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RESULTS OF CONDUCT.

extinguished; in times, when tolerance is almost the rule in politics; when the advance of physical science is daily adding to the amenities of Society, and the comforts of the individual; under a Government strong enough to afford protection to life, and liberty, and property; and which has repressed those periodical incursions that formerly swept the Carnatic through its length and breadth; and which you see is honestly opening to every one of you, as you fit yourselves, a larger and larger share in the administration of your own country.

Success depends not upon luck on the one hand, or fate upon the other; but upon your own resolution, exertion, honesty, judgment. There is scarcely any object that a man of ordinary abilities and strength of purpose can place before himself, which he will not sooner or later attain, if health and strength, and a sufficient length of life, be granted to him, provided that he lays his plans with prudence, and swerves neither to the right hand nor to the left. Many of you have read of WARREN HASTINGS, how, when he was a little boy, he resolved to re-obtain the Daylesford estates which had passed away from the patrimony of his ancestors; and how in the course of the accomplishment of that purpose he became Governor General of India. That is an extreme example; but you will find no difficulty in recognising abundant instances among the circle of your own acquaintance.

Let me now adduce an example or two of the result of conduct in the ordinary affairs of life. Two merchants make, each, a venture in Cotton. The one realizes a fortune, the other fails. But the one commenced his operations at the breaking out of the war, and modified them as the approach of peace grew more perceptible. The other started later, at a time when peace was far more probable: and yet he purchased at very high rates, when even the rumour of peace was

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enough to knock down prices from 22d. to 12d. or 11d. Here, undoubtedly, the successful merchant took far the wider and more comprehensive view of the political horizon. Or again; two merchants ship their merchandize, the one by a steamer, the other by a sailing vessel; or both ship by sailing vessels. The one ship makes a prosperous voyage and arrives to a rising market, the other is delayed by contrary winds or calms, or is injured by the perils of the sea, and is forced to put into a harbour of refuge to refit. She arrives to a falling market; and the latter merchant is very apt to blame his luck; to say that Nature itself has been against him, and that he has had to contend with the elements themselves. But, in truth, such casualties and contingencies were not only possible, they were not improbable; they ought to have entered into his calculations, he did not leave a sufficiently wide margin for accidents; and he must blame, not the winds or the waves, but his own want of foresight. Once more: two merchants ship their goods in the same vessel: the one is insured, the other not. The vessel is destroyed by fire or lost by the perils of the sea, or the goods arrive in an unmarketable condition. Here, the uninsured has only his own misplaced thrift or negligence to thank for his calamity. I have taken these examples from the mercantile world; you can easily follow out for yourselves as many examples as you wish from the other professions of life.

Demosthenes said that success was the greatest good in life. I am not quite prepared to agree with him in that: but success, though not the best or the most accurate, is a sufficiently universal and rough and ready standard of merit: though I must confess that the world is only too prone to fall down and worship the golden calf, without much reference to the means by which it has been raised, so long as the meanness, the fraud, or the hypocrisy, which may be

deciphered on the pedestal, are decently, though thinly, veiled. But Demosthenes added that, to ensure the permanence of success, it must be based on conduct. And this is the very point to which I wish to lead you. When you are once fairly launched upon the voyage of life, your ability to grapple with the circumstances around you; to overcome them if they are unfavourable, to take advantage of them if they are favorable, will doubtless depend very much upon the special training you will undergo for the particular profession which you may severally choose: but unquestionably it will also very much depend upon the use you make of your present opportunity for general education; the objects of which are, to furnish you with a mass of substantive useful knowledge: to inculcate habits of labour, method, and reflexion: to sharpen your intellects: to strengthen your judgment, so that it may become an instrument capable of forming correct decisions on whatever subject is submitted to it: and last, not least, to fill your hearts with moral principles,and the love of practical honesty and truth, without which, believe me, everything else will ultimately prove worthless. Apply yourselves then diligently to the prosecution of your studies: let your motto ever be "Excelsior" strive to elevate your thoughts: model your character on the purest and the noblest examples, and learn to despise and detest all that is mean, petty, and ignoble: for "the dyer's hand is soon subdued to that it works in." After all, you may not succeed. But there is something more ennobling, more consolatory, than even success itself. If you fail, you fail. But though it may not be in your power to command success; you may have done more, deserved it.

And now, your Excellency, as this is perhaps the last time when it may be in your power, to honour us with your presence, I should ill discharge my duty, and deny myself a pleasure, were I to omit to offer you the

warmest and most respectful thanks, not only of the President and Trustees and myself, but of the whole Native community, for the steady countenance you have given year after year to this Institution, ever since we first did ourselves the honour of soliciting you to preside at our Anniversary. The public is well aware of the deep interest you take in all that concerns the improvement, intellectual, moral, and social, of the people over whom you rule. But almost all the other institutions at whose Anniversaries you annually preside, are more or less connected with the Government; and therefore, independently of the personal gratification which your attendance secures to you, your presence here may in some sort be attributable to the discharge of your high functions. No such remark can apply here: and therefore we regard your condescension not only as the highest possible compliment, but as the best proof of the place which this Institution holds in your judgment, on account of its influence and promotion of that cause which we one and all have so nearly at heart.

It only remains for me to recall to the grateful recollection of all present, the name and memory of our munificent founder, PATCHEAPPAH.

ADDRESS on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Patcheappah's Institution in the year 1868.

MR. NORTON :-after shortly reviewing the rise and progress of the Institution, commenting on the Report, and the hopeful position of the scheme for a Proprietary School, proceeded as follows

Mr. Lovery, our Principal, has recently been appointed a Fellow of the University, and no worthier or more useful man could have been selected. The Government has also paid him a well earned tribute in the Order on the Grant-inaid,—an epoch in the history of education; because, I trust, it marks the final extinction of that jealousy of Governmental intervention in our schools, which was founded upon a suspicion of proselystic intentions. To few are the Natives of this Presidency more deeply indebted than to Mr. Lovery. There is no one who will not rejoice at the honours that have been conferred upon him. I have long marked a restlessness among the Natives and East Indians, a desire to leave their present appointments, in the hope of bettering their condition, which frequently only ends in disappointment; and I trust what has happened to Mr. Lovery will convince them of the wisdom of working on steadily and energetically in that position which has fallen to their lot; sure that, sooner or later, their merits will come to be recognised and rewarded. On more than one occasion when Mr. Lovery himself has come to me, overwhelmed with the labours and responsiblities of his post, and correctly enough thinking that he would have reaped a larger salary and secured a pension, had he