Report of a meeting IN BEHALF OF A NEW BUILDING FOR THE DENTAL DEPARTMENT bF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Held in Horticultural Hall, Boston, Nov. 30, 1892 BOSTON; W. H. CHANDLER, PRINTER. 1893. REPORT OF A MEETING IN BEHALF OF A NEW BUILDING FOR THE DENTAL DEPARTMENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Held in Horticultural hall, Boston, Nov. 30, 1892. w. h. chandler, printer. BOSTON: I^93* REPORT A meeting of persons interested in the erection of a new building for the Harvard Dental School was held at Horti- cultural Hall, Boston, on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 1892, at 12 o’clock. The meeting was held in accordance with the fol- lowing call: Boston, Nov. 25, 1892. Dear Sir: A meeting of persons interested in the erection of a new building for the Harvard Dental School, will be held in Horticultural Hall, on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 12 o’clock, to consider the best method of obtaining money necessary for that purpose. President Eliot will preside, and addresses will be made by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Brooks, Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie, Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, and other eminent speakers. You are earnestly requested to be present. J. Collins Warren. David W. Cheever. Fred’k. C. Shattuck. Wm. Endicott, Jr. Ebex D. Jordan. Reginald H. Fitz. John C. Ropes. A. Shuman. Albert A. Pope. R. M. Hodges. Martin Brimmer. O. W. Holmes. Fred’k L. Ames. Oliver Ames. John W. Carter. Francis A. Walker. Alexander McKenzie. J. M. Sears. A. P. Peabody. President Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard University, called the meeting to order, and spoke as follows : The object of this meeting is to increase public interest in the work of the dental department of Harvard University. 4 The school wants a good building, designed especially for its use, and in a suitable position not far removed from the Med- ical School. It has no means of obtaining such a building except by arousing the interest of the public in the work of the profession and the school. Now people who are urged to promote that object will naturally ask a fundamental ques- tion, namely what public good does skilful dentistry do? Let me try to answer that question. In the first place, it stops pain, prevents pain, and removes the apprehension of pain. That is a great service to human kind. Constant pain is very rarely compatible with happi- ness, and the mere dread of it goes far to make people mis- erable. If preventive medicine were half as successful in mitigating and preventing disease as dentistry is in allaying and preventing pain, the sum of human misery would be greatly diminished. Educated and prosperous people know so well how much wretchedness can be averted by good den- tistry, that they habitually take for themselves and their chil- dren all the precautions that skilful dentists can prescribe. Many of the less educated and poorer classes suffer torments, year after year, from neglect of dental precautions, particu- larly in the rural districts, where good dentistry is hard to get. It fs one of the most marked distinctions between the well-to-do and the poor that the well-to-do keep their teeth, and do not suffer much with them, while the poor frequently suffer prolonged torture with them, and lose them early. In the second place, good dentistry supplies available substitutes for the natural teeth when lost, thus prolonging the capacity to eat various foods, and preserving the outline of the face and the power of clear enunciation. It thus con- tributes to maintain and prolong the vigor and serviceableness of multitudes. Thirdly, modern dentistry goes much beyond operations on the teeth; It is nowadays well understood that many bodily dis- 5 turbances may proceed from the teeth ; thus headache is often caused by defects or obscure inflammations in the teeth. The specialist in nervous diseases is often able to declare to the pa- tient that it is not his treatment that iswanted.but the dentist’s. Dentistry treats fractured jaws and cleft palate. I was at my desk one evening at home when I was told that a stranger wished to see me in the hall. The man made some commonplace remarks about the weather and the crowded state of the Cambridge cars, but broached no matter of busi- ness. I said to myself. “ You have a slight foreign accent, though you look like a native.” At last I said to him “ What do you want ? ” To which he promptly replied “ I want you to hear me talk.” Now I have had a great many interviews in which that seemed to me the real motive of my interlocutor ; but no one had ever confessed it before. Rather surprised at his frankness, I asked him what his occupation was, and he replied that he was a tinman. Then it flashed into my mind that some months before one of the instructors in our Dental School had told me that he had had a remarkable success in providing an artificial palate for a tinman ; so I asked my new acquaintance to take out his palate. He promptly did so; and I could not understand a single word he said until he replaced it. That man knew well that good dentistry means something more than extract- ing teeth, or even than stopping holes in them with various cements and metals. It is a great mistake to suppose that a good dentist is noth- ing but an ingenious mechanic. He must have manual skill, to be sure, but he must also have a great variety of knowl- edge concerning the human body in health and disease, and he needs the quick perception, tact, and good manners that come with general cultivation of the mind. The Harvard Dental School has now been in existence twenty-four years, and during all that period has been steadily 6 raising its standard and expanding its instruction. It de- mands an examination for admission, three full years of study, and thorough examinations for graduation. At first, and for several years, the instructors in the school were well known men taken from the profession in Boston ; but latterly the instructors, with the single exception of the dean, Dr. Chandler, whose connection with the school dates from the year 1869, have all been graduates of the school, as well as practitioners of established repute. The school began without the least endowment, and had to hire the bare rooms in which instruction was first given. Later it