Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 2/The Rev. William Miller, M.A.
FOURTEENTH CONVOCATION.
(By The Rev. William Miller, M.A.)
Gentlemen,—After long continued study, after trials through which you have passed successfully, and after promises which before so many witnesses you have deliberately made, you are now admitted to the honour of ranking while you live as members of the University of Madras. It devolves on me to exhort you, according to its statutes, "to conduct yourselves suitably unto the position to which, by the degree conferred upon you, you have attained" It is but natural that before you pass finally from beneath her fostering care, your Alma Mater should wish to address to you some parting words of counsel. Some of you, it is true, are not yet to sever the tie that has so long bound you to her. Some of you—and I hope not a very few—will endeavour to obtain still higher honours at her hand after another period of submission to her guidance; but most of you in any case have completed the portion of your lives that you can afford to devote to academic pursuits, and even those who seek for a higher place in the rolls of the University must henceforth be much less than hitherto under her direct control. They must journey on, not indeed unguided but at least unwatched by her or by any of her delegates.
In greater or smaller measure, therefore, you all stand from this day forward in a new position. You pass from the toils of learning to those of life, from the acquisition of knowledge to the higher task of working into the texture of your history on earth, the knowledge that has been acquired, from being recipients of the influence of others to positions where your own influence must largely tell upon the generation to which you belong, and through it upon all the generations that shall follow. It is well becoming that, at such a stage, this University should tell you how she expects those to live whom she has stamped with her approval, and who are now her representatives to the world. And, therefore, as you listen to what I say, regard it not as the words of one who has little title to speak with authority in virtue of age, or experience, or learning. Kather in so far, but in so far only, as my words approve themselves to be words of truth and wisdom, regard them. I entreat you, as spoken to you by that University which has conferred on you so many benefits already, and towards which I trust that you will cherish while you live, feelings of mingled love and veneration.
The obligations of many kinds under which you lie are almost infinite in number; but great though the desire of this University is that you should be in all respects noble-hearted and well-conducted men, it is not of the whole round of duty that she calls me now to speak. Inasmuch as you are subjects, inasmuch as you are citizens, inasmuch as you are men, there are countless claims upon you such as you cannot safely or honourably neglect; but these lie beyond the scope of my present task, except in so far as all duty is from its very nature linked indissolubly together. It is the duties arising from your present position that I have to impress upon you—your duties as the sons of science—as those to whom has been entrusted the lamp of knowledge, and that in the midst of a land that, much as we may wish it otherwise, we cannot deny to be comparatively a land of darkness.
These duties divide themselves naturally into two classes: those that you still owe to yourselves upon the one hand, and those that you owe to your country and your fellow-men upon the other.
With regard to yourselves, remember that your work as seekers after truth is not ended. We say indeed, Your duty as seekers after truth. and it is rightly said, that you have completed your education; but there are different kinds of completeness, and the sense in which you can deem yourselves completely educated requires to be attentively considered. There is a completeness like that of the giant tree, around whose blossoms myriad tribes of insects sport and whose pyramid of leaves spreads wide a welcome shade from the fierceness of noonday sun. That tree has reached the highest development of which its nature makes it capable. It stands complete. But there is a completeness too like that of the seed, which, whatever it may become hereafter, is far from having realized the ideal of its being. Yet in its own fashion, the seed too is complete It has so drawn in the life of its parent stem that it is fitted to become in the common course of nature such in all respects as that parent is. The germ of all is already in it. Every organ that is needed to make it complete even in the fullest sense, may now be developed out of it. Let it only be placed in the proper conditions, let it only in these conditions preserve its own vitality, and it is certain to grow into all that it was designed to be, without any new external aid. It is the latter completeness, not the former, that can be affirmed of your education. Complete in the widest sense it certainly is not; but we trust that you have within yourselves all that is essential for enabling it to become so. The years you have