Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/269

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University of Bombay.

to testify to our sense of his great merit, and to pay to him a parting tribute of respect. Of Dr. Wordsworth we may truly say that, though he was so many years in our midst, yet, at the last, he left before his time. We can never be unmindful of his influence and example. Other changes there have been, too,among the Deans of Faculties and members of the Syndicate ;but perhaps it is not necessary that I should refer to these in detail. We have lost, too, some members of our Senate who were not office-bearers; some have left India for their own native laud, among whom are Dr. Burgess, Mr. Scorgie, and Majop-General White; and some have been taken from us by the hand of death. Among these we have to mourn the loss of the late Sir Mungaldas Nathoobhoy, who was one of the oldest of our benefactors; of the late Presidency Magistrate,Mr. P. Ryan ; and of Mr. Makund Ramchandra, under whose superintendence so many of the public buildings in Bombay were erected, including, I believe, the University Hall and Library. We have lost also the late Mr. Mancherji Banaji, and within the last few days Mr. Steel, Principal of the Veterinary College and Hospital, whom we shall always remember as one possessing in a remarkable degree the gift of presenting in most attractive form the results of his researches in that branch of the science to which he had devoted his life. He prosecuted those researches laboriously and conscientiously, and his early death will be deplored by men of science and by all lovers of dumb animals in this Presidency. No less than fifteen vacancies have been caused in the Senate by casualties,—that is, by the retirement and death of members,—during the past year. The Government Gazette which has just been published, shows that the Senate has this year been strengthened by the appointment of twenty-one new Fellows. A Lady Member of the Senate. That Gazette is a remarkable one and must always be so regarded on account of the new departure which it inaugurates. For the first time in the history of this or any other University, so far as I am aware, a lady has been appointed to be a member of the Senate. We know that, for more than six centuries, ladies have held office, from time to time, as professors of law or medicine or philosophy or mathematics in the ancient University of Bologna, and when we have professors of our own, I trust we may be worthy to follow that example. But never, so far as I know, have ladies been admitted to share in the responsibility of the administration of a great University. The Senate will certainly recognize the appointment of Mrs. Pechey Phipson as in every way a right and proper one, and will, with all cordiality, hold out the right hand of