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turn to practical account in their own interest as well as in the interest of their fellow countrymen.
In the last two years there has been a remarkable development in the Wernacular press. A number of newspapers have been started and most of them have a more or less respectable circulation; at least two of these journals are conducted by graduates and a monthly magazine by name Jnana Bodhini containing well-written and thoughtful articles on religious, social, and literary topics, is conducted altogether by graduates of our university. The Tamil Sangam recently started at Madura by a way of the revival of the old historical institution for which that capital of ancient Tamil Kingdom is celebrated, is a movement pointing to the welcome departure I have indicated above. Small debating Societies have been established here and there and are maintained by graduates and under-graduates. Besides those, literary attempts of a less ephemeral nature are also made by the younger generation of the educated class. This last is, of course, the most important feature of the new born attitude of the educated Dravidian youths towards their mother-tongue in whose antiquities and fertility they take a pardonable pride. The books and the booklets occasi onally published now are few and not of a high order. Most of them are small works of fiction intended to amuse uneducated minds and to bring some addition to the writer's means of livelihood. Naturally along with works of fiction, works of a historical nature are also forthcoming. The life of the Great Moghul Emperor, Akbar, an account of the ruined city of Vijayanagar in the Bellary district, a sketch of the various Dravidian Kingdoms established in Southern India have recently furnished topics for Small volumes in this branch of literature. A writer has translated a portion of the great epic of John Milton, and another some of Shakespeare's plays Works on agriculture and medicine have also appeared; of translations, new editions and commentaries of a religious character, there have been as usual a large number. In writing and publishing these books, I believe, the writers have been prompted by a fresh-born confidence in popular literature as paying profession, I welcome this confidence, because no activity, not supported by some economic basis can be wide or enduring. The old openings which Public Service and learned professions offered having become more or less overcrowded, our graduates are turning to fresh fields and pastures
new. And of these, literature will not be the least honourable though certainly not the most paying.
Of the new band of graduates who have thus stepped into the field of liferature, I am glad to mention as one of the most, if not the most conspicuous amongst them the name of Pandit V. G. Suryanarayana Sastriar of the Madras Christian College. Apart from the surviving generation of the old school of Pandits, Pandit Swaminatha Aiyer, for instance, I think I may say that Mr. W. G. Suryanarayana Sastriar is the foremost worker in the cause of the advancement of the Tamil literature. As a graduate of the Madras University,
