NATIONAL EDUCATION

FOR the second time, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee has been called upon to deliver — and has delivered — the convocation address to a university other than his own. This is a unique honour for any Indian educationist since the foundation of our universities, and if there is one man in the country of whom it can be said with perfect truth that he richly deserved this honour, that man is Sir Ashutosh. Great alike as a scholar, jurist and judge, there is no sphere of public activity to which Sir Ashutosh has more earnestly devoted the energies of his versatile mind than to education, and while opinion may and does differ regarding several aspects of his administration of the Calcutta University, few will question either his great and almost unrivalled knowledge of Indian educational problems or the priceless value of the services that he has rendered to his alma mater and to the cause of education in Bengal and indirectly in India. It was in recognition of this fact that Punjab University invited Sir Ashutosh to deliver the convocation address year before last. It is in recognition of the same fact that the new University at Lucknow invited him this year to deliver the convocation address to its graduates. The keynote of his address at Lucknow was a vigorous plea for bringing university education into vital, active touch with the life of the nation. This is an idea which has always been dear to the heart of every man who knows how intimately education and national life are blended together, how every new step taken in the matter of education affects for better or worse the life of the people, and how every considerable change in the life of the people is either the effect or the cause of fresh educational effort.