borrowed money to buy a house a transaction which ultimately caused it the loss of several thousand dollars. For the past few years it has enjoyed the hospitality of the medical department of Harvard University, occupying some rooms in the old Medical School on North Grove Street. To-day it has an endowment of about twenty-two thousand dollars, and a gross income of about fourteen thousand dol- lars. It is out of debt, and is self-supporting; but it has no building of its own, and its operating rooms and laboratories are but ill suited to these uses. It is remarkable, among the departments of the University, for the number of its foreign students. Last year there were eight foreign students out of a total of fifty-one. Year before last there were twelve foreigners out of fifty-four stu- dents— this year, nine out of fifty-four. In some years the dental school has more European students than all the other departments of the University together. They are drawn to it, of course, by the excellence of its instruction and the prestige of its degree. From still another point of view the Dental School deserves well of this community. It has maintained for years a dental infirmary in which thousands of patients are annually treated under the direction of expert instructors, and without any charge 7 except for the cost of materials. This is a great charity a means of relieving and preventing pain for thousands of persons who would otherwise be unable to secure proper treatment. I submit that it is now time that a helping hand should be extended to the school by the community it has so long served. The alumni of the school have stoutly supported it from the beginning; they have taught in it gratuitously or with the smallest salaries; they have themselves contributed a considerable portion of its small endowment ; they are pre- pared to make further sacrifices for its advancement. They now ask the help of the public in providing for the school an adequate building—a building containing spacious lecture rooms, laboratories, and operating rooms, and furnished with every appliance for the best possible dental work. If the devotion of its teachers, the zeal of its alumni, the high stand- ing of its degree, and the general usefulness of the institution to the community, constitute a good claim on public-spirited citizens and friends of thorough professional training, then the Dental School has a good claim for generous and hearty support in its new undertaking. I have said, ladies and gentlemen, that the Dental School is now enjoying the hospitality of the Medical School. It enjoys its hospitality in a double sense. It occupies rooms which belong to the Medical School ; it also receives from the Medical School, without compensation to that school, a large body of instruction in anatomy, zoology, chemistry ; indeed, the Dental School could not have reached its present standard with- out the direct and positive aid and support of the Medical De- partment of the University. It is, therefore, peculiarly fit that you listen to the Dean of the Medical School, who will, I am sure, express the sympathy of the entire Faculty of that school in the effort now being made on behalf of the Dental School. I intro- duceyou to Prof. Bowditch, Dean of the Harvard Medical School. 8 REMARKS OF PROF. H. P. BOWDITCH. The relation of the Medical and Dental Schools has been for many years that of landlord and tenant, with the one im- portant exception, that rent has been neither demanded nor paid. When through the liberality of the community, the Medical School was provided with its present commodious quarters on Boylston and Exeter streets, the Faculty, in greatful appreciation of the generosity with which it had been treated, gladly placed the lower story of its building on North Grove Street at the disposal of the Dental School. The arrangement gave unmixed satisfaction to both parties, and for several years seemed to be all that could be desired. But, like all the other departments of this great University, the Dental School is constantly striving to raise its standard of education. Its teachers are not content with instructing their pupils in the best known methods of the dental art, but desire to extend the bounds of knowledge and to settle by original investigations some of the many problems which pre- sent themselves in the etiology and therapeutics of diseases of the teeth. A hospital for special oral surgery, a better lighted infirmary and an improved mechanical laboratory are absolute necessities for the advanced work which the school aspires to conduct. It is quite impossible to provide these facilities for higher educa- tion in dentistry in the building now occupied by the school. Moreover there is every prospect that before many years the whole of this building may be needed to provide for the grow- ing wants of the medical department of the University, for the growth and development of the Medical School have, to say the least, not lagged behind those of any other depart- ment of the University, and the time is not far distant when it will be compelled to utilize every available portion of its buildings for purposes of instruction and research. 9 The Dental School must, therefore, ask for assistance, not only to enable it to meet the constantly increasing demands for a higher education in dentistry, but also that it may simply continue to do the good work in which it is now engaged. How good that work is, how much of the comfort of our lives is due to good dentistry few of us are inclined to ques- tion. A great many of us succeed in keeping out of the doctors’ hands for many years at a time, but few of us escape a peri- odical visit to the dentist. And when we do need a dentist’s services how imperative is apt to be that need. How inade- quate is all our philosophy in the presence of a well devel- oped toothache. Shakespeare has, indeed, well said : There never was yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently. Owing to the fact that the dental students follow most of the courses of the Medical School during the first year, it falls to my lot to meet the candidates for the dental degree at the beginning of their professional career, and it gives me great pleasure to testify to the serious and earnest way in which most of them enter upon their work. Intelligent questions from dental students about the functions of the jaw and teeth have