WELLLINqfae.jt, i 2/ ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE OP THE ., President of Columbian University. Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : In a supreme moment like that which is now passing before our eyes we are called to blend words of joyous salutation with words of parting benediction. We bid you "All hail!" as we exult at the sight of the new honor which has come to crown your lives by giving you a good degree in one among the noblest as well as most benefi- cent of human callings. We bid you " Farewell" as to-night, at this turning point in your career, you stand with a reverential eye still directed towards the face of your Alma Mater, but with your feet firmly planted on the path that leads from her home into the world that lies before you. Institutions of learning have ever delighted to mark with appropriate solemnities that epoch in the Academic calendar for which all other days of the college course are made, and to the fulness of which all other duties tend. The famous school of Salernum, which for nearly nine centuries maintained the traditions and institutes of rational medicine in Europe, was hardly more famous for the breadth and liberality of its instructions than for the brilliancy and eclat of the impressive ceremonial which symbolized to its successful graduates the high obligations imposed by the Medical profession. When after a seven years' study in the scholastic cloister the medical novice was deemed sufficiently proficient in the Therapeutics of Galen and the Aphorisms of Hippocrates to make full proof of his learning and skill in the practice of the healing art, he was not allowed to enter the Guild of the Doctors until he had publicly taken the physician's solemn vow, and received a formal investiture with the physician's badge of office, and with the insignia of the physician's dignified rank in the learned professions. A book was put in his hand, a 6 ring was placed on his finger, his head was crowned with laurel, and he was then dismissed with a kiss imprinted on his cheek. The boodc was put in his hand to signify that he Avas henceforth to be known and honored among men as a scholar—having a claim to a scholar's name only so far as he improved a scholar's priv- ilege, and performed a scholar's duty. The ring was placed upon his finger as a symbol and pledge of the authority with which he was charged, and in token of the magnitude as well as the sanctity of the awful human interests to which he would be called to set his hand and seal. The laurel was twined around his brow as at once the emblem of high achievement and the reward of noble labors. He was greeted with a manly salutation in earnest of the exalted brotherhood to which he had been admitted, and in sign of that affectionate kinship which is wrought in the soul of man by community of mind as well as by community of blood. Restrained by the habits of the more prosaic and practical age in which our lot has been cast, we shall not celebrate your initiation into the order of the physician's knighthood with all this pomp and heraldry of the medseval times. We place in your hands a sim- ple piece of parchment, on which, in the classic speech more famil- iar to the men of ancient Salernum than to us, we have inscribed the simple record of the studies you have pursued, the attainments you have made, and the qualifications you are believed to possess in virtue of those attainments. But none the less do we send you forth under the bounden obligation to be diligent students so long as your life shall last. None the less do we clothe you with an official authority over the earthly destiny and the earthly for- tunes of all who shall commit to you the care and cure of their bodies. None the less do we adorn your brows with more than the emblematical laurel, as here and now we beseech you evermore to wear the Doctor's title as an ornament of grace upon your heads. And none the less do we admit you to the mystic fellowship of the saints, sages and martyrs, who from the days of St. Luke down to the present time, have earned the name of " beloved physicians," or who have added lustre to the long and splendid line in which you are now to take your appointed place. ADDRESS OF Prof. E. T. FRISTOE, A. M., LL. D. Young Gentlemen: Having now reached a point in our progress, at which our paths as teacher and student must diverge, it becomes my duty, in be- half of my colleagues, to address you a few words of warning and encouragement, at this our last meeting, and to offer you our sin- cere congratulations at your success. Doubtless you have looked forward with bright anticipations to the triumphs of this evening, when the long and tedious drill of the class-room should be over; when the task should be finished; and when that fearful quiz of the green-room should have no further terrors for you. You stand to-day on the boundary-line of two lives, the one of youth and laborious preparation, the other of manhood and active work. They touch to-night. The scenes of the past are fresh in your memories, and the companions of these last happy and suc- cessful years are around you, to congratulate you upon the honors you have gained; and your fair friends