Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/15

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ADDRESS AT KISHNAGHUR.
iii

manner in which they discharged the duties of the office referred to.

Dr. Mouat resumed charge on the 16th of June last.

The late J. E. D. Bethune

As the last testimony which the Council have it in their power to offer to the memory of their late lamented colleague, they have resolved to embody, in their own report, the addresses made by him in February and March last to the students of the Kishnaghur and Dacca Colleges, after the distribution of prizes in those Institutions.

The former contains an able vindication of the course of study contained in the Council's scheme, and the latter abounds in the sound lessons of practical wisdom which Mr. Bethune always endeavoured to inculcate, when he had an opportunity of coming into personal contact with the pupils of the Institutions under our charge.

Address at Kishnaghur

"This is my third visit to Kishnaghur: and I hope that all among you, who were assembled to meet me here on the last occasion of my coming among you, are able to give a good account of the past year; and are conscious not only of having stored your minds and memories with new words and ideas, but of having improved your reasoning faculties, and strengthened your powers of independent thought. For it is a truth of which you will become more and more convinced as you advance in years that, valuable as the information is which you imbibe in your scholastic lessons, the great end to be sought in any scheme of education, worthy of the name, is to enable you to think for yourselves in your future life; and, by the habits of patient study which you acquire here to gain a facility and the right temper of mind for meeting and overcoming difficulties which you may find in your future career, when you have to apply your sharpened intellect to the right apprehension of the world in which you will have to live, and your own moral and social duties with respect to the position you may occupy in it.

"And it is by this test, of their fitness for leading to such results, that the importance of the studies should be tried which are adopted in our Colleges.