Henry Bartle Edward Frere

“ Remember the great University truth, that Arts rest on Morals, and that if you would be wise and learned, the pure heart is as necessary to the successful pursuit of Science and Art as the high and unclouded intellect. ”

“ Unless he sat himself up within a barrier of entirely selfish enjoyment he must go forth and act the part of a teacher, and he will teach with an intelligent power a thousand-fold greater than can be applied by him who, however zealous in the cause, has himself no more than a perfect knowledge of the bare elements of learning. These are the reasons why it seems to me that it is a very superficial view of the effects of this University education to suppose that it is in any way antagonistic to the great cause of primary education. ”

“ It is not the want of money, but the want of human hearts and heads capable of applying that money intelligently to the work of teaching, which so long has kept, and will keep so large a proportion of the poorer class in every country unable to write or read. Let us consider where in England or in Germany would popular education be were it not for those who have themselves been educated at a University, or at schools which take their tone from the University? ”

“ I would urge this with the stronger emphasis on all the under-graduates and younger members of the University, because the results must come by an impulse from within. It cannot be impressed, however much it may be modified, by action from without. No course of study, however elevated, no distinction of separate buildings or peculiar costumes, though all tending to the same end, can avail much, unless there be among yourselves the spirit to create a standard for your own guidance in all minor morals, distinct from and higher than that of men who do nob belong to so honoured an institution. ”

“ Whenever the British Government succeeded to the sovereignty, this defect was one of the first which it strove to remedy. From the very nature of things it was often impossible to do more than to provide the most just and upright men the Government could obtain, who knew something of the language and people, and leave them to administer justice as best they could, with no other guide than the light of their own conscience and reason. ”

“ The Moulvie who can repeat the Koran with half its commentaries by heart, the Shastree who is a living library of Hindoo literature, men who had long passed in their own courts as miracles of erudition, may find in the young scholar who comes fresh from the teaching of Germany or England more profound knowledge of their own sacred books than they themselves ever dreamed of. ”

“ The young stranger knows what they have never learnt, how varied are the aspects, how many-sided the forms, of truth, how unlimited is the field of possible knowledge, how little is the sum of all human science and learning when compared to that which is still unrevealed. ”

“ No one, I hope, would ever dream of comparing it as a language in completeness, in copiousness, or in all that constitutes the perfection of language, with Sanskrit; but while there is a large majority of Indian youths to whom the study of Sanskrit is natural as the classical language of their country and mother tongue, there are many for whom it has no special fitness, compared with a language like Latin, which has for centuries been the classic language of all the great nations of Europe. ”

“ But certainly India in the 18th century would never have struck a traveller, as we are told it did in the 14th century, as remarkable for the just and equal administration of the law, and I cannot call to mind any single instance in which any nation of modern India could boast of regular courts of justice, possessing the characteristics I have described, as open to all, independent of all external authority, and professing to administer to all alike one known and uniform body of law. ”

“ It is no light task which the English Government set before itself to provide laws and suitable tribunals to administer them to so many millions of men; for you must remember that such tribunals as the British Government proposes, require not only a judge to sit on the bench, but a trained bar, and a knowledge of the general principles of the law and practice of the tribunals very widely diffused among the community at large. ”

“ They go forth to the world with the stamp, not of a school, but of a University; while they will find their abilities and industry tasked to the utmost to maintain the reputation of the school of Medicine in which they have been educated, and which boasts among its professors and graduates some gentlemen members of this Senate, who are second to none in their noble profession in professional reputation and scientific attainment. ”

“ The landlords, the clergy of all denominations, the schoolmasters, the authors and editors, these classes are surely not unimportant agents in spreading primary or popular education. No man of refined education can stand unmoved by the spectacle of a people wholly in darkness. ”

“ I refer to the great body of men who obtain in their youth the advantages of a liberal education, and of whom a comparatively small number even engage directly in what would be called, in this country, the affairs of Government, yet whose influence is most sensibly felt in the administration of public affairs, and has perhaps been more potent than that of any body of men in rendering our country what it is.
Now I need not tell you that an University education may be regarded University Degree the stamp of Liberal Education. ”

“ There were no public schools to teach even the very elements of learning. Schools, scholars, teachers, professors, had alike to be created. It might be said, and it was said by many most influential educationists, "This is a case where nothing can be done but to provide elementary schools—schools for primary or popular education, on which in future generations, may be grafted schools of a higher character, as colleges." ”

“ To judge of what he may do we must, I think, as has been often suggested by a learned friend of mine, to whom this University owes so much, and who, I am sorry to think, is shortly to leave us—we must, I say, look back to the time when the young scholars of mediaeval Europe visited the courts of the great princes and nobles who in those days thought it scarcely less glorious to found a college than a kingdom. ”

“ It was a time of darkness and discouragement, when all of us were thinking much more of immediate measures of material defence than of the more peaceful subjects connected with education. It has always seemed to me one of the almost sublime characteristics of that period, that when we were all absorbed in measures relating mainly to the immediate defence and security of the country, men were found who made time to calmly and deliberately carry out the measures connected with the grant of a charter to an infant University. ”