are present to greet you with their smiles and strew your pathway with flowers. But, when this brilliant audience, assembled here to honor you and your profession, shall have retired to their homes, then you must leave the narrow walls of College, and with manly courage enter upon*the sterner duties of life. Hitherto you have been guided by the wisdom, and directed by the hands of others. You have been mere Entered Apprentices, gathering more light in your progress, and serving faithfully a suit- able time, until by due and rigid examination, you have been found worthy of being advanced to the more honorable degree of Fellow- Craft in your profession ; which high honor we have to-night con- ferred upon you, hoping you may soon become skillful Master Workmen in the honored temple of Medicine, and some, even Royal High Priests in your ennobling art. 8 In entering this profession, do not suppose your life is to be one of uninterrupted ease ; that you enter a temple already furnished and garnished, where you can enjoy " A perpetual feast of nectared sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns." This temple, which looks so imposing to the uninitiated, is far from being completed. Although it counts its anniversaries by millenniums, and its foundations are firm, being based upon the wisdom and discoveries of all nations and ages, yet the Medical Science is not a complete and exact one. Many a pillar which now supports this temple must be replaced by one more suitable; many a capital that now adorns it, will yet moulder and decay under the hand of time, and be replaced by new architects in a more enduring form ; and the key-stones of many of its arches are yet to be found, carved and fitted, before they will support the superstructure in perfect symmetry. To assist in accomplishing these results, you are invited and commissioned to-night. In ac- cepting this commission, you take upon yourselves a solemn obli- gation to discharge with fidelity every duty it imposes, and to use all the powers you possess in serving faithfully your race and ad- vancing your profession. I shall not attempt to give you any suggestions as to the best method of practicing medicine, nor advise you to be satisfied with an humble though useful lot. I would not, if I could, repress within you the bearings of a laudable aspiration, or check the de- sire for fame and reputation that may be reared on those generous deeds, which aim at the elevation of your profession and the wel- fare of your race. The bosom of every young man entering life, as you are now doing, throbs with a desire to leave some record of his deeds behind him, and each of you would wish, when his body shall rest with its kindred earth, that his name may in some way be embalmed, in the memory of those whose grateful hearts shall join in pseans of praise to their departed benefactor. Nature spoke truly, through the dying Indian Chief, when he said: "when lam gone, let the big guns be fired over me." With such feelings as these to stimulate you, you are about to enter life, like every young man who enters a profession, wishing, yea, hoping and expecting to succeed; and in his dreamy moments 9 he pictures to himself the hour, when he, like his distinguished predecessors, should wear the honors due him. But, gentlemen, to succeed in life, something more is necessary than dreaming about it in youth. There is no royal road to suc- cess ; no privilege of birth will gain it, and no amount of wealth can purchase it. You must not expect to sit and fold your hands, and wait for your chances; but you must build your hopes of success upon self-reliance, energy and perseverance. The world takes no man's courage or ability for granted. A collegiate education does not give the possessor any pre-eminence which is accorded him without question. Every one is challen- ged at once, to show what material he is made of. You may say, the country owes you a living; but remember it expects and de- mands value received, before it will pay you, especially in hard money. Self-reliance and perseverance will enable a man to force his way through irksome drudgery, and dry detail, and carry him onward and upward in every station of life. Energy accom- plishes more than mere genius, with not half the disappointments and perils. It is the very central power; yea, it is the man himself. It will not avail, as many do, to wait until Blucher comes up to help you, but you must persevere in the fight, as Wellington did, if you expect to gain a Waterloo in* life. When Napoleon was told that the Alps lay in the way of his armies in Italy, he said, " then there shall be no Alps," and his energy constructed a road that virtually removed them. What Dr. Arnold said of his boys, is equally true of men, that the difference between them is not so much talent as energy. The difference between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything that can be done, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportu- nities will make a biped a man without it. It is not the men of genius, so called, that succeed in the world, but the men of energy, purpose, and perseverance. Precocity is quite as often a symptom of disease as of intellectual