spent under the care of this University have left in you, as we hope, not only a certain small stock of information, but a certain love of knowledge for its own sake, a certain receptivity to truth, and above all the aptitude to grasp and to make your own whatever may become the subject of your thoughts hereafter. If indeed there be among you any whose only care has been to keep in mind the bare facts they have been instructed to attend to, and who are satisfied now to let study drop, because their trials have been sustained and their position is secure, for such these bye-gone years have been, at all events in the highest sense, useless if they have not been worse. Such may, indeed, by their so-called study have bettered the material prospects of their lives, but as children of the light and seekers in profession after truth, they have but degraded themselves to a lower level than that from which they started at the first. But we hope for better things from all of you. Ideals, it is true, are attained but seldom, and with you as with us all, mental training is far from perfect, and zeal for knowledge far from pure. Yet we trust that in no inconsiderable measure you have a sense of the dignity of wisdom a sense of your own need of it, and a power at the same time of gathering it henceforward for yourselves. Thus you are complete with the completeness of a seed. As the seed is cast into the bosom of nature in order that its energies may be called forth and its destinies accomplished, so do you cast yourselves into active life, determined in it to exercise, and by exercise to increase those mental powers that the training of the past has given you—determined that by continual accessions to your knowledge, the stream of thought shall be kept flowing constantly within you and bearing health, activity and growth into the very recesses of your being.
And here I am reminded that, in the case of some, the necessity is very clamant that they should thus maintain and increase their knowledge.
Graduates in Law, in Medicine and Engineering, the sciences to which you have devoted yourselves obviously demand the labour of a lifetime. In the case of law, the field is so wide and the possible application of its principles so varied, as to make it very plain that no one should enter on its study who is not content to be ever learning, and ever to confess himself but a learner still. And Medicine and Engineering are sciences that in this age are eminently progressive. The thinking of our time is of such a kind as to be largely auxiliary to each of them. Every addition that is made to our knowledge of the plan of nature—and how numerous and startling are such additions now-a-days—is capable of being pressed into the service of one or other, or of both. You, who have chosen it as your noble function to study, to preserve, and, when need be, to cure the dwelling with which man's spirit is endued:—you who are to have it as your high vocation to subdue the stubborn forces round us to our common use, and to render this earth an increasingly commodious residence for mankind,—you must be ever watchful of what is new and ever labouring to extend the limits of your knowledge, if you would even arrive at or maintain proficiency in your special callings.
But to all of you, gentlemen, I would say:—be students while you live. Study books and men. It is a duty that you owe to yourselves, in order that your intellectual being may be no stunted and miserable thing, but the noble growth that it will be developed into by your faithfully following out the path on which you have creditably entered. Be students of books, as you have been hitherto. In the busiest life you will find some time for this. Draw in and make your own the fruit of the minds of others, and thus keep yourselves ever moving with the stream of human thought that has flowed on, and shall flow on through all the ages. Yet even more, be students of men and of the facts of life. It is in no dreamland of fancy, and in no retirement of studious seclusion, that man's mind and character are fitted to arrive at their due expansion. The men that you meet with in all their variety of intellectual and moral nature, the political and social forces at work around you, the tendencies and aims of current speculation, will furnish to the well-trained mind, food for constant thought—for such thought as may elevate and brace the whole inner life by keeping it in perpetual contact with what is real and enduring beneath the shows of the fleeting hour. Form your own opinions. And on all such subjects, while you do not despise or neglect the words of others, dare to form an opinion of your own. Only venturing to think your own thoughts and to acknowledge no authority but that of truth, can you ennoble your minds upon the one hand, or discharge your moral responsibility on the other. And be not dismayed though thinking which thus aims only at the true, should lead you often into perplexity and doubt. That is but part of the discipline of life. Some of you know the quaint old saying adopted as a motto by one of the leading minds of the present century:
- "Truth like a torch, the more it's shook it shines."
