ble proof of the wider adoption of studious habits, that I dwelt upon it with peculiar stress. "The returns of the present examination afford ùs a similarly favorable result. Out of twenty-nine students, who had attended the lectures of the term, and who formed the whole number examined, exclusive of three gentlemen who had been re-admitted a few months before the examination, seventeen have this year been declared qualified to enter the public service. The ratio is thus very nearly the same in this year as it was in the last. It preserves the same commanding over earlier years; and the most eager expectation could promise itself no more. I do not look upon this coincidence as the effect of chance. The same effect must have been produced in each of the two last years by the working of the same causes, and I assume this continuance of the favourable rate as a confirmation of what I advanced with so much confidence on first observing it last year, that there has been such a radical improvement obtained in the efficiency of the college, as to induce those attached to it to avail themselves adequately of its signal advantages. I delight to see my prediction so completely verified. It seems that, of the present race of students, every one has been impressed with a sincere desire to come forth from the college with honor, and that there has been no one who did not make it his earnest object to acquire the requisite proficiency at as early a date as possible. "But there is another feature in the results of this examination, which I regard as yet more encouraging than what I have mentioned; though we want no further evidence to the existence among the students of a very general disposition to study, what I am about to mention will prove that it has been without even a single exception. "I congratulate the institution most particularly on this circumstance, that since last I had the houor to address you the statute for the punishment of those whose conduct exhibited a persevering habitude in negligence, has slept as a dead letter ever undisturbed be its slumber Of those now attached to the institution, there is no one who has failed to acquire the requisite proficiency in two languages within the limited time. Indeed, after the gentlemen who have now been reported qualified shall have left the college, its roll will not exhibit the name of a single student who witnessed the annual examination of last year. There will, however, for the present remain the names of two gentlemen who arrived in the course of 1815-16, but their not being in the numher of those who are now about to enter the public service, may be confidently as cribed to their having been prevented by extreme ill health from attending the public examination. The declaration of their sufficiency is therefore contemplated by me as only suspended, until their strength shall be so much restored as to enable them to claim the privilege of a separate trial. "When I say that there is no student who has brought himself within the penalty of the 33d statute, I purposely exclude the case of one gentleman, whose removal was for a contumacious disregard of an inhibition from the governor general,totally unconnected with the literary discipline of the college, or with any failure in the acquirement of what he ought to learn; the proposition, therefore, will stand good, that no one has in the last year subjected himself by sloth to the penalties of the statute. "It may be thought singular that I expatiate on what must appear at the best, but a negative advantage; but it is not without good cause that I have brought this circumstance so prominently forward. It has given me greater satisfaction than any other of the brilliant testimonies of this year, because I regard it as a decided proof of the entire success of a measure which the solicitude of government had fashioned with much anxiety towards the improvement of the college. "Before the adoption of that measure,. the long disuse of any rigid procedure directed to the enforcement of the discipline of the college, had tended to the encourage the indulgence of idle and expensive habits, and there were several of the students who calculated on the ability to run for successive years their career of inattention with impunity. You, all of you, know the penalty devised with a view to check this spirit. The object was to frame such an infliction as should be justly feared in prospect by those attached to the institution, and prove a severe practical disadvantage to those who might have the hardihood to incur it. "Removal from the presidency, with allowances on a lower scale than what their qualified contemporaries would enjoy, added to the certainty of obtaining no promotion or favourable change until the prescribed acquaintance with two languages was acquired, such was the penalty denounced against proved des titution of qualification after a certain pe riod of attachment to the college. The disgrace that must attend the public removal of a student under such a rule, was not among the least important of the influences on which we reckoned in establishing this punishment. Some time was naturally required for this provision to display its full effect. There was to be experience before it could be generally known whether this rule was intended to be strictly executed; a period must elapse before all hope of averting its severity by private interest could be destroyed. On the first occasion of my presiding at your exercises, I gave public warning of my resolution to execute the statute without fear or favour; but it is not in human nature to be warned by words, howsoever solemnly delivered. Accordingly, notwithstanding the explicit declaration I had made of my intentions, five students subjected themselves to the penalties of this enactment in the year which follow. ed its promulgation. One would have thought that this severity must have been sufficient; yet the spirit of idleness, though greatly reduced, was not yet quite subdued, for in the next year also two gentlemen fell under its provisions. "It was reserved for the present examination to show that the spirit we have all so much deprecated has been entirely eradicated from this Institution. Every one that enters it, be his disposition what it may, seems now to comprehend that his fairest prospects in life, and, what is more, his credit for sense and talent, depend upon his performing what is expected of him; that is, his acquiring within