vigor. What becomes of all the clever children ? Where are all your prize boys ? Follow them through life and you will find that your dull bovs with perseverance, have outstripped them in the long race. The battle of life is to be fought, in most cases, up-hill, and to 10 win it without a struggle is to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties, there would be no success; if nothing to struggle for, nothing to achieve. Difficulties may, and often do, intimidate the weak, but ever act as a wholesome stimulus to the resolute. Sir Humphrey Davy, who arose from obscurity to distinction said, " what I am, I made myself;" and every man who reaches any success in life, who is made at all, can truthfully say the same thing. Sir George Stephenson, the great engineer, being asked by a young man how he should succeeed, said, " do as I have done, persevere." Yes, gentlemen, it is the one march more that gains the cam- paign ; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force may be less than another's, you out- master your opponent, if you concentrate it more, and continue it longer. Again, to succeed, a young man must not only rely upon him- self, but he must make constant and daily additions to his stock of professional knowledge, by reading, by observation, and by experi- ment. No error is more fatal to the young physician than to sup- pose that his degree is a dispensation from farther intellectual effort; that the period of study is past, and henceforth he has only to gather and enjoy the fruits* of his profession. Scanty, indeed, will be your harvest if such be your view of professional demands. If you are to sustain a vigorous advance; if you aspire after ex- cellence in your profession, merited success in life, and an honor- able distinction, you should look to the present moment as a new starting point, to be followed by renewed and more persistent labor in the attainment of medical knowledge. It is the diligent head, as well as hand, that maketh rich in wis- dom as in business. Even when men are born to wealth and high social position, any solid reputation is attained only by energetic application. The idle, whether rich or poor, pass through the world leaving as little trace of their existence, as foam upon the water, or smoke upon the air. It will be in vain, when you begin to experience the want of more ample professional resources, to endeavor to repair the con- sequences of early neglect, and seek safety for your reputation, and peace for your conscience, by a late pilgrimage to the shrine of 11 science. Knowledge offers her treasures early, and like the fa- mous Roman Sibyl, offers them once, twice, thrice, and on each successive occasion she diminishes the amount, and threatens to withhold all, if her*offer be long rejected. No profession requires a wider extent of accurate knowledge than that of the physician. The study of medicine must appre- hend man, both morally and physically, in disease and in health. It goes into the natural world and investigates the chemical and physical changes of every agent which has power to produce, to prevent, to cure, or alleviate disease. A man is termed wise if he knows one thing; if he knows two he is very wise, and but few know more than that; yet you are expected to understand accu- rately anatomy, pathology, psychology, botany, mineralogy, zoo- logy, geology, chemistry, physiology, natural philosophy, and all their practical applications; all of which make but a small por- tion of the knowledge that constitutes the complex science of med- icine. By all means, then, you must discard that absurd notion, " That a genius delights not in labor." Very different is the fact. Watt was termed a genius, but he labored incessantly in the acquisition of knowledge. Elihu Bur- ritt was a genius in the acquisition of languages, but he said : " all that I have accomplished, or ever expect or hope to accom- plish, has been, and will be, by that plodding, patient and perse- vering process of accretion that builds the ant-heap, particle by particle, thought by thought, and fact by fact, gotten during those invaluable fragments of time called odd moments." As in his case, young gentlemen, let not a sun go down without some progress in knowledge; save your odd moments; they bear golden fruit for the physician. The representative men, such as Newton, Galvani, Davy, Far- aday, John Hunter, Harvy and Hugh Miller, among the dead; the men, such as Huxley, Tyndal, and Henry among the living, who have reformed the various departments of science, and " Left their foot-prints on the sands of time," have been the true working men of the world. Strive to imitate them, and if you cannot rise to their heights, you may at least be able to drink from those refreshing fountains that gurgle up in the landscapes of knowledge. 