Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/93

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University of Bombay.

this University to find its graduates not, as was ably pointed out by one of the leading Anglo-Vernacular papers a few months ago, permitting their exclusively English education to lead them to deny the existence of science and art among their ancestors; not falling behind the alumni of the older educational institutions of the Presidency, but following diligently those pioneers of the study of the past. Let it be said that they perfected what others began, and that the University of Bombay has sent out not mero pedants, much less conceited half-educated striplings, but men who in the State, on the bench, or at the bar, as architects or as physicians, prove themselves, as Dr. Bhau Daji did, worthy of their education, beloved and respected in their lives, and in their deaths honoured and deplored.


FIFTEENTH CONVOCATION.

(By The Honorable James Gibbs, C.S., F.R.G.S.)

Gentlemen of the Senate,—Owing to the absence of His Excellency the Chancellor from Bombay, I have again the honour of presiding at the Annual Convocation of this University. The year 1875 will undoubtedly be famous in the annals of Indian History from its having witnessed for the first time the arrival on our shores of the Heir-Apparent of the British Crown, while our island had the honour of being the first soil on which he trod, and our city the first place in which he sojourned. The welcome he met with, not only from the Native Princes and Chiefs who came to do him homage, but from the vast crowds of loyal subjects which thronged the streets, is still, as it were, present to us, while the many fetes and ceremonies in which he took part, seem as yet hardly to have become things of the past. One of these will certainly long remain fresh in the memories of those connected with this University—the visit of His Royal Highness to this Hall to receive the address voted by the Senate; and the kind words of hope and encouragement for our future, which fell from his lips in reply to our welcome, will not be readily forgotten, while the more tangible memorial of his visit in the shape of valuable books and the portrait of our Queen, which he presented to the University, will long remain objects of our choicest care. He has honoured our elder sister at Calcutta by accepting the degree of Doctor of Laws, and thus permitting his name to stand first on that roll which it is to be hoped may include many distinguished statesmen, scholars, and promoters of education, recipients of a like honour, the