These perplexities and doubts are but the shaking which makes truth beam forth more clearly before long. Meet them manfully. Labour on till certainty is reached. Be sure of this, that a fuller insight into any fact whether great or small, but most of all if it be into one of the eternities of human speculation, is by itself a rich return for all the toil and danger of the search, at least to those in whom the sacred thirst for truth has been once effectually awakened.
And though my theme at present be mainly that intellectual character, the growth of which a University must always make its first concern, I may be permitted to point out before passing on, one noble result of a different kind which will have a tendency to flow from your faithfully pursuing wisdom and knowledge in whatever department of human thought. He that gives himself to this pursuit is raised above the power of some at least of the allurements with which the world is crowded. He that aims at an object thus beyond himself, grows in some degree insensible to the voice of selfishness—the most subtle and most persistent of tempters into whatever is dishonourable and base. Endeavour, therefore, to grow in knowledge for this additional reason—because thus you may gain no inconsiderable aid in living a life of unspotted integrity, so that you shall be missed and mourned for when you walk no more in the ways of men:—so that of you it may be said, to quote language that recent study must have made a household word to some of you,—
"He had kept The whiteness of his life, and thus men o'er him wept."
But what in the next place of the duties towards others that spring from your possession of that germ of knowledge which is destined as we trust to grow wide and great? Labour for the benefit of others. This briefly above all—that you use this knowledge, and all the power that in greater or less degree it is certain to bring with it, for the benefit of men, not for the attainment of any personal ends. That you should employ your knowledge thus is the design with which it has been given you. It is the design in so far as regards this University and her subordinate colleges which have been the instruments of your education. It is the design in a still higher sense: namely, in so far as concerns the government of the world itself. On the one hand, you cannot imagine even for a moment that all the expenditure of wealth and time and strength on the part of those who have contributed directly or indirectly to your training, will have attained its end if you arrive at distinction or at power:—you so few, and when considered merely by yourselves, so utterly insignificant compared with the teeming millions around you. No; you have been enlightened in order that through you those millions may be blessed. On the other hand, very little consideration is needed to convince you that if you live and labour only for yourselves, you will run counter to the plan on which the whole world is beneficently ruled.
Time was when men supposed that the luminaries of heaven moved ceaselessly round this earth, Service and subordination, the life of the Universe. while it in rest and ease was content to receive their ministrations. Now We know that according to the plan of this universe, our planet could receive in no such way as this the light and heat that it requires. It can obtain them only by obedience to the attracting power of the distant sun. It is not only served; it is itself a servant in the first place. And so of all the other bodies of our system, and apparently of every system that the telescope of the astronomer has revealed. The well-being of each and the stability of the whole are secured by a constant regard in each to a centre and an aim beyond itself. Imagine for a moment this globe breaking away from the order of ministration and dependence in which it is now embraced. How soon would all its beauty perish, how soon would its varied tribes of abounding life sink back into the cheerless chaos out of which they have arisen. And, gentlemen, for those who have acquainted themselves at all with the facts of physical science, I need not add how in every department of every natural kingdom the same law of helpful service holds. Not for itself but for every being that drinks in life and beauty from its beams, does the light return each morning on the earth. Not to rejoice in their own array do the lily and the rose deck themselves in splendour. Not to be an end unto themselves do the fruits of the valley spring. Not for its own sake does the patient ox labour in the furrow. Service and subordination are the life of the universe; isolation and selfishness its death.