12 "You charge me fifty sequins," said a Venetian nobleman to a sculptor, " for a bust that cost you only ten clays' labor." " You forget," replied the artist, " I have been thirty years learning how to make that bust in ten days." So, young gentlemen, if you are at all ambitious of performing any brilliant operation in surgery, such as you may have witnessed in your undergraduate course, that may require only ten minutes, or even ten seconds, you must spend as many years in learning how to do it. There is even a great deal of labor required on your part to place yourselves on a level with the age in which you live. It is not with us, as in former times, when science belonged to solitary studies and antiquarian curiosities. It has escaped from the clois- ter, and meets us equally in the high-ways and by-ways. We meet it in the air we breathe, in the earth on which we tread, and in the oceans and rivers we navigate. It visits the workshop of the mechanic, the laboratory of the apothecary, the chambers of the engraver, and the noisy haunts of the factory. It prepares our food, paints our pictures, carries our messages, and compounds our medicines. The world is filled with science, with all of which you are expected to be familiar, and much of which you must know far better than other men. Minerva came full-armed from the brain of Jupiter, and was immediately admitted to the assembly of the gods, and made a wise and faithful counselor. Do not suppose, however, when you leap forth, with joy, from the halls of your Alma Mater, even with these testimonials of merit in your hands, that you will at once be admitted among the followers of Hippocrates as a wise and faith- ful adviser; for knowledge is obtained by mortals only by toil and labor. Every blessing is the reward of exertion, and through labor comes improvement. The jewels of knowledge have not all been gathered. There is virtue in every plant that grows around you, and the proper cultivation of the mineral kingdom offers a rich harvest. All these present an inviting field for study, obser- vation and experiment, and the present generation, and genera- tions yet to come, so deeply interested in exalting the standard of scientific knowledge possessed by the physician, demand all this at your hands. In our haste to get rich, we too often neglect the more solid im- provements. While we are preparing ourselves in retirement, 13 others have acquired the knack of managing men and dealing with affairs for temporary ends, which to all appearances will give them the advantage. They can catch the popular ear when you cannot; they accumulate fortunes when you do not; they obtain important positions when you are unknown. But do not, for all these reasons, lose heart. Training is not a mistake unless you forget what it is for. Let the superficial win the short heats as they may, you have but to be patient and steadfast, and you will see them fall behind in the contests for the higher prizes. Their honors will fade, yours will endure. It is as certain now as ever, yea, it is truer than ever, that a little learning is a dangerous thing, especially in Surgery and the Practice of Medicine. Instruments and remedies, new and fear- fully potent, are now in the hands of medical men, which, without an accurate knowledge of their use may, and must, work incalcu- lable mischief. Explorations are now undertaken throughout the human system, even by the young physician, at which our fore- fathers would have stood aghast; and it is false to suppose that a perfect knowledge of these things is a heaven-sent gift, or that it comes by intuition. The youth who would become a true physician must also be- come a scholar. He must acquire the language of science, so that when he opens the book of nature he may read it aright. He must receive his diploma as an evidence that he has only learned the methods, by the patient and laborious use of which, he may, at some distant day, become a skillful practitioner. Medical knowl- edge is to be obtained in this way, and in no other. To affirm otherwise, is to abandon the teachings of common sense, and go back to the charms and spells and incantations of the dark ages. To ignore the inductive process, step by step, by which medical as well as other knowledge is obtained, is to say that a physician is born% not made, and to fill your profession with ignorant preten- ders. In the first ten years of your professional lives, you will, or at least ought to, enjoy all the leisure you will ever have. If you do not become thoroughly grounded in its principles and details in that time; if you do not store your minds with useful knowl- edge then ; and if you do not pursue habits of reading and obser- vation, which result in culture, the question, whether you will ever 14 rise to occupy a place, where there is room for you, on the radiant eminence of your profession, will be decided in the negative. The young physician who sits idly in his office, waiting for something to turn up, is thereby fastening himself to the lower stratum, where he must strive perpetually for a bare livelihood. Work seeks the best hands as naturally as water seeks its level; and it never seeks the hands of a trifler, or of one whose only re- commendation is, that he needs it. But, gentlemen, merely to labor and study will not suffice. You must also accustom yourselves to think, to analyze, and di- gest what you read and acquire. Putting ideas in your heads, will do you no good unless you make them your own and turn them to account. There is no use of cramming yourselves with a load of collections unless you digest