W. Hughes-Hallet

“ For the keen intellect of the East welded with the sturdy self-reliance and energy of the West shall together result in an Indian Empire indeed: an Indian Empire complete, one whole, flawless: an Indian Empire beyond the wildest dreams of a Darius, beyond the wildest hopes of an Akbar: an Indian Empire proof against traitor within and foe without: an Indian Empire ready and able to take her stand, shoulder to shoulder with her sisters of the great Anglo-Saxon federation, roekfirm against all comers, foursquare against the world. ”

“ Many of you will doubtless enlist in the ranks of journalism, a yearly increasing force—you will find the life creasing force arduous and exacting. It is a service which makes no allowance for private convenience. You are the master, but at the same time the slave, of the public. You must be ready at any moment to give an ex cathedra opinion on any subject, familiar or unfamiliar. Nothing is too great for your attention, nothing too small. ”

“ Starting in the race of life with brilliant prospects you easily keep level with and even outstrip competitors, but the beautiful flowers by the wayside are alluring and you pause to gather them. What matters it? You can easily overtake the others. With an effort you do so. But again the temptation to stray, and this time further afield, and now to recover the lost ground is a harder task. And so each wandering from the path makes wider the gap between yourself and your sometime inferiors, and your efforts to reach them become more and more hopeless. ”

“ Trust the mother who has done so much for you, that she may do more and yet more: be patient that she may do it in due season, not with the ill-considered haste which breeds disaster. Trust and be patient. And if you and your fellows throughout this mighty land thus live—as individuals doing your work honestly, thoroughly, as citizens respecting your neighbours, as subjects co-operating, with and having confidence in the State, then there need be no misgiving as to the future of India. ”

“ I say not this to dissuade you from the medical profession, to my mind the noblest of the professions, but as a warning: precisely because it is noble it should not be entered lightly. This is of course an extreme case, but the truth holds good always. A man is fond of the open air and out-door exercise —what salary can compensate him for thirty years of office drudgery in a close room? Again, think whether your work will, in addition to giving you a livelihood, do good to others. ”

“ Think of your material benefits—call up the India of a hundred years back, a hotbed of picturesque insanitation, the absence of communications, the constant wars, the gangs of freebooters, dacoits, thugs, the insecurity of life and property, the unchecked sweeping away of millions by pestilence and famine, in a word the state of danger, misery and discomfort, and then look upon the present. ”

“ You come of a land that has bred brave men. The fables of antiquity tell of no nobler exploits than those performed by the Madras Army. Not alone Amboor, Arcot, Assaye, and such familiar instances; but numberless deeds of heroism, endurance, self-denial, done by knots of men all over the Presidency, deeds so common in their day as to pass almost unnoticed, and which now live only in obscure chronicles forgotten by all but the curious. ”

“ A violation of these principles may buy a cheap notoriety in the least desirable quarters — but in the minds of all whose opinion is worth having it grievously besmirches that professional purity which you have to-day promised to maintain, and it seriously interferes with the ends of Justice by making the very name of cross-examination a terror, by making honest folk afraid to enter the witness box. ”

“ Had the educated youth of India been from the first subjected to the kindly but firm discipline under which English boys in England are brought up, not omitting a moderate use of that invaluable botanical aid to education the common birch, there would have been no occasion for this outcry. These faults are not however serious, they are much less than might have been expected in the circumstances, and if you but have the sense to listen to the truth, to accept honest advice, and to turn a deaf ear to pernicious flattery, they will soon be things of the past. ”

“ The blood that has enriched a hundred battle-fields, the heads that have fallen low upon a thousand, scaffolds, the smoke that has made murky the heavens from countless martyr pyres, this is the price paid by England for that which she has given you freely, fully, ungrudgingly. ”

“ Perhaps no other man has mastered so large a share of the learning of his own age. But the times have marched. Discoveries, inventions, the accumulated labours of students, have immensely enlarged the field of learning. The area of possible human knowledge, the area of knowledge which it is open to one man to acquire, increases year by year—and it increases not in arithmetical progression, but in geometrical. He who could take all knowledge to be his province at the end of the 16th century would find that province occupy but a small corner of the map at the end of the 19th. ”

“ And now to all of you, whatever your profession, a few words of homely counsel. Be independent. The plan of reaching the top of a hill by hanging on to the coat tails of a stronger brother is no doubt often successful, but it is never dignified. More satisfactory to climb to a lower level by your own unaided exertions. Go your own way in life. Respect yourself, and that you may do so respect others. Be ever courteous to inferiors and deferential to superiors. ”

“ Take three subjects at haphazard from different branches of study—say, Hydraulics, Spanish Literature, the Botany of South America—and ask the best educated man of your acquaintance, not actually engaged in teaching these subjects, to pass an elementary examination in them. Yet here are only three, and all tolerably familiar. Instead of three take three hundred—double three hundred and then treble that—where will the man be who tries to know some-thing of all? ”

“ Believe me there is nothing noble, there is certainly nothing sensible, in giving grudging obedience where unhesitating obedience is due. And how can you in turn expect to be obeyed when you have set a contrary example yourself? ”

“ Woman dismisses the fringe of a subject with a wave of the hand or a curt depreciatory formula and concentrates herself on the main features, a method which gains in promptitude if it sometimes loses in abstract justice. And so it comes to pass that in the search after truth woman often finds the jewel while man is still lighting his lantern. How long will you refuse the assistance of her who is your natural ally? How long will you do injustice to your wives and daughters, and through that injustice injury to yourselves? ”