Listen therefore to the parable which nature daily teaches to those who have penetrated but a little way into her mysteries. The road to glory and happiness. Listen and learn that it is in the path of usefulness that you can arrive at, I say not merely the highest glory, but even the only happiness. And doubt not that in the active life before you, you will find abundant opportunity for such service to your fellowmen as the plan of all creation thus summons you to render. Those who have chosen their profession can easily discern the particular benefit that in its exercise they can confer on others. Make the doing of that good your main design. True, it is by your labour you must live, and it would not be right or wise to forget this aspect of the case. But let such personal results of effort be ever with you the second thing and not the first. In the practice of the law let the securing of justice and the setting right of wrong be the object on which your heart is set;—not the mere pocketing of your fee. In the exercise of the healing art, fix all your thoughts upon your immediate task of preserving health or life to those who trust to you for aid. And, graduates in Engineering, let your conscious aim be this,—that the structures of any kind that you erect, or the canals, let us say, that you may dig, shall be a convenience and a joy to the struggling lives of those who are in the world already, and of such a kind that they shall continue to serve their purpose in the midst of generations that are still to come. If thus you act, then, unless the plainest teaching of nature be a lie, you will not lose by it even in the lowest view, while your moral nature will be ennobled, and you will enjoy what must surely be the satisfaction of believing that, so far at least, you are obedient to the law by which all existence is bound together into this one glorious universe. And whatever be the profession you may choose, you may all in the exercise alike of it and of your personal influence, do much to awaken in others that desire for knowledge which this University trusts that she has been the means of awakening in you. If you are in the least worthy of the position in which you stand, you need not me to tell you that by doing so you will confer on them a greater boon than the very greatest that is merely material in its character.
There was a time when the nations of Europe, too ignorant even now, were sunk in ignorance of the very densest kind. It was by the individual effort of those who had been themselves enlightened, that the darkness began in any measure to be rolled away. A story of the age of Charlemagne, related by Dr. Newman in his delightful volume on the Office and Work of Universities, may serve as an illustration of the spirit in which some of them went about this work. "Two wandering Irish students," he says, "were brought by British traders to the coast of France. There, observing the eagerness with which those hawkers of perishable merchandize were surrounded by the populace, they imitated them by crying out, Who wants wisdom? here is wisdom on sale! This is the place for wisdom." It is an example for you—not in the letter but certainly in the spirit. What was genuine and therefore useful in them, might be in others the veriest affectation; yet the need of knowledge is such in India that those who know its grandeur should hesitate at little if only they can arouse in their countrymen a desire to be sharers in its benefits.
In exhorting you thus, gentlemen, to labour for the good of others, Acquaintance with sons of fame. I am not unaware that something is tacitly with sons of assumed. If you have no personal perception that the object proposed to you is in itself a noble one, undoubtedly the arguments I have used, or reasoning of any kind, will have but little practical effect. But I believe that some consciousness of its intrinsic grandeur is alive within you; and that the only thing needed is that this consciousness should be fanned into a flame. Suffer me, therefore, only to remind you that this University in doing so much directly for your intellectual progress has done something indirectly, yea, has done much, to arouse and guide your moral nature too. Besides the special training that some have had, you have all enjoyed more or less of general culture, in which you have come in contact with the words and thoughts of some among
Our spirits from their urns."
You have surely done more than arrive at a bare intellectual apprehension of their meaning. You have caught something of their spirit too. To you has been unlocked that treasury of invigorating thought of which Shakespeare and Milton stand the guardians. The very tongue that they and their fellows have ennobled, is a channel whereby moral life must flow into those who study it with sympathy. Some portions too of the wide field of history you have traversed. There you have met with men that have contended for freedom and for truth at the danger of life or at the cost of it : with those too that amidst perplexity and peril, unsupported by any breath of popular applause, have toiled on in some righteous cause until its worth grew clear to all, and empires ennobled became the memorials of their lives. Such are the men you have admired, not those whose self-centred existence brought them it may be wealth, or ease, or power, but came to an end without a single impress left for good on the destinies of mankind.
It cannot be all in vain, the acquaintance that you thus have made with
Those starry lights of virtue, that diffuse
Through the dark depths of time their vivid flame."
In the light that streams from them you perceive it to be the lofty thing it is, to labour and to wait for great unselfish aims. Thus we would have you live, according to the pure and holy instincts that these bright examples have from time to time called forth within you. Thus we would have you live, for whether your influence be great or small, and even if little success attend your most devoted efforts, you will thus in inmost spirit "claim kindred with the great of old."