them to give you nourish- ment. Here no man can help his neighbor. The wealthy may pay another for doing his work, but his thinking can never be done by proxy. An inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, but an inheritance of wisdom, cannot. Abstract thought seems to be the privilege of man only ; but if you differentiate him as a thinking animal, the class would be much smaller than is generally supposed. Many who never think, and others who believe they think, because they memorize and adopt the thoughts of others, would be excluded. Thought always leads to investigation, and brings to light objects which tend to arouse the energies. It destroys false views and false systems. It frees us from our prejudices, and elevates the man above the partisan. It has led to the discovery of truths in medicine as well as in other sciences that have demonstrated man to be in the image of his Maker, and enabled him to look through nature up to nature's God. When Newton was asked how he accomplished so much, he said " by always thinking about it;" and thus he raised himself higher than any man that lived before him. Franklin, who did and said many wise things, tells us " that he never allowed his mind to wander from any subject under investigation ; " and thus a man, possessed of no uncommon intellect, was enabled to climb the heavens and disarm the storm of its terrors. Many a workman had seen the fossils in the stone quarry of Cromarty, and passed them by as useless rubbish; but the 15 thoughtful mind of Hugh Miller drew from them lessons and truths that enriched and perfected the science of geology. When, therefore, by diligent study you have gathered your treasures of men and things, you must retire to the secrecy of your own thoughts, as the bee to his cell, ladened with that which is to become honey; just as the chemist, when he has drawn from every mine and mountain the materials for his experiments, retires to his silent laboratory, and from his crucibles and retorts brings forth the truths he is seeking. In his solitary study the thought- ful student may allow the busy crowd of pleasure-seekers to pass unheeded ; yet brighter are his joys than theirs, and far richer his visions. Forms of beauty wait upon his will, and spirits of distant ages cheer him in his work. He pursues no phantom, as is generally supposed. The prize at which he aims may be un- seen, but nevertheless real. Where unthinking gazers observe nothing, men of- intelligence penetrate into the very fibre of the phenomenon, noting differences and detecting all underlying ideas. When Franklin made one of his discoveries, men sneered and asked " what is the use of it? " to which he replied, " what is the use of a child? By thoughtful training it may become a use- ful man." The student of nature who reads aright, stops not at first im- pressions and outward appearances, but looks beneath to the liv- ing forces. The crystal differs from the pebble, not so much in its outward form, as in the principle of accretion, which brings every molecule to its place, and is the law and origin of that form. Concentrate your minds upon whatever you undertake; arrange it, analyze it, and keep it suspended there until it crystal- izes into a thing of beauty. The thinker of to-day must labor more diligently than ever to succeed. There are now no secrets. Every thought and every thinker is photographed and described. In the press we have the mighty phenomenon of the world's history painted daily before our eyes. All that science discloses, all that is culled from rom- ance, all that elevates and alleviates mankind is contained in the picture, and yet the work goes on ; still, thought is busy, adding her results to the deathless volume of history. Entering life, young gentlemen, at a time when science is so widely diffused, when thought is so busy extending its boundaries, l(i when every incentive is before you to call forth your highest ef- forts, be not " Like the fool, who holds it heresy to think, And loves no music but the dollar's chink," but strive to exercise your faculties in exploring all possible sources of knowledge, and thus accomplish a work which shall sur- vive, when "time shall have withered the garlands of youth, and broken with his staff the crystal wine-cup." There are still mys- teries that must tax the mind of some future Newton; there are stars beaming in space, whose light has not yet greeted the rapt vision of the Astronomer; and there are processes yet to be found in the practice of medicine, and remedies yet to be discovered in the three kingdoms of nature, for the finding of which posterity will weave an unfading chaplet. But, gentlemen, you may persevere, you may labor, and you may use your mental powers to raise yourselves to eminence, and yet these may be but the livery of heaven you have put on, in which to serve the devil. To reach an honorable success, you must be honest and true to yourselves, your God, and your neighbor. Let not the phosphorescent splendor which beautifies corruption, allure you from the path of duty. The glittering exterior of dis- honorable success, which, so often, is seeming evidence of proud triumph in the eyes of the multitude, will be