“ He will bring, too, learning in many branches of science never before heard of in those regions, all the wonders of physical science, and all the varied history, philosophy, and literature of the great race who govern India. And, withal, prince and peasant, priest and warrior, will, Humility the true stamp of wisdom. ”

“ I hope that many of them will avail themselves of the aid so liberally offered them by the benefactors of the University to travel and perfect themselves in our great practical English schools of law. They will there be struck, as early travellers from our own country used to be struck in India, by the spectacle of a whole people among whom the law is paramount. ”

“ When England affords you the opportunity of filling offices hitherto reserved for her ablest and most experienced public servants, be assured it is not because she undervalues the office, nor will she continue the offer unless you on your part can furnish men who are fit to sit beside such men as an English University can furnish.
You will not, I am sure, suppose that I would make the University degree Love learning for its own sake. in itself a passport to the public service; it must be sought for its own sake, as the test and in itself the great reward of the best education we can give you. ”

“ Every religious and domestic objection which ingenuity could raise has now been dissipated, and the educated youth of this part of India must be well aware, that if they would save themselves from the contempt of their fellow scholars in every other civilized country of the universe, they will talk and think of no other obstacle to foreign travel than such as the benefactions lately made to this University for the benefit of its poorer scholars are intended to remove. ”

“ It is true that many men do, by force of natural ability or by other natural and acquired advantages, obtain distinguished positions in society or political life without such education, but they are the exceptions, and, as a rule, the only one point which all prominent men, in society and politics, of all classes and opinions, have in common, is their liberal education. ”

“ It may be necessary to wait with patience till the prejudices which prevent the gratification of this most natural and wholesome form of education shall be counted among the things of the past; but it would be an insult to the intellect of India at this period to suppose that many years can elapse before men will think with something like incredulity, that it was ever seriously contemplated to treat as out-castes men who had sought to improve their minds by foreign travel. In this as in many other respects the Parsees have shown themselves worthy to load their fellow countrymen ”

“ The first of our graduates who has attained the honours of a Master in Arts, he has Well earned the distinction of being the first indigenous Fellow of this University. Captain Sherard Osborn has already earned for himself a name equally honoured in literature and in the service of his country as a distinguished Naval officer and traveller. I feel assured he will not be a passive member of an institution on which the intellectual development of Western India so largely depends. There are many gentlemen here who have witnessed the architectural glories of our great Universities in Europe. ”

“ It must be an education which, whatever its subject, aims at training, purifying and strengthening the intellect, which seeks not merely to impress on men's memories, knowledge which may be useful and. profitable to them, but which aims at training them, to correct modes of thinking and reasoning, and to fill their intellects with the loftiest and most beautiful results of human thought. I cannot now attempt to discuss the reasons why such training must be useful to the student and profitable to the community of which he is a member ”

“ I think we see around us many reasons for hoping that, in this respect, there is a movement going on in the awakening intellect of India, which, in fact, has marked the dawn of a new era of civilization in every age of which we have any record. ”

“ It is evident from this that the teaching resources of the Colleges must, to some extent, be diverted from their proper object, from preparing Matriculated students for their degree, in order to bring unmatriculated students up to the Matriculation standard. I would not have our Colleges do less, but I would urge our schools to do more, for they may rest assured that their excellence as schools for imparting a liberal education will be measured in no small degree by the proportion of students they may prepare for Matriculation at the University. ”

“ One is to be found chiefly among Europeans, not, I trust, among those who have lived long in this country, but still so common among those who are not practically familiar with your countrymen, as to deserve your earnest exertions to remove it. They will tell you that the oriental intellect is worn out ; that it may possess great capacity to receive and retain knowledge, but that it has no power to analyse or combine; that it is no longer capable of producing those results of a high order of intellect of which your ancient literature contains such abundant evidence. ”

“ Nor will I attempt to point out those branches of liberal learning which appear to me most likely to have such a permanent beneficial influence on those who study, not for immediate profit, but with a view to strengthen and elevate their own intellects. ”

“ These gifts were not legacies, given when a man can no longer himself enjoy the wealth he leaves behind him. They are gifts by men in the full enjoyment of life, and keenly alive to all the pleasures that life and fortune can give, but living among you in a simple unostentatious fashion, and setting to the younger members of their community as good an example of steady application to business and unaffected plainness in habitations, dress and manners, as they set to all India in the princely munificence of their benefactions. ”

“ No one living in India in this generation is likely to forget that glorious galaxy of contemporary students, which at one University, and at one period of its history, gave to India three successive Governors-General, and to England a goodly number of her most eminent Cabinet Ministers. ”

“ It is in this direction that we may hope the University will prove here as valuable as Universities have been in every country in Europe, as giving that kind of intellectual and moral training without which the most accurate knowledge of the mere letter of the law will fail to make a good lawyer in our English sense of tho word.On the other hand, I believe that, in the profession of the law, the scholars of this University will find, as do their brethren in Europe, a most congenial and useful field for their talents improved and stimulated by University training. ”