ordinarily choose. But depend upon it, gentlemen^ a diffusion of this brancli of knowledge is not only a powerful and effective means of correcting error, but will also materially add to the wealth of the country.
Great manufacturing industries have yet to come into existence in Southern India, and as a people, Hindus have done little or nothing towards the application of science to the improvement oi agriculture and of the productiveness of the soil. There are again other resources of the country which require to be developed, and which, wherever they are partially developed, are not developed with the aid of indigenous capital or skill. Gentlemen, there is a singular apathy in this respect ; and nothing that is worth mentioning has been done during the last 30 years that the system of liberal education has been in existence. I for one should rejoice if you would bear this in mind when you select your profession, and if those among you who may come to own landed property or possess capital, would utilize science so as to augment your own wealth and open the way to new industrial enterprize and new sources of wealth to the country. Even those whose pursuits may be chiefly literary, may aid progress by translating into the languages of the people practical treatises on natural science, and thereby enabling their countrymen to study nature as she is, without seeing a monster dragon in eclipses, or signs of approaching national calamities in meteors, comets and earth- quakes.
Graduates in Medicine, —
The profession you elect to follow is second to none in its dignity or in its usefulness to the people, and as, in this country, it is not so crowded as other professions are, it is also likely to prove lucrative. Your professional knowledge and skill will, on the one hand, enable you to drive quacks out of practice, whilst your knowledge of the habits of the people and your sympathy with them will secure you, on the other, a cordial reception in native homes. There is no other profession in which professional skill is so readily and generally appreciated and professional service so gratefully remembered. There is an impression in certain quarters of Hindu society that the medicinal properties of Indian plants are not either fully studied or utilized in the treatment of Hindu patients, and you will, perhaps, do well to refute this impression by a careful study of Indian Botany, and, if necessary, also of indigenous treatises in Sanscrit, on medicine, and I am sure that your labours in this direction, if any, will meet with substantial reward.