Such then, gentlemen, are the duties arising from your present position that I would exhort you to discharge:—to labour for the acquisition of knowledge and of wisdom, in order that your intellectual being may grow into the glorious thing it is fitted to become; then to see to it that you employ in the service of men and for their good, all the skill and all the influence that through your own development you thus will gain. And now, in conclusion, what are the considerations by which I can best urge you to discharge the duties that have been so imperfectly pointed out? Some helps you feel that you require, for he knows little of himself who has not learnt by sad experience that man's moral weakness is so great, that, without some powerful aid, the clearest demonstration of what duty is, goes but a little way towards securing that duty shall be done.
But powerful, yes and effectual aids there are, nor are they far away from those who seek them in earnestness with patience and humility. When I think of you, standing as you do with all the hope and strength of youth about you, coming into the world as you have done in a country like this that is beginning to sweep forward along new paths towards unthought-of destinies, the considerations that might be here adduced seem almost infinite in number. From among the many that crowd on me let me select only two. I say not that they are the strongest that might be used, but at least in their own place they may be helpful, and I choose them now because one is a thought that should never be absent from your minds, while the other is specially approriate to the circumstances in which you stand to-day.
The first consideration is that you should live and labour as you have been adjured to do, for the sake of India, your country. Live and labour for India. Forget not her ancient fame. Forget not that literature and philosophy and art had here their home ere Athens had arisen to keep watch on the blue AEgean, when the seven hills of Home stood still lonely by the Tiber. Remember that on you and such as you depends whether India is ever to regain the place of leadership that she has lost. Strangers have endeavoured and are endeavouring to do much; but little can their efforts profit, if you, the children of the soil, are not their hearty and enthusiastic fellow-workers. You are the electric chain along which the thought of Europe must travel into the heart of India. You must determine whether reawakened by heartfelt contact with her long separated brethren of the West, making their thought her own and modifying it to meet her own necessities, India is to become the centre of a higher philosophy and a nobler culture than she knew of old to all the nations of the East.
The other consideration is the respect that you should cherish for the fair fame of the University The fair fame of the University. of which from this day forward you are members. She deserves to receive from you the reward that she most desires; and that reward is this: that throughout your lives the thought of how your actions will affect her, should nerve you for the right and keep you from the wrong. True, she has no historic name which she commits it to you to keep unsullied; but she has her name to make, and it is you that must make it for her. True, there are no associations of antiquity clustering around her, such as throng upon the hearts of those who bid adieu to academic life, where placid river and fruitful plain and "tall ancestral trees" enshrine as in a "haunt of ancient peace," the lordly magnificence of Oxford; or where upheaved rock and dark ravine and frowning battlements that carry down into the present the constant memory of a stormy past surround with a beauty that is all her own the humbler halls of Edinburgh. But in the very want of memories like these, is there not a summons to us all to labour together in order that our successors may enjoy them? And for their absence, has not your University something of a recompense in the hopefulness, the buoyancy, and the glorious possibilities of her youth? She may yet be all that her elder sisters are. She may yet effect as much of solid good, and that in a far wider field than almost any of them can boast. But it all depends on you. Her revenues may be large, her Senate may be learned, her colleges may be crowded, yet in spite of all she will win no fame because she will deserve none, if you, who are the outcome of her labours, are destitute of that power to wield the minds of men which nobility of character and nobility of aim can alone bestow. But once let it be found by proof that those whom she stamps with her approval are men of high-toned principle and lofty purpose, to whose influence and guidance their countrymen joyfully submit, and soon will your Alma Mater gain for herself far-spread renown, and gain thereby a power unimagined hitherto to carry on successfully the mighty work that has been entrusted to her.
And now, gentlemen, farewell! From the calm heights of study and of thought, descend into the arena of the world, there to live and strive as the sons of learning ought, and so to take an effectual and an honoured part in irradiating with the light of knowledge an ancient and a famous land.