes away and returns to his own land, his honored form should remain as an imperishable memorial, pictured to the life or sculptured in enduring stone, then I say advisedly that it is he who was many years since Head Master of the High School and is now your Director of Public Instruction. And now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to thank you for the patience and courtesy with which you have listened to me. With small pretensions to knowledge and none to eloquence, I still could not resist the temptation of His Excellency's kind invitation to address you. For I wished to inspire you with some of my own enthusiasm in regard to the good time coming. Faith in the future makes life worth having, and I trust it will so operate on you that your lives hereafter may be characterized by the same high qualities which have contributed so much to your present success.


SIXTEENTH CONVOCATION.

(By W. A. Porter, Esq., M.A.)

Gentlemen,—It is now my duty, at the request of His Excellency our Chancellor, Virtues of a real student. to congratulate you on the honors you have achieved, and to remind you that the position you have gained in the University raises some expectations as to your future career. I think these expectations are not without solid grounds. You have learned more than others of your countrymen, and you have gone through a severer training, and therefore more is expected from you. And, I confess that, in anticipating for you an honorable and useful career, it is chiefly on the discipline you have undergone that my hopes are grounded. He who has led the real life of a student has practised no mean virtues. He has pursued with devotion a single worthy end. Self-denial has been his daily companion. He has closed his ears against siren voices on every side. To use words that have become