found a mere tinsel cover to self-reproach and conscious degradation. What, if under false pretenses and crooked policy, a physician should obtain a temporary success ? What if he should trim his sail to some popu- lar breeze, and raise his flag to some ism or folly of the day, and thus glide out of obscurity into a short-lived notoriety? What i£ he should hang out the meretricious allurements of the vender of secret nostrums, and gather wealth and splendor as the wages of professional prostitution,—is all this success, or ten times this, sufficient to remunerate him for his own self-loathing, and for the pity and scorn with which he is regarded by his professional breth- ren and by an enlightened community? Hugh Miller said, " the mason with whom he served his trade, put his conscience in every stone he laid." Let your consciences be likewise tied to every act of your lives, and if you cannot make a living honestly by your profession, then seek another. Money 17 and reputation gained by fraud, may dazzle,—but bubbles blown thus, glitter only to burst. Perhaps, young gentlemen, I owe you and the profession an apology for even alluding to this professional degradation, con- vinced as I am that honesty is more common among regular phys- icians than any other class. Your admirable code of ethics, and various societies, amply protect it in this respect. But if you do not descend to dishonest practices, it is a duty you owe society, to array yourselves against them in others, even to your own det- riment. Like Henry Clay, " rather be right than be president." I do not refer to physicians who sometimes honestly recommend the introduction of some new remedy, which every one can obtain and examine. Often great good is accomplished for society in this way. But I allude to a class of men, bearing the honored title of Doctor of Medicine, whose only claim to it is a purchased, or coun- terfeit, diploma. Men who, by their high sounding pretensions deceive the unsuspecting; men who, sometimes by accident, but oftener by impudence, obtain positions which render them a curse to society ; who, when they fail in everything else, will fill the newspapers with long advertisements, claiming to have discovered in some remote corner of the earth a plant of rare medicinal vir. tue, an invaluable remedy for every disease of heart, head, chest, lungs, nerves, and all other organs of the body; a universal elixir found at last. They urge all, no matter what the disease, to send and secure a few bottles, almost without money and without price, assuring them they can thereby become their own doctors ; that, in fact, they will have no longer any need for a physician. In this last statement, ladies and gentlemen, they are certainly cor- rect, for, if you take their nostrums any length of time, you will have neither any use for a physician nor any one else, except the undertaker. Such men bring nothing but reproach on your profession. Their malpractices always aggravate disease, or produce it where none existed; and though the fees of the regular physician are always larger when he is called iu,—and this must be done if the patient does not die too soon,—yet in spite of your enlarged profits, you, and all true physicians, must be honest enough, for the sake of humanity, to stop these vultures from preying upon society,—and when this is accomplished, another Saint Patrick's day will be set apart in our calendar to commemorate the event. 18 One more element of success in the true physician I must name. In order to overcome the difficulties you may meet in life, you must have courage. No coward ever succeeded in any profession. The soldier who can faithfully discharge his duty amid the mu- sic of musketry, and the roar of artillery, will in the end succeed, and is termed a brave man. The sailor, who will stand at his gun and fire a salute over what is soon to be his watery grave, must have courage. John Maynard, as many remember, immor- talized himself a few years ago, for his bravery on Lake Erie, be- cause he simply stood at his post and ran the burning boat ashore to save a helpless crew, while he perished in the act. So, gentlemen, you may, and perhaps will be, placed in circum- stances where the truest moral courage is required. You may sail, for a time, with a fair wind ; the sun may shine, and no angry breeze ruffle your life-current, until by long and faithful experi- ment and observation you discover some valuable remedy, or some new process for alleviating or preventing disease. You have cour- age to announce it; society, for whose benefit you have been labor- ing, misinterprets your motives ; your brethren, some through envy, others honestly, oppose you ; the press, to be popular at your ex- pense, teems with abuse; confidence in your integrity is lost, and poverty is fast approaching your door. This, gentlemen, has been, and ever will be, the fate of all who dare to carve a new stone, or even polish an old one, for the temple of Medicine. But your re- ward will come in time, for posterity always rewards her benefac- tors ; be brave, therefore, and remember that,— " Truth crushed to earth will rise again, The eternal years of God are hers ; But