occasionally given rise to interesting and valuable inves- tigations in the laboratory, and in general, it may be said, that the dental students compare very favorably with those of other departments of the University in their eagerness to avail themselves of the instruction offered them in their chosen profession. There is, indeed, an excellent reason why serious minded and eager students should flock to the Dental School from every part of the world ; the fact, namely, that the instruction given there is of a far higher grade than in corresponding schools in foreign countries. Travellers in Europe can all testify to the high estimation in which American dentists are held, and it need not surprise us, therefore, to find in the Den- tal School catalogues for the last two years the names of stu- dents from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, as well as from various parts of the United States and Canada. In fact, the Dental School easily leads the University in the relative number of its for- eign students. A school which can thus carry the name and fame of Har- vard into the uttermost parts of the earth ought surely not to appeal in vain to the friends of our great University, and I am sure it will not appeal in vain. The necessary funds will unquestionably be subscribed. What we have now to consider is the quickest and best method of obtaining subscriptions. Those who have successfully engaged in work of this sort agree, I think, that nothing will take the place of a personal appeal by those who are fully informed of the need to be supplied. Printed circulars are for this purpose not worth even the small cost of printing and distributing. Personal letters are, as a rule, unproductive. Let those who have the cause at heart present the matter in personal interviews to the generous friends of Harvard, and there can be little doubt that ere long a building worthy of the City and the University will be added to those for which Harvard is indebted to the public spirited citizens of Boston. President Eliot. To illustrate aptly the truth of the remarks just made by Dr. Bowditch, may I read the follow- ing note: My dear President: I promised a young dentist that I would attend the meeting of those interested in the erection of a new building, to be held to-day. As lam kept at home by a heavy cold, will you present my excuses and say that I will give towards its erection one thousand dollars ? Brookline, Nov. 30th. Yours truly, HENRY LEE. 11 No one knows better than Dr. Bowditch the way to raise a large sum of money for a professional department of Harvard University. He and one other professor of the Medical School raised by far the larger part of the great sum of money which was needed to build the present admirable house of the Medical Department. I have already adverted, ladies and gentlemen, to one great function of dentistry, namely, the maintenance of the power of clear enunciation. There are two professions which are dependent upon the power of clear, attractive, vigorous speech. They are the professions of law and divinity. The committee in charge of the preparation for this meeting tried a series of legal friends, attempting to get a representative of that distinguished profession here to-day. But, as might have been imagined, all these gentlemen were engaged in court; good evidence that those members of the legal profes- sion who are well known to the dental profession are thoroughly employed. But we have here to-day an admirable represen- tative of the profession of divinity, who has often befriended the Dental School before and who gladly responds to your invitation to speak here to-day. I have the honor of intro- ducing to you Dr. Alexander McKenzie, of Cambridge. REMARKS OF REV. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, D. D. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is quite worth while to come in from Cambridge, even to-day, to see so much interest in this subject as is manifested by this large gathering. I think there are very few causes that would have brought together so many men at high noon to consider a question of this character. Certainly it promises well for the success of this enterprise. I am very glad to be in any way, as I have been permitted to be from time to time, the mouth-piece or spokesman for the dentists. They seem to me to deserve it more than any other profession I know, and they seem also to be very much in need of it. I have been thinking that of all the professions there are the most silent one is the profession of the dentist. I do not know of any other profession that does such admira- ble work and makes so little display of it; which deserves so well and says so little for the maintenance or for the exten- sion of its claim upon the minds and hearts of the people. The minister is before the people, paraded in the papers, and everybody who wishes hears him. The lawyer is heard in the courts and on public occasions. If one goes into science he is pretty sure to publish a book or come out in some way that attracts attention. A civil engineer builds a bridge or opens a mine. The physician has the more silent and more ob- scure profession, but even he comes to light when now and then he gets a distinguished patient whose case interests all the papers and interests the whole community. But there seems to be no opportunity for a dentist to show publicly what he can do. There seems to be no chance for him to make any ap- peal, any display. Am I not right in saying that of all the great professions the profession of dentistry is the silent one ? Its work is an individual work, and is out of sight. It is out of sight in the performance of it; it is out of sight very largely in the results of it. Dentists may come and dentists may go, and there may be no great impression made except the individual one, and none of that gathering together of individual sentiment which will make public opinion and therefore lead up to the public gifts which are necessary for the promotion of great interests. And yet with all this, there is no profession, I think, which, when it is heard, speaks more efficiently and effectively through what it has done. It is a little difficult for one standing outside any pro- fession to know its inner life or to mark the growth faking place within it. Yet, looking at it as lam able to do, and as other laymen outside are able to do, it seems