Adam Bittleston

“ Gentlemen, in the practice of this profession you must neither forget your duty to your clients, nor your duty to yourselves. The one demands of you that you should give to your client the full benefit of your knowledge, experience, and judgment, sparing no pains to render these as perfect as you can ; the other demands of you, that you should never, even from zeal for your client, still less from any motive of self-interest, stoop to any dishonourable or unworthy practice. As to zeal for the client, I am afraid that it is not generally in this country a very strong feeling ”

“ In vain she assumes to raise the standard of education to a high level ; in vain she strives to promote sound learning and to cultivate the growth of public and private virtue, if her graduates do not stand forth conspicuous amongst their fellow-countrymen both for learning and for virtue, living epistles read and known of all men, wherein the good effects of their early training are written in most legible characters.
As to yourselves, gentlemen, you have now reached a critical period of life, a critical point in your career. ”

“ Unless she can point, year after year, to an increasing roll of distinguished names, the names of men who, by a career of honourable usefulness, have proved or are proving themselves benefactors of their country, she fails in her mission. The tree can only be judged by its fruits, and the University must be judged by the character and conduct of her sons. ”

“ Look at Lord Derby, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, who for more than quarter of a century has taken an active part sometimes in the administration of public affairs, always in the busy turmoil of political life, yet has always found leisure to cultivate the classical studies of his youth, aud has in his old age given to the world an admirable translation of the Iliad, in the preface to which he assures us that the task has been his most delightful recreation. These, gentlemen, are the examples which we desire to hold up to our graduates for imitation. ”

“ There are, I believe, some persons who can hardly persuade themselves that the profession of advocacy can ever be consistent with personal honour ; but this opinion is probably influenced mainly by a mistaken notion of what the Advocators duty is, or by the recollection of some par- ticular instance or instances, rare and exceptional, in which the individual Advocate has forgotten his duty and abused his privilege. So easy is it, gentlemen, for a very small number of evil-doers to bring discredit on any brotherhood to which they belong ! ”

“ This University, gentlemen, has not, under existing circumstances, the means of exercising any of that domestic discipline which is a valuable feature of the Collegiate System in some other Universities, nor can she give to her students that kind of moral training which results from the free social intercourse of a large body of educated youths, living together as one community, and not only prosecuting common studies and striving after common objects of ambition, but sharing also in common recreations and amusements. ”

“ I have already detained you too long, but perhaps I may be excused on this occasion, the last on which our present Chancellor will preside over our meetings, for stepping aside from the direct path of this exhortation, to say that we bid him farewell with great regret, and with a grateful sense of the active and liberal interest which he has manifested in the cause of education during the period of his Governorship. There is, I am persuaded, no man here who will join more heartily than he, in the wish with which I now conclude. ”

“ It is often said that these educational honours are sought by the youth of this country not for the honour of them, nor from any love of learning, but for the sake of the appointments and the rupees which are supposed to follow pretty fast and with tolerable certainty upon the acquisition of a degree ; in fact, that the love of money is the moving cause which stimulates the intellectual activity of Hindu youth. Many hard things are said about the love of money ”

“ The arms which an Advocate wields he ought to use as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the interests of his clients per fas, but not per nefas. He ought to know how to reconcile the interests of his client with the eternal interests of truth and justice." Act, gentlemen, upon these principles. ”

“ Here, then, gentlemen, I think is a field in which you, and such as you, may do good and laudable service. Your influence can extend where ours cannot reach, and you may know of evils of which we are ignorant. ”

“ This you may do by devoting yourselves directly to the work of teaching as the business of your lives ; you may find more lucrative, you can find no nobler em- ployment ; and in the interests of education it is much to be hoped that ere long the inducements to enter upon that career will be greater than they are at present, that the labours of the school- master will be more highly rewarded, and that both in public and private more heed will be given to the injunction of the poet — " Respect, as is but rational and just, The man deemed worthy of so dear a trnst." ”

“ You are now exposed to some temptations which will probably never again attack you with so much force as now, and against which we call upon you to struggle with all your might. Perhaps the worst and strongest of these is the temptation to rest from your labours, satisfied with what you have already done. ”

“ But, now, gentlemen, a few words as to your duty towards others. You are well aware that, in the matter of The career of national education, it is still very early dawn with us in this country. The sun has hardly begun to gild the hill tops, but we desire to see its light and warmth shed into the lowest valleys ”

“ I infer from the degree which la^erf ^^fhould ^^^ ^^^^ chosen that your intention is to devote act upon. yourselves to the law as a profession, and that you desire to serve your country either as Advocates or as Judges. It would ill-become me, gentlemen, to say anything in disparagement of that choice. It is a profession which holds out to you many substantial rewards; but be assured, it yields its prizes only to those who fairly win them by industry, ability, and integrity. ”

“ Be not boastful nor too proud of your own doings j bear your success with modesty, which is ever the com- panion of real merit, and avoid all appearance of arrogance and self-conceit, which are both offensive to others and injurious to yourselves — serious obstacles in the way of usefulness and self -improvement. To this end it is only necessary that you should '^descend into yourselves^' as Bacon has it, and call yourselves to an account by comparing the little you know with the more which others know, and the much more which remains to be known. ”