the term allowed a tolerable acquaintance with two of the languages taught. I can readily believe, that there may be some who would have dimculty in acquiring the prescribed competency before the next annual examination after their arrival in the country. Many undoubtedly acquire it, but it is by a recognized exertion, the success of which deserves marked and honorable mention. I will not, however, believe that there has arrived in this country an individual, who, had he regularly attended the lectures of the professors, and otherwise not been wantonly inattentive, would have been found unqualified at the second annual examination. Though the line has been drawn at the second annual examination, the rule is never rigidly enforced against those, who, by regular and prepared attendance at the lectures of the second year, may show that they have become duly impressed with a desire to derive from the college all the instruction it affords, though this desire should not have been felt in their earlier progress. To such the liberty of remaining another year is never refused. In preceding years several have usually availed themselves of the indulgence, and generally with effect. "The boast of the present year is, not only that there are no instances of students failing to prove qualified after having obtained the grace of the additional term, but there are none now in the Institution to ask it for the ensuing year.-It is hence evident that all have been regularly studious at least during the past year, if not from the time of their joining the Insti tution; and all, even they who were naturally so disposed, have been restrained from sliding into those courses of idleness and inattention, which have heretofore been attended with such serious consequences. "Am I wrong, gentlemen, in attributing to the effects of the statute a fact so peculiarly gratifying, as that out of such a number none should have fallen into inattentive habits, or have appeared insensible to the degrading light into which an indolence, otherwise fascinating, might betray them ?-Let not any one suppose that it is bringing discredit either upon individuals or upon the Institution, to trace the more extensive disposition to apply, which the college at present exhibits, to the restraint on idleness imposed by a penal statute. It must redound to the glory of the Institution that its discipline is so well armed and so efficient. It must redound no less to the credit of the individuals, that their minds have been so well prepared for it to work upon. "The creditof this Institution is as much supported by the universal success of those who come within its influence, even should that success extend only to the first stages of competency, as it is by the brilliant achievements of its more distinguished members. "But although the deterring influence of a dreaded penalty may constrain to a certain degree of study, so as to produce the former effect, it is not this principle that excites to those higher exertions, or produces those instances of splendid and extraordinary attainment of which our college has at all times been so fruitful. "No, gentlemen, you who have borne away the honours of this examination, and have received from me the rewards of this day, you need be under no alarm. The merit of your exertions will not be tarnished by any supposition that your's were constrained studies; your progress must have placed you far beyond the range within which discipline exerts its influence. "It has been incumbent on me to vindicate by proof the expedience of austerity in a case where the proficiency of the student is not his own concern, but where the interest of multitudes is to be affected by the quality of his acquirements. But, gentlemen students, howsoever requisite it may be in some instances to work upon the thoughtlessness of youth, by holding forth the penal consequence of neglected duties, give me credit for believing that the vast majority of you have been actuated by more honorable impulses. I would assert, that a glowing anticipation of the part he has to fulfil, has swelled the breast of every one of you whom I have now the honor to address. I know you have a conscious ness correspondent to my feeling, that the credit of Britain's name is involved in your endeavours; and if the conception be in any of you indistinct, I will aid you to develope to yourselves so dignified a sentiment. 66 Disposed as one must be to reverence departed genius, and to treat its aberrations with indulgence, one must not abstain from repelling an unfounded impu tation on our country, because its author no longer lives to maintain his charge. A man of transcendant talents, in the ve hemence of crimination, once asserted that, were the British domination, after such a length of years, to be withdrawn from India, no more traces of its rule would remain than had this vast empire been subjected during that term to a race of tigers. It is true, we have not built a Tadmor in the wilderness, to impress the world with the incongruity of introducing the refinements of splendor amid uncul. tivated society. We have not constructed pyramids, to excite the indignation of mankind at the capricious despotism which could enjoin such a misapplication of human exertion. But we have reared the bulwark of security round the humble hovels of the helpless. But we have raised the proud temple of impartial justice on the ruins of lawless violence. But we have established the sacred altars of of mercy, where oppression and insult and ravage used to print their paths with blood. And do acts like these leave no memorial? Marble decays, and the honors of the hero perish with it time obliterates the inscription; the sculptured cornice mingles with the dust; and speculation exhausts itself in devising a founder or an excuse for those masses which encumber the plains of Egypt. Not so fades the memory of the benefactors of their kind. Final oblivion is destined for all on this earth; but, as long as examples may profit and grateful honors may stimulate to imitation, we see the cherished fame of those who have bestowed important boons on their fellow men, surviving centuries, and monuments, and even nations. Such would be the remembrance of British sway in this country, were any revolution, calamitous indeed for India, to remove our dominion. Would not the thought unceasingly recur to those who had been our subjects, that out of these regions the demon of tyranny