to me there is no calling which has made more decided advance and has come within a few years so decidedly to the rank and dignity of a profession as this. We all know the beginning of it. The first experiments in dentistry I remember were with very sim- ple apparatus. It needed nothing but a string and a door to extract a tooth. It needed but some simple remedy, that per- haps the mother administered, to allay pain in the tooth. Then we come up from this to the more dignified methods of this branch of surgery, and we come to what is perhaps even better, preventive surgery. I am told by dentists nowa- days that it is a rare thing to extract a tooth, and that little fact, simple as it is, marks an immense stride. I do not believe any profession among us can show one step that has been so great an advance within its own work as this, that to-day the province of dentistry is the province of Chris- tianity— not to destroy, but to save. When I look at my children and see how their teeth are to last them, how in all probability they will never have to go through that which I went through as a boy, I feel very much as I do when I meet my boy and other boys coming out of Harvard College, —I wish I could go back and try it again. If you look at the honor of the profession, Dr. Bowditch says very truly, what everyone who goes abroad sees, that there is no dentist who stands like the American dentist. Indeed I am told that men steal the word, men who have no right to it, and put it up as the best advertisement they can get, the best adjective to put before their names ; so that everywhere in Europe to-day we see the American dentist. Then there comes the Academic recognition of this. One of our Cambridge dentists received from one of our New England colleges at the last commencement the second 14 degree, never having received the first, I believe, simply on the ground of some scientific work he had done in this pro- fession. t I mention these things which lie merely upon the surface of the matter and which anyone may see, to show what I mean when I say that no other profession has made the advances that this has made, within the time of this generation. Then we come to think of dentistry as effecting our own lives ; the President has touched a little upon that. He began not so far back as he might have begun in saying it prevents pain. I thought the first business of the dentist was to cause pain— that has been my experience. But he over- leaped that fact, very naturally, and came to that which re- sults from it the only object of causing pain is to prevent pain. In regard to the multifarious advantages to which he alluded very forcibly, it seems to me too much cannot be made of them. Ido not believe a man can do his work well without the work of a dentist. I cannot imagine a man’s theology being right who has the toothache or who is liable to have the toothache at any time. I cannot imagine a man looking forward to any Sunday or back to any Sunday with anything like composure if he has either the anticipation or the recollection of any pain of this kind. How can one live well in anything without the aid of this art ? I would not say that a man could not tell the truth who had not good teeth, but I should think it would be hard work for him. It is not merely the clear enunciation of syllables, but the clear enun- ciation of facts, which is very much helped by good dentistry ; the putting away of the pain, the prevention of pain; bring- ing in that assistance, which in the domain of ethics is about as much needed as the palate is in the tinman’s mouth. If there could come to all men some such help as that, and there could come in the health, the com- fort and the vigor which this profession induces, then should we not have better work at the bar, in the pulpit, in scientific pursuits, in all the ways of life ? Here comes the personal application. We are not able to generalize very much, we have to come to the personal appeal; and we feel the President does not put it too forcibly, it might be made even more emphatic —we feel dependent for our own comfort and the value of our work very much upon what is done in the work which is specially commended to us in this friendly gathering this morning. I never come to speak for the dentists or to associate with them without being struck with one thing in which they exceed every profession I know their immense modesty. I do not know a profession that does so much and says so little about it. They ought to have the building they wish. I think they ought to stand out among the streets of the city and tell who they are, and claim a place among the great buildings, among the great workers. Yet they shrink from this. They hire a house and lose money on it. They take the discarded rooms of the old Medical School, and work along patiently, and then come together to-day even in a snow storm, not brave enough to have a good sunshiny day. If it had not been for our good nature, and our respect for them, I doubt if very many of us would have been here. You feel the force of a man’s character who deserves a great deal and says very little. I looked this morning, simply to refresh my mind, at the two sketches of the medical history of Boston as they have been written by Dr. Green and Dr. Holmes in Mr, Winsor’s Memorial History of Boston. Dr. Green goes so far as to say that the greatest boon that has been conferred upon humanity since the invention of print- ing came from a dentist when ether was administered under the immediate supervision of Dr. Morton, Dr. Holmes mentions three things which have signalized the med- 16 ical history of Boston, and the greatest of the three was done by a dentist. I wonder the dentists do not assert that; I won- der they do not write the name on that anonymous monument in the public garden. I wonder they do not claim this reward in the name of dentistry from every man who, in his own person or in the person of his wife, sister or child, ever had the blessing of that greatest boon to humanity, the anaesthetic gift of ether; and that every man who has ever received this benefit does not stand up and say the dentists shall have this recognition. I will give my sympathy, I will give my voice that they who have done such a work for the alleviation of pain and the pro- motion of health and life and all that is good may have this recognition and that they may continue to do their