John D. Mayne

“ Reading can only give one-half of your education. The remainder must be acquired by practice; and it is well that you should know this, as it will serve both to check that excessive confidence, which is always felt at first by a clever youth overflowing with book knowledge and to soften the disappointment and sense of failure which he will always experience, when he first comes into competition with the trained intellect of an experienced man. ”

“ In your persons, the cause of education is on its trial. I have often heard it said, that education in India is a perilous experiment. I believe it to be neither a peril nor an experiment. I believe that it is our duty to spread education as widely as we can, and I believe that whatever is inherently right, must be more certain and more safe than any other course that can be pursued. ”

“ You will find every one willing to receive you and trust you as something better than those whom they have known. But if they find that you are no better, then they will never trust your race again. I appeal to you, not merely as individuals who have to make your own way in life, but as patriots who are going forth under new banners, to a new fight, to rescue their country from that worst of slavery, moral degradation. ”

“ There is nothing so impossible to regain, if it is once lost or tainted. And therefore I would earnestly entreat you to guard against the first slight deviation from strict integrity, the first prevarication, which will inevitably have to be backed up by a lie—the first dishonest gain, which will be renewed till you become hopelessly corrupt. The dishonest man does a three-fold injury. He injures himself, and he injures the person whom he defrauds, and he injures every other honest man, by weakening that confidence which we are naturally disposed to place in the integrity of others. ”

“ Many and brilliant exceptions there have been, but as a general rule, the natives of India have still to earn a character for integrity and truth. And, however it may suit the policy of those who wish to flatter you, to conceal it, the fact still remains, that it is this failing chiefly which has kept you back, and which, so long as it exists, will keep you back from the place which you ought to occupy as a nation. ”

“ And while you are strengthening yourselves in the resolve to be honorable, let me warn you against taking that utilitarian maxim that "Honesty is the best policy," as an accurate compendium of ethics. It is a very true maxim, if you do not confound the result of honesty with the reason for honesty. ”

“ It is a solemn reflection, that at regular intervals the world is given over into a fresh set of hands. The school-boys of this generation are the masters of the next, and the fathers of that which is to follow—and then they have to answer to futurity for the way in which they have discharged their trust. ”

“ But mental qualities alone are not sufficient without the moral qualities which give them stability and direction. Cultivate the principle of honor. All your talent, and learning and industry will be worthless, unless you can be trusted. ”

“ And I tell you this not to discourage you, but to show you that you must not consider your education complete though you have mastered, everything that can be found in books : that you must summon up your energies for new, and at first, very disheartening labours, and must try to evolve mental qualities, of whose very existence you are as yet almost unconscious. ”

“ It is the unanimous opinion of the Examiners that it is fully as difficult to obtain a first rank among the Bachelors of Arts in Madras, as to obtain a second Honor in England, and those who receive the diploma of this University will go forth into the world, stamped as the possessors of knowledge far more extensive and accurate than would be evinced by the acquisition of a similar diploma at home. ”

“ I believe the fact to be, that distinguished success in practical life calls for qualities, mental and moral, which you have not been required to display as students, and that it is upon the possession and exertion of these qualities that it depends, whether you will ever emerge from the rank of respectable mediocrity. ”

“ The point in which the student is excelled by the great master of his art, consists not in a superior knowledge of anything that may be learnt out of books, but in the intuitive skill with which that knowledge is adapted to new states of facts. ”

“ In England the mere Degree of Bachelor of Arts has been so eclipsed by the Honor Examinations, that it has become little more than a matter of form, and as it may be attained with very slight merit, so its attainment carries very little weight. ”

“ But, gentlemen, while I congratulate you upon this high distinction, I must still, Success in school and success in after-life. ungracious as it may appear, warn you against assuming that this success will ensure a similar measure of success through life. I know it is common enough to tell those who have gained prizes as students, that the same qualities which placed them before their fellows in early life, will procure them equal prominence in their after-career. This is partly true, but it is not the whole truth. It is partly true, for industry and talent will always bear a market value ”

“ And therefore I implore you first of all, and above all, to cultivate that principle of honor, without which all your intellectual powers will only be a snare to yourselves, and a source of danger to others. ”

“ The more eminent you are in other respects, the greater will be your temptation in this, for you will be capable of being of more service to others who may wish to twist you to their own bad ends. Gentlemen, there is nothing so easy to preserve as your honor, as long as it is jealously watched. ”

“ Everything is open to you if you will only prove yourselves fit for it. Will you show yourselves worthy of the occasion, or will you not? In your persons, the mass of your countrymen will be judged. Will you betray them, or will you not? ”

“ We are seldom mistaken in what is honest, but we are very apt to be mistaken in what is politic, and we are quite certain to consider that course to be politic, to which our inclinations lead us at the time. ”

“ Honesty is the best policy^ but the man who is honest because it is politic, will be apt to reverse the maxim, and to think that what he fancies to be most politic is honest. The man who does this is lost. ”

“ Make up your minds which, that one is to be, and then sedulously collect every scrap of information which will fit you for it. Do not be content with reading, or even with remembering what you read, but think it into shape ”

“ Not only is this so, but there are habits of mind engendered by a long course of study which are in themselves unfavourable to active exertion in real life. It is only in proportion as you guard against the one and develop the other, that you will maintain your present position in after-years. ”

“ But, gentlemen, a mere knowledge of principles is not sufficient without that skill in their application Combine experience with knowledge. which is only to be acquired by experience. The daily problem of real life is how to produce some effect. ”