NINTH CONVOCATION.
(By The Hon. Sir Adam Bittleston.)
Gentlemen,—Graduates of the University of Madras, I crave your attention for a few minutes, whilst, in accordance with the rule and practice of this University, and in obedience to the request of the Chancellor, I exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably to the position which you have now attained.
That is a position of which you may be justly proud. It is by no slight amount of industry and ability that this distinction can be achieved; it entitles you to, and, I believe, secures for you, a high place in the estimation of all your fellow-citizens of every rank and race; and it places you on a high vantage ground for the accomplishment of still greater things.
I would that I could expect, by any words of mine, to make you duly sensible of the responsibility which this position brings with it; for the University (I am persuaded) attaches some importance to this part of the day's proceedings. She by no means desires it to be regarded as a mere matter of form.
This University, gentlemen, has not, under existing circumstances, Difference between Indian and English Universities. the means of exercising any of that domestic discipline which is a valuable feature of the Collegiate System in some other Universities, nor can she give to her students that kind of moral training which results from the free social intercourse of a large body of educated youths, living together as one community, and not only prosecuting common studies and striving after common objects of ambition, but sharing also in common recreations and amusements.
But not the less is the University of Madras anxious about the future character and conduct of her sons. On what the reputation of the University depends. She does not confer her degrees upon them without first taking from them a solemn promise by their future lives to justifiy her choice; and year by year, as she sends forth new men with her marks of honour into the world, she requires the same exhortation to be addressed to them, she requires them to be told what it is she expects of them, and what is the standard at which she desires them to aim. Bear in mind, then, gentlemen, I beg of you, that the reputation, nay, the life of your University, depends upon you and upon those who stand in the like relation to her with you. Unless she can point, year after year, to an increasing roll of distinguished names, the names of men who, by a career of honourable usefulness, have