work in the best possible way. If it be true that this is the greatest boon, and that this was given to mankind in the Massachusetts General Hospital in the year 1846 by that almost unknown and quite penniless dentist, —if Dr. Holmes is right when he names that among the three great things that mark the medical history of Boston, it is quite time that the dentists had the credit of it and the practical benefit of it. It is all very well to say that somebody else did this and somebody else knew that; it is like saying that somebody else knew the world was round as well as Columbus, and that somebody else would have discovered America if he had not. No matter; he is the one that did the thing; let him have the full credit of it. At this time perhaps, when we have come to recognize and to utilize this universal principle of anaesthesia in ether and its adjuncts, it is a good time to rec- ognize the dentist’s work and give to his profession its reward. One thing more I might say what I suppose I was ex- pected to say this morning and that is that the University, which claims to meet all the wants of humanity, should meet 17 the want now before us; that in the breadth of the gifts which it is bestowing on the community it should not leave this out. Yet the University labors under peculiar difficulties when it attempts a work like this, especially when it comes to this department of it. I wonder what the University is which we are talking about so much ? The University includes its students. But students have little money ; they own no prop- erty as a body. It may be said to be composed of its Faculty, but its Faculty have no such unity that they have the administration of funds; and with rare exceptions they might be described in the phrase, familiar to the President, as “ respectable but impecunious.” When it comes to the Over- seers, they have not a sixpence ; they cannot so much as have a report printed without asking somebody to pay for it. Strictly speaking, Harvard University has no money. The finances of the University are in the hands of seven men, the President and Fellows, the corporation, as we call them sometimes, and they hold and control this money, which is supposed to be the property of Harvard University. But how does it happen to be the property of Harvard University ? Precisely as property that is in your hands as trustee happens to be yours. When a man has died and put his property into your hands and asked you to administer it for the benefit of his family, it is not yours. Harvard University is the trustee of every penny it has, and has no more right to divert a penny from the object for which it was given than you have the right to divert money from the widow and orphans for whose benefit it is given into your hands. If it be said that when there is so much property there must be some for general uses, which might very well reach in this direction, this is only forgetting the fact that all Harvard University has to-day is used and a great deal more is needed. It is all appropriated. It would be hard, if it were right, to take it away from the work which it is now doing, even for such admirable work as this which is commended to-day. The truth is, if you want the children to have any more money, you must get more money into your hands as trustee. Har- vard University has no such personality that it can go into the market and make money. It is a public institution, receiving public money for a public trust, recognized as the guardian and trustee of public property, and recognized so far that, while it is doing this work, it is even exempt from taxation, which is a pretty good recognition of its worth. Then when it is said that Harvard University ought to provide dental instruction, we say, Why ought it ? Because the community wants it. If the community wants it, let the community furnish the money for it. If you want me to spend your money, give me your money. If you want Harvard University to train up den- tists, let us have the means and we will train the dentists. It is the only thing Harvard asks. There are students enough who want to be dentists; there are skilful men, admirably equipped, who are willing to train them. There is all the apparatus, except the building, I believe. I wonder where the Harvard Dental School will be when the Medical School comes back and says : “ What are you doing here ? ” Now, what is to be done? Why, there is to be the recognition of a want of the community. There is to be, secondly, the recognition of the fact that this want is met by the dental profession ; and there is to be, thirdly, the recog- nition of the fact that the dental profession works in good measure here with the Harvard Dental School. There is, then, the recognition of a fourth fact, that if the Harvard Dental School has to do this work for the community, then the community must furnish the means. If it is to do it for the poor, they that have money must give money. If it is to do it for the friendless, those not friendless must furnish the means. You have only to give this out of the abundance which you have, and you have only to give this which is 19 needed, and the work is well done, and done for all ; the common good is advanced by the common gift, and at no great expense to any one but the men, the professional men, who give their unrequited service to this public work. It seems to me that a dentist’s life runs a good deal in the line of the minister’s. The minister does a great many things a little outside of his profession, and gets no pay. Ido not believe anybody else does that so much as the dentist and the physician. I admire my medical friends who go with equal alacrity to the bed of the poor man and the rich man. I admire my dental friends who give their time, their strength, their skill, to the service of this school, taking it out of their remunerative work, because a common humanity and a common scientific spirit demand it. Ladies and gentlemen, there is one form of expression I wish we could do away with ; it is not scientific, it is not accurate. We are in the way of talking about the wants of a college and the wants of a school. Harvard University has no wants. It asks no man’s charity. It offers to help build a republic here. It is a beneficent institution in its giving ; it is to lay the foundation and rear the superstructure of a State. When once we come to feel that the college