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Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar

The first A.R.C. Perera Memorial Oration Delivered by Lakshman Kadirgamar, PC, MP under the auspices of the Alumni Association of the University of Peradeniya - Colombo Chapter at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo, on 17th October 2003.

I had only a slender acquaintance with the late A.R.C. Perera. I knew of him as a gentleman and a sound lawyer, but I did not have the pleasure of knowing him well. The learned Solicitor General has spoken eloquently of Mr. Perera's life and work. I have nothing to add to what the Solicitor General has said except to join in the tribute he has paid to Mr. Perera whose life was sadly cut short when he was still young and full of promise. I am honoured to have been invited to deliver this memorial oration to commemorate the first anniversary of his death.

Mr. Chairman, you will recall that when you kindly invited me to deliver this oration I demurred initially on the ground that "as a general rule I have consistently declined to deliver memorial orations for the reason that if I accept one I would find it difficult to refuse others". However, on reflection I came to the conclusion that the Alumni Association of the University of Peradeniya was special to me as I was in the very first batch of Peradeniya students, having started, my university law studies in Colombo in September 1950, moved to Peradeniya in September 1951 and sat for the final examination in March 1953.

I felt that I should attempt to add to the body of accumulated Peradeniya lore which has grown over 50 years, at least a minor footnote, perhaps a marginally interesting reminiscence, on the university's infant years, using this lecture and this forum for that purpose.

At the time I received your invitation, Mr. Chairman, I happened to be reflecting on a matter that had been troubling me of late.

It is the question of the meaning of the expression 'national interest' - an expression that is widely but often thoughtlessly used by many, including myself, when we do not know precisely what, objectively, the expression means and, even subjectively, what we intend it to mean when used. I had undertaken the self-imposed task of clearing my mind of some of the cobwebs that had gathered there during my sojourn in the intellectual wilderness of politics. I thought I might share with fellow alumni the fruit of my reflections on this question, unripe as they might well be, as an offering to the spirit of Peradeniya, as an acknowledgement of my debt, indeed the debt that all of us alumni owe, to the university that nourished us in our formative years. Hence, my choice of a subject for this oration.

Allow me, Mr. Chairman, first to walk down memory lane for a while, to revisit my own university days of over half a century ago. When I joined the University of Ceylon in Colombo in 1950, that university was a mere eight years old, although its predecessor, the University College, which was affiliated to London University, was much older. The University of Ceylon had been created in the classical mould of a British university.

Admission was difficult. After completing the High School Certificate examination which was the old equivalent of the present GCE Advanced Level, students had to sit for a special competitive examination. Place at the university were limited and, therefore, competition was intense.

As a result of the difficult competitive examination the number of students in the university at that time was far fewer than it is today. The fewer number then led to a much higher teacher/student ratio than is conceivable today. Consequently, there was much closer interaction between teachers and students than is possible today.

Naturally, the teaching methods then, given the fact that there were far fewer students than today, were quite different from those that I understand apply today. There was then no question of notes being distributed for the purpose of learning a subject by rote. The lecturer would address a hall full of students on the basis of his notes, and we were expected to make our notes on the substance of his lecture. Concise, accurate and rapid note taking was itself an art, the acquisition of which stood one in very good stead in later years.

The focus of study was the magnificent library of the University of Ceylon in a variety of disciplines. Students were expected to read widely and analyze problems by themselves. The better students got better results because their reading was wider and more thorough, and their capacity for analysis and presentation, in addition to a capacious memory, was better than that of others who got lower degrees.

Here I must pause to observe that our generation had the inestimable good fortune of having in our hands the golden key - a good knowledge of English - that unlocked the treasures of the library and opened to us the literary heritage of mankind in that language.

I certainly do not subscribe to the view that Sinhala and Tamil should not have been the official media of instruction in our schools and universities. On the contrary, it was the elevation of the national languages after independence to a status they had never enjoyed under colonial rule that gave to the vast majority of our people the opportunity of acquiring an education at all that would otherwise have been totally denied to them for lack of knowledge of English. The pity is not that Sinhala and Tamil were given their due place, but that English was allowed to slip into decline. Thus, for our young, one door was opened, but another was shut, and the one that was shut was the one that led to the wide open world beyond our island shores.

To revert to the University of Ceylon, the fact that the number of students at any point of time was never overwhelming enabled all of us to make a large number of acquaintances, and many life long friends. The collegiate atmosphere that the University of Ceylon provided in those days gave us all memorable experiences of university life.

The university was rich in extra curricular activities of various kinds - social, literary, dramatic and sporting. It was quite common for exceptionally good students to be also, for instance, exceptionally good sportsmen. My epitome of the ideal university student took a first class in the English honours examination getting distinctions in all nine papers. In addition, he won this colours at athletics, rugger, boxing, swimming and hockey.

As a university student, he played rugger for All Ceylon. He was also the editor of the university magazine and a leading figure in the drama society. Above all, he was modest, charming, simple, loved by all. From the University of Ceylon, he went to the University of Cambridge where he obtained a Ph D. in English literature and also won a "Blue' (which means colours) for boxing. Upali Amerasinghe died a few years later at a young age. His death was an immense loss to our society.

When I reflect on those days, I say to myself that the young University of Ceylon at that time was in its own way a model of what a good university should be. It had all the elements that the very much older and more famous universities of the West had to offer. I can make the comparison because having completed my university education in Colombo and Peradeniya, and my professional education at the Ceylon Law College, I went to the University of Oxford for some years.

My college, Balliol, was founded in 1242. There I saw on a much grander and richer scale all those elements described a moment ago, which I had found in the University of Ceylon and the University of Peradeniya. When I was asked, years after leaving Oxford, where I was educated, I used to say, to one type of interlocutor, depending on my mood, "my education is continuing,' and to another type of interlocutor, who would ask me about Oxford, I used to say "my education was complete before I went up to Oxford," such was my fierce loyalty to the fledgling Peradeniya.

The first Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon, and later of Peradeniya, was Sir Ivor Jennings, a famous British constitutional lawyer, who had also been the principal draughtsman of the first constitution of Ceylon after independence, which was known as the Soulbury Constitution. We young law students in our very first year - we were a class of merely twenty, as I remember it - had the immense privilege of being lectured to on constitutional law by none other than Sir Ivor Jennings, on Saturday mornings, when he would give us delightful insights into the process of constitution making in which he had been so closely involved barely two years earlier.

He was in charge, as the first vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon, of building the new residential university campus at Peradeniya, and during his tenure the university moved substantially from Colombo to Peradeniya. Sir Ivor had a vision for the University of Peradeniya.

Buildings were constructed to afford plenty of space to each student, the original concept being that each student was to have a room to himself or herself: the grounds were beautifully laid out, the surroundings were idyllic, and Sir Ivor Jennings made it clear that his vision was to create in Peradeniya model of Oxford and Cambridge.

In his autobiography, to be published later this year, of which I have been privileged to have a preview, he says: (quote) 'There was nothing like Peradeniya anywhere in the world - nothing so beautiful and so unique..... opinion is now unanimous in England, and often elsewhere, that the best education is given in a residential university in an attractive environment. In Peradeniya we are merely carrying out accepted principles of university education". (unquote).

(To be continued)

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