had fled before British energy? that the principles which had meliorated society throughout these extensive realms were of British inculcation? that the : compreliension of civil rights was an heirloom bequeathed to them by British bounty? "You, who are coming forward to take your share in the concerns of the state, rouse yourselves to feel the extent of your obligation. Your lot is not ordinary participation in the common-place course of business. You must bring souls to the task assigned you. The structure of this government is altogether unprecedented. In other countries the duties of a young man just launched into political employment, would be simple and restricted. Here, each of you, even in the subordinate line in which he must at first move, is a party to all the views and solicitudes of government. The chain is with us so unbroken, that in the remotest link the functionary is essentially connected with the general administration of affairs, and is a sharer in all the exertions by which this stupendous edifice is maintained. Well may I term it stupendous; yet it is a mark for the admiration of other countries, not from its magnitude, but from the undeniable fact, that this is a dominion over willing minds, that the na tives feel their happiness to be promoted by our predominance, and that they regard our stability as their blessing. Justly do they so estimate it; for where has the British standard been advanced without overturning some Moloch of barbarity, and placing on its pedestal the hallowed image of that equity, of which, if ever a notion before floated in these regions, it was but as the vague conception of the unknown God. "And ought the weal of a people once taken under our fostering care, to be left to any extraneous contingency? Our spirit of benevolence should be disinterested, and we should stand above the pride of considering their freedom from oppression as dependent solely on the strength of our arm. How, it will be asked, is any other security to be given to them! By communicating to them that which is the source of such security in us. By imparting to them that knowledge which furnishes at once the consciousness of human rights, and the disposition and the means to maintain them. "I admit that the attempt of instilling such instruction into the population of India is at first view arduous, in that almost universal absence of mental cultivation, which exists among the natives. The amendment must begin from the lowest step. It is only by facilitating and encouraging the education of a rising generation that any thing solid can be done; a process to which, I am satisfied, the parents will every where be found eagerly disposed, from what they have seen of the advantages of our science. You, young men, may be eminently serviceable in promoting this object. You will not think it toilsome or beneath your dignity, if you represent to yourselves truly what it is you do. Will there not be a pride in considering yourselves as not merely instruments for the dry discharge of duties, but as the engines employed for the most benignant of purposes? It is humane, it is generous, to protect the feeble; it is meritorious to redress the injured. But it is a God-like bounty to bestow expansion of intellect, to infuse the Promethean spark into the statue and waken it into man. "This government never will be influenced by the erroneous, shall I not rather call it the designing position, that to spread information among men, is to render them less tractable and less submissive to authority. If an abuse of authority be planned, men will be less tractable and submissive in proportion as they have the capacity of comprehending the meditated injustice. But it would be treason against British sentiment to imagine, that it ever could be the principle of this government to perpetuate ignorance, in order to ensure paltry and dishonest advantages over the blindness of the multitude. As to general tranquillity, all experience assures us that it is only where the mass of society is uninstructed that extensive convulsions have arisen from insignificant causes. Where a man is incompetent to judge, he will always be ready to adopt the passions of his neighbour, as a sufficient motive for the gratification which the brutal find in any turbulence. Where men can measure, and weigh, and compare, their reason will always pause, and bid the momentary impulse go by, if they do not find ground to justify it. "Gentlemen of the College, I have rather wandered from that comparison between the products of this and preceding years, which forms the regular topic of discussion on these annual occasions. I do not, however, apologize for the digression. It is not either inapposite or useless that the students should be apprized for what high ends their acquirements are to qualify them. I do indeed persuade myself, that a benevolent hope of rendering themselves competent to act as useful and protecting guardians to the inhabitants who will hereafter be under their management, has encouraged application in the students in no less degree than their sense of what their compact with their employers claimed. Whatever be the impulse, the display of the present year need shrink from no comparison; on the contrary, it takes its place amongst the most brilliant periods in the annals of the college. If so large a number as twenty-five qualified persons has not been added to the public service, it is only referable to the want of an equal stock from which to furnish them. The relative proportion of the qualified has nevertheless been nearly maintained as I have before mentioned, so even in the number yielded this year, there is far from being any failure in the productive powers of the institution. But in addition to the Asiatic Journ,-No. 26. seventeen students furnished by the college, in the regular course, there are two other gentlemen of those temporarily lost to the service, who have now been recovered to it. These gentlemen are Mr. Plowden and Mr. Monsell; and I name them with honor; for the creditable proficiency they both have manifested in two, and one of them in more than two languages, proves that they never wanted equal powers of acquisition with their contemporaries, had they only possessed the disposition exert them. The attainments of at least one of these gentlemen must be placed to the account of the college, in which for the last term he regularly attended the lectures. At all events the gain to