exists not for its own sake, not for the sake of its President or its Faculty, or its students, but for the sake of the country, then we come into a truer estimate of its place. The Harvard Dental School does not want money. These pro- fessors want'nothing. They can earn enough money in their own offices. They consent to give their service, to give their skill. They are benefactors, not beneficiaries; and the sooner we recognize that they come to us offering to help us, offer- ing to do our work, offering to make better citizens, to make a better republic, offering to give their time, their strength, their skill, if we will furnish them the building in which they may do it, the sooner we come to recognize this the sooner 20 this building will rise, and the sooner this silent profession will cease to need speech, as its works speak for it, and the multitude of men who have received its benefits will testify in word and deed their grateful recognition of its help. President Eliot. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you now see clearly why Dr. McKenzie is invited to speak at all dental gatherings in this community. I was expressing regret just now that the committee in charge of this meeting had not succeeded in securing the presence of any represen- tative of the legal profession. But I noticed just now that there had entered the room a young lawyer and a famous public speaker. Will Gov, Russell do us the honor to say a few words to us ? REMARKS OF GOV. RUSSELL Ladies and Gentlemen : I had not expected until within five or ten minutes that my official duties elsewhere would permit me to be present here. And even now those official duties compel my stay here to be brief. Still I am glad to sacrifice a little time with the Executive Council and come here, if only for a minute, to express, not my interest as a member of the profession of the law, not my interest as an alumnus of old Harvard, but the deep interest of the Com- monwealth in this undertaking for whose aid this meeting has been called. I need not tell this audience how Massachu- setts, by many acts, covering many generations of her life, has shown her deep interest in the welfare and progress of Harvard College. I need not remind you that one of the first acts of this Commonwealth, away back in its early colonial life, was to give from its poverty most generously to the founding of this University. She gave of her poverty for a university, because the community needed Harvard to be founded in order that the community itself might grow and thrive, and those far-sighted founders of this State knew that 21 even in the early life of almost a primitive community it was necessary to found a great institution of learning in order that the people might be a happy and a prosperous and progressive people. I was much struck by a sentence from my old pastor, Dr. McKenzie, when he said that Harvard wanted nothing; it was not that Harvard wanted a gift from the Commonwealth that she was founded ; it was that the people of the Common- wealth wanted and must have Harvard ; that the Common- wealth, recognizing that fact, gave, with much sacrifice and some suffering, largely for its foundation. And ever since the Commonwealth has shown her deep interest in the Uni- versity ; not of late years by exercising a parental control over it, nor by making Harvard dependent on the State for its money or for gifts, but as a community behind the Commonwealth, Massachusetts has over and over again, more in each succeeding generation, shown her deep interest in the success of Harvard College. I believe that that Uni- versity has fully met the expectations and the fondest hopes of the Commonwealth and of its founders. I believe that year by year and generation by generation it has gone out into the life of its people, come in touch with their wishes, their needs, their aspirations, and has been the great power and influence for good that its founders meant it should be in its early days. I do not know, Mr. President, the details of this special matter which is now before this meeting. I only know this that Harvard, this great power for good in the community, goes before the people of the Commonwealth asking their aid for one of her great departments. I know that that depart- ment has not only carried forth the work that Harvard has done in other and all departments that is, the work of education and of benefit but I know that that department more closely than any other department, with one exception, 22 perhaps, has come immediately in touch with the life of the people of the Commonwealth. I know that in tens of thou- sands of instances it has been a direct power for good in relieving pain, in curing sickness and in aiding the health and the happiness of the community, and all this it has done freely and gratuitously. It is for these reasons, Mr. President, that I am glad to come here representing the Commonwealth in this most informal way and with most informal speech to express the earnest desire of the Commonwealth, that this meeting may be a success and the undertaking for which it is called may appeal, as I am sure it will, to the generosity of our public-spirited commmuity. President Eliot. This new building that the school desires will stand not only in the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts but also in the city of Boston. The committee, therefore, asked the honor of the presence here of the Mayor of Boston, He was unable to be present, but he sent Aider- man Weston Lewis to represent him, and I ask Mr. Lewis to say a few words to you. REMARKS OF ALDERMAN WESTON LEWIS. Ladies and Gentlemen : Had I known the list of speak- ers who were to address you to-day I should have hesitated before consenting to be here to represent the city of Boston. But his Honor the Mayor could not come. He expressed deep regrets, but*in the great and constantly increasing cares pertaining to the office of the Mayor of the city of Boston, he does not feel like mingling generally in occasions of a public nature. I think he is wise. Now, Mr. President, this is a public meeting called irrespec- tive of party or position in life, representing, you might say, all the citizens of Boston and the adjoining cities. It is for 23 a purpose, and that purpose is, as I understand, to raise SIOO,OOO for a building for the Harvard Dental School. How shall it be accomplished ? It is useless for