“ Think also whether the profession suits you. Money is not the only object in life, there is also happiness; and how can a man be happy if his days are spent in an uncongenial occupation? For instance, picture the life of a doctor who has a distaste for his work—few dooms can be more terrible. ”

“ First, on behalf of the University to congratulate you on your success—which I do most heartily. You have toiled and have found the reward. The long course of academic work will now be followed by the work of life. One education you have done with, the other and more important you have yet to begin. ”

“ To say "Sir" to a superior involves no loss of dignity or self-respect, but on the other hand to adopt a familiar tone and affect an equality which does not exist is a contemptible practice and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. ”

“ A tropical afternoon, this vast hall the acoustic difficulties of which are almost insurmountable, in which modulation of the voice is impossible, and in which the slightest movement or noise prevents your neighbours from hearing the speaker, the sea-breeze blowing strong through open casements, and the league long roller murmuring sullen a few yards to windward, these are conditions that demand plain words plainly spoken. ”

“ To criticize is ever easier than to create, and while it is one thing to warn you against undertaking more than a reasonable amount it is quite another to lay down what the amount should be. But in any case, before all else devote yourself zealously to your profession. This is not a superfluous caution, for strange though it may seem there are men who spend much time and truble over other matters and yet leave the real work of their lives to take care of itself. Master your profession ”

“ How long do you intend your womankind to remain in ignorance? How long is to be before the education given you on such favourable terms filters through to them? Some little improvement has been effected during the last few years, but till female education ceases to be the exception and becomes the rule the reproach will not depart from you. Woman has occupied many positions in the world. ”

“ The line has to be drawn, and each must draw it for himself according to his own lights and his own conscience: it is a matter to be decided by personal conviction rather than by argument. When engaged in the actual conduct of a case you are not likely to forget the duty owing to a client, but do not forget that there is a duty owing to witnesses also. Remember that the attendance of a witness in a Court of Law is often against his own inclination, often takes him away from important private business, and not seldom puts him to serious money loss. ”

“ No, in this sense men are not and cannot be all on one level, the whole scheme of the Universe repudiates the idea, and even the preachers of the doctrine do not usually carry it about in every-day life; let an inferior apply it practically to themselves and he will soon find that the latter end of their commonwealth forgets the beginning. But there is another sense in which men may be equal. ”

“ The influence of a newspaper in England is enormous, incalculable, and even in India where there is sometimes an affectation of poohpoohing the Press it is very great. Question it who will, the Press is a great power for good— it is also unfortunately a great power for evil. It can expose and insist upon the remedy of wrong —it can also do wrong. Reflect on this fact—that your first essential is to interest the public. No amount of industry or cleverness can avail without this. ”

“ Much has of late been written and spoken about certain of your social customs, and it has been urged that the higher education cannot be said to have borne fruit SO long as they exist. To my thinking however reform must in such matters come from within rather than from without; you must turn for guidance to the enlightened among your own country-men. ”

“ How to employ these spare hours each must decide for himself, and on your decision will to a great extent depend the kind of man you become. One may take up general or special literature, another may turn to science, and so forth. And here it is worth consideration whether a short space each week might not be spared for one of the Arts. Personally, I believe that a life from which the love and practice of Art are wholly absent can never be other than an incomplete life. ”

“ Be cautious therefore in assuming a measure to be wrong because you can see no good in it, or right because you can see no harm in it. Do not fall into the dangerous mistake of looking with suspicion on the motives of people who hold opinions contrary to your own. Here again you suffer from bad advisers. From platform and magazine self-dubbed "friends of India" encourage you to ask for this or that concession, and to think yourselves ill-used if it is not immediately granted. But these persons are not your true friends. ”

“ A scathing account of a man or of a measure is read with the greatest eagerness, a favourable account is passed over with indiiference. A sad confession for poor humanity; but so it is. And lastly reflect on this third fact—that nothing is so easy as to find fault. Combine these facts, and it is evident that the journalist is under constant temptation to write sarcasm and abuse, especially the journalist whose lines are cast in a small society. Yet to its great credit be it spoken the better part of the Press steadily resists this temptation. ”

“ Not only have you promised to be good citizens, promoting the cause of morality and upholding social order and the well-being of your fellowmen; you have also promised to con-duct yourselves in daily life as becomes members of the University and to promote the cause of learning. This pledge must not be lightly broken. Wherever you may be and whatever your occupation you must endeavour to help others in the quest after knowledge. In a huge city like this individual effort may not do much, you can but join with the throng, each doing his share ”

“ If you do your work in life honestly and diligently, owing no man anything, then you may in a very high sense be the equal of every one, King or Kaiser. Equally with superior and inferior cultivate a pleasant manner, which is by no means the same thing as a servile manner. A young man may wrap himself in no better cloak for life's journey. ”

“ Whether you slacken speed from idleness or inability, or whether you merely diverge from the straight course in search of other attractions, the effect is the same. Others pass you. Therefore first do your work in life thoroughly, and then devote the leisure hours to other occupations or amusements but carrying them out thoroughly also. Do not attempt too much. If you do the professional career will be neglected and, no matter how superior your abilities, disappointment and failure will be your ultimate portion. ”

“ Now the subject of first interest to young men about to start in life is naturally the choice of a career, but on this we will not linger. The general arguments respecting the different professions are too familiar to need repetition, and it must lie with each one of you who has not already made up his mind to consider how far those general arguments are modified by the particular circumstances of his own case. ”