a necessary step by step, with the dispersion of the graduates and undergraduates of this University throughout the land, I cannot dispossess myself of the belief that there is a close connection between the two phenomena. I believe that the consequence of training and education of the women of India man's culture. is a necessary consequence of your own culture. You will not rest satisfied until the female members of your families are able to meet you on a common intellectual level. Man's imperfect nature craves for sympathy in his toils, aspirations, doubts, and anguish, and where shall he find the sympathy and loving help for which his soul earns, if not amongst the women of his family, who know his strength and his weakness, and love him none the less for his imperfections? The need of intellectual companionship in the home is a powerful motor, impelling you to set the educational system of women on a satisfactory basis. But this is not the only force at work. A stronger one, probably, is the natural desire of women not to be left on a confessedly lower level than yourselves, to say nothing of your own honest convictions that educated woman is best fitted by her counsel, sympathy, and encouragement, to strengthen your own efforts in mental and moral advancement. These forces are silently, but most surely, and irresistibly, influencing thought and conduct. Every graduate who leaves these walls, if he is himself imbued with the true spirit of learning, of necessity becomes an advocate of female education. The difficulties before you in putting your desires into practice are neither few nor unimportant, but I doubt not that the women upon whom the spirit of knowledge and wisdom has already descended, will be your strongest supporters in those domestic reforms which may favor the sound teaching of useful knowledge to the females of India. Your most ancient lawgiver, though his ideas of woman's fitness for learning were not in accord with modern thought, forcibly impresses upon you the obligation of doing honor to woman. He says, "Where females are honored, there the Deities are pleased, but where they are dishonored, there all religious acts become fruitless,"* and again "where female relations are made miserable, the family of him who makes them so, very soon wholly perishes, but where they are not unhappy, the family always increases." How can you honor and add to the happiness of your womankind better than by making them partakers of your intellectual pursuits, as well as the sharers in your domestic joys and sorrows? It is expected that wherever your duties may call you, you Manava-Dharma Sastra, Chapter III. will take an intelligent interest in the management of local affairs. The extension of the principal of Local Government, in accordance with the views of the Viceroy, will give to all graduates of the University, either as electors, or representatives of their fellow-citizens in local assemblies, the necessary opportunities of showing their capacity in leading public opinion or in administration. You will forgive me, if I remind you that a careful study of the social conditions of the Study of the community amongst whom your lot may be cast social conditions. is absolutely essential, if you would play a useful part in local administration. In the Census Report of this Presidency, published in 1883, you will find a vast number of hard facts and stubborn figures, over which you may ponder with the greatest advantage. These facts relate not only to the country as a whole, but to every inhabited village and town. They bring before you the numbers, sexes and ages of the people, their civil and conjugal condition, their degree of education, language, religion, caste, or nationality, and occupations. Your first duty should be to make yourselves thoroughly acquainted with the actual condition of the people in these respects, as without such knowledge your personal influence and activity may be employed in wrong directions, and become positively mischievous, instead of beneficial. It is one of the unavoidable blemishes of the caste system peculiar to this the caste sys- country, that men's interests should tend to gravitate almost wholly towards the family, the clan, or caste; but, to be useful and impartial in the administration of local affairs, you must widen your sympathies, and look mainly to the common good of those who make you their mouth-piece. It may be well to caution you that the gift of fluent speech is, in itself, but a poor provision for one engaged in local government. What you want is accurate knowledge, and a fixed determination to do justice to all classes of your local community. A blemish of tem. In every town or village, you will find work to be done, which shall benefit your fellow-men. The insanitary conditions abounding everywhere, and which are directly, or indirectly, the cause of much preventible suffering and mortality, call for your thoughtful attention as to the most practicable means of dealing with them. It is fitting that men on whom this Take a leading University has conferred Degrees should at all times take a leading part in reforms that may tend to make a community more healthy, happy, and prosperous. The care of the public health should be your first consideration, for a part in reforms. sickly community, or one in which the bread-winners are cut off in the prime of their days, must always be miserable and impoverished. And when the people shall have been shown the importance of cleanly habits as affecting their health, you may well direct their attention to some other customs which have an important bearing on their happiness and prosperity. Look for Profuse expenditure marriage. instance at the custom, so universal, of profuse exon penditure on the occasion of marriages and family ceremonial. The wealthy may indulge in such a custom without hurt to their estate, but see how pernicious is the example to the lower classes, when a poor man, apeing his rich brother, does not hesitate to sell himself, and all belonging to him, into life-long slavery, for the price of a wedding feast! The light-heartedness with which people, otherwise thrifty and self-denying, will incur overwhelming debts, sanctioned by custom and usage, is a matter that strikes strangers to your countrymen with astonishment, and you may well use your personal influence in discouraging habits which lie at the root of threefourths of