me to take your time to allude to the beneficence and philanthropy of the Dental School. The work it does for the poor, the unfortu- nate, in this city, entitles it to the recognition and the grati- tude of all citizens within our borders. But the great bulk of the citizens of Boston, the merchants, the business men, the taxpayers, know but little about this Dental School. If you want to raise this $lOO,OOO, it can be raised. I see here the names of several of our most promi- nent business men, who have asked for this meeting to-day, I do not see them present, but their heart and sympathy are with the movement. This money has got to be raised largely in the city of Boston, and it has got to be raised largely among a class of men that are constantly, daily and hourly, giving money. I have no doubt that as the result of this meeting you will see the importance of coming together and will appoint a committee, and that committee will take action as a body. There is no question but what the city of Boston will respond, Mr. President, to your demand, or to your request, or to their duty, in whatever phrase you may wish to express it. They will cheerfully do it. This Dental School is like the Eye and Ear Infirmary ; it is a great benefaction, according to its means. It needs a fine building; it needs fine recep- tion rooms, a fine operating room, a fine laboratory. This very year the city of Boston has given $300,000 to the City Hospital; it has got to give $900,000 more in the next three years, in order that that great institution, under the patron- age and direction of the city of Boston, can perform the work that public necessity demands. The city is growing all the time. We are more able to give now than we have been. Mr. Presi- dent, I can only say that his Honor Mayor Matthews cordially 24 approves and indorses this movement among the citizens of Boston ; he is ready to do anything he can to forward this movement, and he pledges, in behalf of the city, all the influ- ence and all the work that can reasonably be expected of its citizens. President Eliot. Ladies and gentlemen, we are very much obliged to Mr. Lewis for the very practical and hopeful suggestions which he has offered to us. One more speaker is to address you, but I hesitate to say of what profession he is. It is such a broad and comprehensive profession. Is it education ? Is it charity ? Is it religion ? Is it administra- tion ? It is all of these. I remember that some years ago, I very rashly tried, in private conversation with him, to define the religious profession of the Rev. Phillips Brooks. I made an egregious mistake; I got it altogether too narrow. I shall not now undertake to define his profession, but I in- troduce him to you as the representative of all the public- spirited, liberal, high-minded people, who want to do some perpetual good in this world, I present to you Bishop Brooks. REMARKS OF RIGHT REV. BISHOP BROOKS I thank you, Mr, President, for your vastly too kind intro- duction. , I should like to speak, sir, as a citizen of Boston, and one who cares very much for the great work that our University is doing. This meeting must not be much pro- longed, but what I want to say is that I think we must give some expression to the earnest gratitude which will be forever felt by those who care for the great work which this new building, certain to rise, is going to do, to those who, during the last twenty-four years, have been making ready for this meeting, have been preparing for the day when they could come forward with the work which they have accomplished 25 and say, “At last it is in your power, at last the demand has called for the supply, and at last the time has come for the raising of the building for the Dental School of Harvard College.” I think there are no people in our community who are more to be congratulated and more to be thanked than the men who, in quietness and earnestness and simplicity, are doing in its early stages the works which afterwards are to come out and claim, I will not say the applause, but the vivid sym- pathy and continual congratulation of the community. I look back the last twenty-four years, and I rejoice in the work that the men have been doing who have been caring for the Dental School of Harvard College. I judge that it was a very experimental thing when it began. I judge there were many things to be settled only by experience. They have taken these steps, they have gone forward from year to year elaborating their experience, until at last they come with an undoubted case, with a clear necessity, which they present to the community which is going to welcome their necessity and supply it with all its heart. I suppose there comes healthily at a certain period in an institution’s life a time for just such a demand as this. There have been instances enough of institutions which most of us have known where they began wrong, where they began by supplying a building very splendid and elaborate before the necessity for that building had been developed ; and there is hardly anything more melancholy than to see such institutions as these that have marked the history of men’s endeavors to do what they thought was for the best advantage of the world. But when it begins like this, lodging where it can, creeping into any corner, feeling such confidence in the work that it had to do, that it was ready to do it with whatever tools and opportunities might be presented, then it is seen that it has attained to its majority, it has put on its bridal robes and it is 26 ready to stand forth among men and among the institutions of the land, as one of their great brotherhood ; and it comes now and says to the city, “ The time has come for the build- ing of the building.” Let us not fall into that weak illusion into which people be- fore have fallen, when asked to contribute to anything, that they are asked to do something for the benefit of the people who ask them. This is no building that is to be built for the dental men, no building to be built for the professors, no building to be built for the dentists. It is simply the com- munity’s building. It is simply the whole body being told what it can do to strengthen some part of itself, and so make its total life more complete. There are a great many interesting things that suggest themselves when we think of such a meeting as this. The way in which the special sciences justify and