As a mark of the respect and esteem in which he is held in Scotland, and in recognition of his services to higher education, and in token of the Magistrates' and Council's appreciation of the honour conferred on his Lordship by his appointment as Governor-General of India.
"My memory cannot help being recalled by the beautiful casket you have put in my hand to the celebrated endowment of the city of Edinburgh George Heriot's Hospital, and without rattling the bones of an old controversy, I hope I may congratulate the Corporation on the success which George Heriot's School and the George Heriot-Watt Institution have now achieved.
We have heard a good deal of late of technical education and we have many of us been engaged in the promotion of classes in the evening whereby those who have to occupy themselves during the day have opportunities of advancing themselves. I cannot help feeling, that in order to put industrial education on an equal footing with literary education, we do want just something more. We want, I think, some institution whereby they should be able to train themselves, and I cannot help thinking that in the city of Edinburgh, with these great institutions which I have mentioned and others. which exist in your midst, and with the grants which are now in the hands of the Corporation, we may, perhaps, look forward to the foundation of an Institution of that character which may in future bring forward art work to the point of which, no doubt, George Heriot was the embodiment and the impersonation."