the chronic poverty of the Indian people. In these and other matters, in which you would be an example to your fellow-men, remember the advice of the poet : "Be useful where thou livest, that they may Both want, and wish thy pleasing presence still. And in battling against customs injurious to health, material prosperity and morals, I may remind you in the words of John Milton that "Peace hath her victories No less renowned than War." Indian philosophers of old were remarkable for the two excellent qualities of "plain living" and "high thinking." We live now in the days of a higher civilization, and in an age when men spend much of their substance in luxury, or on the non-essentials of existence. I would not have you depart from the simple habits, inherited from a long line of ancestors, and which the experience of countless generations has proved to be best suited to the inhabitants of tropical lands. Food and clothing must vary in different countries, as climate and other Alcohol and conditions vary, but in adhering to the simplicity of life practised by your forefathers, you will have the sanction and approval of some of the most eminent of modern scientists, who have come to the conclusion, hat alcoholic drinks and strong meats are not essential to meat not essential to health. health, life, or mental and physical vigor, while the abuse of strong drinks, at any rate, has proved a curse to the Northern peoples. I would have you, in the words of the poet, The maintenance of the poor. Keep all thy native good, and naturalize All foreign of that name; but scorn their ill." The simplicity of your habits in eating and drinking, which climatic considerations have imposed upon you, has had the advantage of enabling you to solve a problem which still troubles and perplexes more advanced nations. I allude to the maintenance of the poor. India, to its credit be it said, has needed no poor law. The obligation to feed the poor, and more unfortunate members of a family has always been regarded as a sacred duty by its principal members. The simplicity of your domestic life has enabled even the poorest members of society to fulfil these obligations, and I can vouch for the fact that they are fulfilled except when great natural calamity causes a failure of the food supplies, and there is no bread to give to him that asketh. During the great famine of 1876-77 there were not wanting crities, (chiefly of the carping order) who protested that the wise and humane policy of the Madras Government in State relief would result in the chronic pauperisation of the industrial classes. The prophecy was a cruel libel on the toilers and workers of your countrymen, and women, and has been completely falsified, for the broad truth remains, that immediately on the cessation of the food scarcity, the people everywhere resumed their normal habits of providing for the necessities of their dependants, and for years past the State has incurred no expenditure in the relief of Indian paupers. Having seen the Self-respect of the Indian. people of the land in times of prosperity, and also bowed down in adversity, under the influence of a terrible national calamity, let me add that I entertain a profound and lasting respect for their many virtues, and a high admiration of their keen sense of self-respect. And now, gentlemen, before concluding, I must add yet a few last words. Time will not suffice me to touch upon a variety of subjects of deep and vital import, but I should like you to understand that your educational training, ending with the ceremonial of to-day, has been conducted with the view of making you better and stronger men, physically, morally, and intellectually. If that training has been successSelf-denial the ful, your future lives will prove. As you have living examples of graduates of former years, many of whom I am pleased to see around me, leading noble, pure, law of being. and honorable lives, filling the highest stations in State service, and in the learned professions, with the unqualified approbation and respect of all who know them, so we hope you will serve as examples worthy of imitation to those who come after you, and become men of light and leading in your generation. If you bear in mind that no man can live wholly for himself, that in your daily lives duty should take the place of inclination, that self-sacrifice should be the law of your being, and that selfish objects and motives should find no response in your hearts, you will have risen to a high conception of your responsibilities, in connection with the days that may be in store for you. In George Herbert's words, once more, Seek Divine help. "Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high, Shoots higher much, than he that means a tree." But it will happen to you, as to all of us, that intellectual culture or scientific research alone will not satisfy your spiritual cravings for deeper knowledge of the mysteries for life. This University, very properly, does not deal with theological questions, but leaves every man free to worship his Creator, and to seek His help and guidance in the manner that seems best in accord with his hereditary training or honest convictions, but this much I may say, that your education will have been but of small benefit to you, if it has not strengthened and expanded your views of the Divine Government of the Universe. H. E. the Viceroy, in opening a Science Hall in Calcutta, a few days ago, concluded his address in words which express my meaning so fully that I cannot do better than repeat them. Lord Ripon is reported to have said ::"When the widest generalizations of science are reached, and its loftiest discoveries are mastered, there will still remain, above and beyond them, all those mysteries of life which prove to us that the utmost knowledge of the outward universe will never solve the greatest problem of life, and that we must look elsewhere for that help which is to enable us to fulfil our work on earth, for the glory of Him who is the Ruler, not only of the world around us, but of the hearts and spirits of men." I have nothing to add to these noble and touching words of one of the truest friends of the people of India, except that it remains for all of us to seek the Divine help we need, in earnest prayer, and spiritual communion with the Most High. "For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves, and those who call them friend." |