impart them- selves ultimately to human good, and the way in which peo- ple are perfectly satisfied that the apparently most useless and abstract studies, whatever truth is being sought or facts discovered, will ultimately redound to human advantage and make human life more comfortable, more rich, and more effective. Whether we have seen the dentists in their strange labora- tory, or whether we have dreamed of them when we have not looked at them, we have bid them go on, and they are going on to make provision, and they will go on all the more earn- estly and faithfully because we are perfectly sure that there is no fact which it is possible for them to learn that is not in the long run, by and by, sooner or later, and indeed very soon, to make mankind more comfortable and so more able to do the work which has been given them to do in the world. The deepest secrets that men can find by apparently the most remote and recondite search, and those necessities of 27 suffering humanity which are forever clamoring for supply are everlastingly related to one another. The two are always meeting, and they will meet in the halls of this new building and in the quiet rooms in which the graduates of this new building shall do their work. It is good to think, even in the anticipation of this new building, of the way in which the work has already been done; how it has sent its influence abroad and down the streams laden with blessings to strange old cities ; men and women and little children have been relieved because of the work that these good, brave, faithful, intelligent, studious men have been doing here in Boston. And it is simply to increase that, make that permanent the whole story is simple and clear and so immediately convincing. Is there not something here by which we may take for just one instant a larger view ? It runs into the whole scope of the University. The University stands for the great action of the thinking mind, the learning and working brain of humanity. Is it not a part of the great fulfilment of human life ? That is what civilization is about, —to make man com- plete everywhere, to perfect him in body and soul and spirit ; to take the great three-fold life in which he lives and build up ever part of it. And very, very poor and contemptible is any man who allows any part of the life of his human kind so to absorb him that he does not rejoice in the completed ministry with which man is always giving himself to man as he becomes wiser and more divine. And so we, whatever may be the part of humanity to which we are most devotedly giving our services, will rejoice in the completion of the total humanity in any part of it. And we and any one who is giving his work to the mind or the soul will not despise the teeth, nor despise any part of that total life which he knows can only be completed and abso- lutely completed in any part as it is completed in every part 28 Therefore it does seem to me that there is a broad philoso- phy which touches our deepest thoughts of human culture, of the development of human life, in such a subject as is laid before us during this hour and a half in which we are gathered together here. The time must not be prolonged. What you have to do as men who are interested in this in- stitution is to give our citizens simply the opportunity. We do not understand this in its fulness and we do not care to understand it ; it is quite enough for me that such men as those who have spoken to us today, the heads of our institu- tions, the head of the University, the head of the Medical School, and the Dean of the Dental School, speaking by his presence, have told us that the thing is needed. We do not need to go into particulars. I take their word for it abso- lutely, and I believe that such a meeting as this, gathered upon such a day as this, and made up of such persons as these, is quite competent to look the authorities of the Uni- versity and the schools in the face and promise them that the thing shall be done ; and promise them that the people of Boston, the people who care about the University, the people who care about the great interests which are specially involved in this school, shall have the opportunity to make their contributions. When the opportunity has been thor- oughly given to them there is no more question about it, and already in our prophetic imagination we see the building arise, and rejoice in the mitigation of human pain and the ful- filment of human life which is to come, for years and years, long after we shall have passed away from the presence among the efficiencies of the University and in the midst of the community of the new building of the Dental School of Harvard College. Dr. J. Collins Warren. Mr. President, I have been asked in the absence of Lieut.-Gov. elect Wolcott, to make a 29 motion, and I do so, sir, with great pleasure, because I take a deep interest in the work of the dentist, and I know from ex- perience that they will succeed in what they have undertaken. That they richly deserve the movement which is to be made in their behalf to-day, I have no question. The men of Bos- ton who have been so kind and generous to the medical pro- fession will be equally kind and generous to them. I would move, sir, that an executive committee be appointed by the Chair to carry into effect the objects of this meeting. The motion was unanimously adopted, and President Eliot appointed the following gentlemen as the executive committee : Hon. Roger Wolcott, Col. Henry Lee, Dr. J. Collins Warren, Rev. E. A. Horton, Dr. Fred. C. Shattuck, Col. W. A. Tower, Hon. Oliver Ames, Dr. Morrill Wyman, Dr. B, E. Cotting, Hon. Henry H. Sprague, Hon. S. N. Aldrich, Mr. A. Shuman, Dr. H. P. Walcott, Col. Albert A. Pope, Hon. Martin Brimmer, Mr. William Endicott, Jr., Mr. E. W. Hooper, Dr. T. H. Chandler, Dr. Thomas Fillebrown, Dr. Eugene H. Smith, Dr. Dwight M. Clapp, Dr. Washburn E. Page and Dr. William H. Potter. President Eliot. I need not assure the audience that the consent of all these gentlemen to serve upon this committee has already been obtained. The Hon. Roger Wolcott, chair- man of the committee, is only detained from this meeting by an accident, painful though not serious, which befell him yes- terday. Now nothing remains, ladies and gentlemen, but to thank you for your attendance here on this very stormy day, and to ask for your continued sympathy and support in this enterprise.