the public service in this year is nineteen; a number that, except in the last year, has never been surpassed. to "The degree of proficiency and rapidity of acquirement evinced by the examination of this year, is far beyond what was exhibited by the students of the preceding. I last year distributed but five degrees of honor, and the gentlemen who received them had all but one been more than a year attached to the institution; one of them more than two years. On the present occasion I have distributed no less than twelve degrees of honor, and there is only one among those who received them who witnessed the preceding annual examination. "With respect also to the scale of proficiency reached this year, I have been informed that the attainments of Mr. Dundas and of Mr. Millett in Persian and Hindoostanee, and of the two mitary students, lieutenants Macdonald and Moodie in the former language, are fully equal to what has been reached by those who usually stand at the head of the college roll; and if they do not quite come up to the literary eminence of some that you have occasionally had among you, it is only because the period of their attachment to the institution has not been of sufficient length to admit of their making such extensive acquisition. "The gentlemen of the civil service to whom I have given degrees of honor are, Messrs. Dundas, Millett, M'Farlane, Robertson, for high proficiency in the Persian language: and Messrs. Millett, Dundas, Scott, Robertson, Reade, and M'Farlane, for the same in the Hindustani language. "The eighteen gentlemen who have been reported qualified for the public service 7. Edward William Cockerell, 9. William James Turquand, 11. Francis Macnaghten, 13. George Powney Thompson, 18. Edward Stirling; and to these I am to add the name of Mr. Plowden, who, though not regularly readmitted, has, as already observed, passed an examination and been declared qualified in two languages. "Events have not permitted that we should have more than two military stu dents in the past year, lieutenants Macdonald and Moodie; the former of the Madras service: but though the period of the attachment of both in the institution has been very short, and the studies of the latter in particular were interrupted by an unlooked-for summons to the field, both have obtained the distinction of a degree of honor for high proficiency in Persian, and of medals for rapid progress in the Arabic. It is reckoned, gentlemen of the, college, a creditable exertion to attain the required proficiency in two languages within the year; no less, however, than ten of those who now leave the college have thus distinguished themselves. When in one of the two languages so high a scale of proficiency is reached as to entitle the student to a degree of honor in it, his merit is greatly enhanced; but when this high rate of proficiency is acquired within the year in both languages, the circumstance affords a happy indication that the individuals who achieve so much are endowed with powers of acquisition which fall to the lot of few. Such rapid and extensive progress can only be made by those who possess a quick perception, a retentive memory, unwearied perseverance, and what is yet more valuable, the power of concentrating their energies to a given object. The events of this examination show a greater number, in whom all these qualities must be united, than the college has ever before exhibited on any one occasion. "Four gentlemen, Messrs. Dundas, Millett, M'Farlane and Robertson, have earned the high distinction of having acquired degrees of honor in two lauguages within the year. Mr. Dundas, who stands first on the list, has done much more; for he has added o the extraordinary proficiency which has entitled him to degrees of honor in Persian and Hindustani, a very competent knowledge of the Bengalese and he has besides obtained a medal for the rapidity of his progress in the Arabic. Such efforts can only be classed with the most distinguished achievements of the most renowned periods of the institution; and Mr. Dundas must rank in the annals of the college only below our Macnaghtens and Stirlings. "Messrs. McFarlane and Robertson have also obtained a creditable rank in the Bengalese class; particularly the former, who holds the second place; and if Mr. Millett has refrained through a modest distrust of his powers, to enter the field of competition in more than two languages, we may rest satisfied, that a more perfect acquaintance with the two of his selection has resulted from this concentration of his powers. I have been assured that in well-founded pretension to all those qualities which mark rising genius, Mr. Millett will yield to none of his cotemporaries. "It is peculiarly grateful to me to dwell upon names which have before been the subject of my eulogy. It is but lately that a former Mr. Millett, brother of this gen tleman, ran the same honorable career. The Mr. Millett of this year need not blush to meet his brother, for he has be comingly upheld the honors that had been acquired to this name. "Mr. Scott and Mr. Reade, the other two gentlemen to whom I have given degrees of honor for their high proficieney in Hindustani, have both evinced a degree of talent which, if it had been directed with perseverannce equal to that exhibited by their more distinguished competitors, would have ranked them with the highest on the roll. Mr. Reade's proficiency has been obtained with wonderful rapidity, and, I have been assured, entire ly since he joined the institution. "It is rather a singular circumstance that I have had to distribute no degrees of honor for proficiency in the Bengalese language. Messrs. Tudway, Clarke, and McFarlane have however merited the reward of medals for their proficiency in it, and the less successful cultivation of this language in the year is merely a consequence of the short time that most of the students have been attached to the college, and to the circumstances which have directed their emulous exertions to the other languages taught. Such fluctuations in the studies and pursuits of the members of the college is no matter of sur prize, when it is recollected that it is left to the option of the students to select the two languages to which they will direct their efforts. "The further honors acquired at this examination, which remain to be noticed, are a medal of merit awarded to Mr. Francis Macnaghten and Mr. Wyatt, for rapid progress in the Hindustani language, |