I would ask you to join me in) wishing Sir Frederick Lugard and his co-workers godspeed in their great work, to assist them, where- ver we can, in making this fine university known to all our people, and lastly to express a hope that as the work progresses, the authori- ties will extend their field of operations so as to cover more courses of study than they intend to do at present. Now, gentlemen, I beg you to raise your glasses to Sir Frederick Lugard and coupled Success to the Hongkong University. (Cheers) Sir. Frederick Legard was greeted with prolonged cheers on rising,
with that toast
He spoke in a clear voice, full of deep feeling for the university scheme which formed the bulk of his speech. He said:
mo
mo
Mr. President, Your Excellencies and Gentlemen: The hospitality which you are extending to
this
affords evening very special pleasure and gra. tification, since I learn from the President and from Dr. Wu that your invitation to dine with the Students' Club is intended to con- vey your, warm approval of the scheme for founding a university in Hongkong, and that project is one which I have very deeply at heart. Tonight I am in the midst of Chinese gentlemen who have won distinction in the universities of my own country, and your approval carries the more weight because you not only know what a university means and its value, but you can better appreciate than any one else the difficulties surrounding the introduction of the atmosphere of And a university with the East, by the term "atmosphere" I do not of course allude to the Proctor and his bull dogs of whom Dr. Wu spoke, but to that nameless inspira- tion which is inhaled like the air he breathes by the university student, and which consists partly in pride in the traditions of an ancient seat of learning, partly in his daily surroundings and the tone which pervades his daily inter- course, and partly in the determina- tion to uphold its prestige and to worthily represent the university of
which he is an Alumnus. Upon you gentlemen-Graduates of British Universities, devolves that duty of worthily upholding the
good namo of the institutions in which you have graduated and I 3m confident that you will show yourselves not less loyal to them and not less worthy of them than the returned students from other western
of countries, are theirs, and that you will win for the British students a preeminence not only in scientific attainments, but in the highest qualities of character and integrity. You know Englaud, and are familiar with my own language, and just as I love my country and think that there is no country in the world like it, 80 I can appreciate your OWN country and under- stand your wish that the Chinese students of the future should not be compelled to undergo a long exile in a foreign land but should be able to obtain the degrees they desire while living in their own natural environment where they can visit and be visited by their relatives. Thus only can the family life be maintained, and it was only yesterday that a Chinese gentle- man said to me in almost the same words as those used by my own King in his accession proclama- tion that the family is the unit of the State and upon its maintenance depended in his view the greatness of a nation. The returned students will exercise no double an increas ing influence in the councils of this Great Country. I am confident that that influence will be for good, and I look forward to the time when the will graduates from Hongkong bear their share too in the service of their country.
3 424