Lord Harris

“ You have seen the Deccan College blossom into the important institution it now is, and take over the handsome and spacious building it now occupies and you have seen the old building of the Elphinstone College taken over by a school of industry, and the college itself take up quarters, thanks to generous benefactors, nearer to the University. You have seen the demand for education diverted into other channels than the art course, through the media of the College of Science, the School of Art, the Victoria Jubilee Institute, and Industrial Schools ”

“ Wordsworth, we may hope that as we can look back with gratitude to your all but thirty years of life here, so you can look back with conscious satisfaction that they have been well spent, and a feeling that they have been happy ones. I should suppose that there must have been moments of disappointment at being misunderstood. You have distinguished yourself amongst your fellows and there is no man who has reached high eminence but must have now and again found himself opposed in feeling either to the smooth but steady current of official authority, o to the agitated wave of public caprice. ”

“ Sir Raymond West, behind that mysterious curtain, which is supposed to, but does so slightly, veil the confidential proceedings of Government, it would not be proper to intrude : but the public would be sure, without one word from those who have served with you, from their knowledge of your public career, that you have proved a loyal and reliable colleague, one on whose calm and judicial impartiality your colleagues could rely for sound advice at any moment. ”

“ Looking back over the thirty-five years that have elapsed since the day when Ireland supplied to the service of India another of the many brilliant servants of John Company Bahadur whom she has sent, it must seem strange to you to compare the baptism of blood and tumult which so soon followed your entry into the service with the peace and order which you leave behind on your retirement. ”

“ But such is the experience of every man who enters on the arduous task of Executive Government, and happy are those who can say, as we can say, I think, that we shall always look back with pleasure to the time when our official position induced and established sentiments of friendship. But, Sir, this brief resume of your thirty-five years' labours has not touched on your efforts for the advancement of education, which, so far as execution are concerned, are better known to your colleagues than the public ”

“ Wordsworth, your career here and a period which I think is strikingly marked by a notable advance in education in Western India, are so nearly synchronous that it is difficult to look back on the one without finding the other included in the same field. This University, although incorporated four years before you arrived in Bombay, did not receive its full liberty until 1860, and as a matter of fact, its first Fellows were not appointed until after you had taken post as Head-master of the High School, and I believe that you, as Principal of the Deccan College, were ex-officio one of them. ”

“ Vice-Chancellor, that in selecting you for this degree there was in the end complete unanimity not only amongst those who have the power to confer this degree, but also as regards the fitness of the selection in the public voice, which by its numerous expressions of regard and esteem for yourself and gratitude for the services you have rendered to India has perhaps brought a contentment and pleasure to your breast, which no honorary distinction could arouse. ”

“ Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Senate, — We are assembled for the third time to confer this honorary degree on one of Indians most distinguished public servants, and curiously enough for the third time in your career. Sir Raymond West, you receive the honorary degree of LL.D., and I venture to say that what the University of Edinburgh and the Queen's University of Ireland have thought themselves honored in doing to one who, however connected with those great institutions, has been far more closely connected with Bombay, this University need have no reluctance in repeating. ”

“ You have probably found, as most Statesmen do find when they enter a position of less freedom and great responsibility, that every reform advocated previously was not feasible in the exact form you would have preferred; that the views of the individual before office is held must necessarily undergo some modification when a more diffused light is thrown on the subject ”

“ I hold every man a debtor to his profession : from which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit; so ought they of duty to endeavour by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto. ”

“ You have seen the after-life of the youths who come up year by year; you see now your pupils occupying posts of eminence in the High Court, as Ministers in several native states, and as Professors in the Educational Department, but for whom indeed the expansion of aided enterprise would have been scarcely possible ”

“ Our pastime and our happiness will grow." Loving his books, not to strain and distort their meaning for pur- poses of argument, but for the power they give him of making mort interesting, more fruitful of illustration, more easy of recollec- tion, the tuition which was his profession, not only the master not only the student, but above all a friend. ”

“ I have used the expression "that in the end there was complete unanimity" advisedly; for at first there was one voice that did not readily join the swelling chorus; and those who know you best will readily understand, Dr. ”

“ No man of character am position, but must have had to face such moments. But if yoi have to look back on such you can now permit them to be effaces by the assurance that it is recognized on all sides that you havi pursued an upright and undeviating course from that which yoi thought right, and that having the power to train the minds, t< bend the inclination of your pupils which way you willed^ it i ”