Calcutta University March 2nd, 1935

I have been so long discussing some of the intellectual activities of the university. I shall now turn for a few moments to the steps which the university should take for the improvement of the health and welfare of our students. As you are aware, we have been exempting to render some services in this direction during recent years. The work of the student's welfare department which has won recognition from all quarters has taken two farms. It deals with the investigation of the causes affecting the health of our students by means of examination conducted by our own staff. The materials which we have collected hitherto are as interesting as they are appalling in character. What is education worth if our youths in general are physically weak or unfit, unable to stand the stress and strain of modern life ? What is education worth if we cannot turn them into men physically strong and well-equipped as they should be intellectually sane and robust ? We have not remained satisfied with a mere examination of their health. We are dealing as well with the preventive and the curative side of the problem. This includes not only a cheap though limited supply of medicines, spectacles and similar things but also larger provision for sports, games and scientific physical education. We have been fortunate enough to obtain, through the courtesy of the Calcutta Improvement Trust, a fine plot of land near the Dhakuria Lake. We are going to erect a well-equipped home for the University Rowing Club of which our teachers and students will no doubt take the fullest advantage. One of our pressing needs is a play- ground for the University. Recently we have made arrangements for sharing the Presidency College grounds in the Maidan for two days in a week. For this co-operation our thanks are due to that college ; but this is not at all sufficient for our purpose. We are also taken; steps for securing a better enrolment for the university training corps which, we hold, is capable of considerable improvement and expansion. Again, the Bratachari movement which has already attracted the imagination of our young men and women deserves the most careful Consideration of the university.

We do not share the view of those who maintain that further expansion of education is undesirable. We, on the other hand, strongly feel that the door of the university shoulder be thrown open wider still, so that it might elevate the nation and rouse the self-respect of the people of this land. The influence of the university in this democratic age cannot safely be limited to the period of youth but must include systematic and organised effort for the education of adults. In the present state of our national existence I cannot but emphasise the reality and the greatness of this need. In other countries there have been inaugurated in recent times movements for giving to the adults of every class the advantages of university education as far as practicable. As a result of this there has been discovered an astonishing measure both of ability and of the desire to make use of these opportunities. This is a field of activity still untrodden by us. If we are to keep ourselves in close touch with the life of the people, if we are not to forego an opportunity of service too great to be neglected, we have to explore the possibility of including this in our programme of work.