error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies amid her worshipers." But times will come that will put this virtue to a test in other ways. When God sends a season of widespread sickness and death ; when he seems to poison the very air we breathe ; when we are visited by the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the de- struction that wasteth at noonday; when a thousand shall fall at our side, and ten thousand at our right hand; when the world seems reeling and gasping nigh unto death, and panic seizes all, and paleness covers their faces, then you must have true courage 19 to stand at your post, like John Maynard, when others forsake it, even though you perish there, and,— " Leave no memorial but a world Made better by your lives." Yet when time makes up her jewels,— " Few will wear a greener wreath Than that which binds your hair." With these elements of character, energy of will, laborious appli- cation, a thoughtful intellect, an honest purpose, and a brave heart, we welcome you in the name of the faculty whose instructions and precepts you have honored, and in the name of every true physi- cian, into the ancient and honored brotherhood of Doctors of Med- icine. In after years, memory will often recall the scenes through which you have lately passed, and your Alma Mater, that now sends you forth to battle with disease, will ever welcome her brave and honest sons back to her halls, will watch you with a moth- er's eye, and rejoice in your prosperity. The star of your destiny may be bright, or it may be obscured by dark and gloomy clouds; aud your argosy of life freighted with all your hopes may be tossed on angry waves; but what- ever be your lot, remember the true end of existence ; that the world which stretches out before you is but the vestibule of an immortal life; that the deeds you are to perform touch upon chords visible and invisible that vibrate in eternity; that the thoughts aud motives which stir within you, thrill the ever-beating pulses of a deathless spirit. Do not act then as mere creatures of this life, who for a little while are to walk its valleys and its hills, enjoy its sunshine and breathe its air, and pass away forever ; act as immortals, with an aim and purpose worthy of your nature and high calling. Set before your eyes a perfect and durable end. Labor to accom- plish a work, which, when the voices of the mutable and perish- ing are forever hushed, shall live in the memories of rejoicing thousands; and then, when death comes, and it must come to all, you may be able to say, " I have fought a good fight, I have fin- ished my work," and pass away "Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch around him, And lies down to peaceful slumbers." VALEDICTORY BY C. L. DANA, M. D. Ladies and Gentlemen : Separations and farewells make up so large a part of human life that even the young man has generally learned to go through the ceremony with the proper warmth and gracefulness,—and, if necessary, poetical quotation. So, if it were my duty to-night, simply to say good-bye, the task would be easily completed with a few conventional phrases and carefully studied bows. But I find that in a valedictory address a prelude to the audience is necessary, and that here some bold and original opinions on ap- propriate subjects are expected from the orator. I undertake the prelude, but shall only use it to enlist your sympathies in us, the graduates, a little, and to beg that as we bid you farewell you will return us your kind wishes for our somewhat uncertain future. One is obliged to observe that the freshly graduated medical student is an object of general and deep suspicion. The public does not receive him with any tenderness or confidence whatever. It is darkly insinuated that the*"M. D." in his case stands sim- ply for " More Danger." He is considered a sort of animated package of dynamite, licensed to explode at any time amongst un- protected communities. I think it is religiously believed that we roam about with glittering sets of thirsty knives in every pocket; / that we never write any but the most poisonous prescriptions, and never take charge of any patient without the intensest ambition to conduct a post mortem upon him. It is with the inspiriting consciousness of being about to create such impressions that we start out in life, and I protest that the public is unreasonable herein, and its judgment very unfair. For three years the necessity and beauty of conservative surgery and conservative medicine, and continual caution, have been ringing „bout our attentive ears, and we shall go forth with the most earn- 21 est confidence in the great efficacy of Nature,—especially in all those cases where diagnosis is difficult and experiment impossible. Besides, we have decided—by a large majority,—not to step at once into an extensive and lucrative practice. We have thought- fully and humanely concluded that for us to undertake immedi- ately a continual round of critical cases and capital operations would not be for the best interests of society. In fact, our educa- tion and our opinions are such that we can assure you we are not the popular " devouring monsters," not disguised wolves,—though we have just gotten part of the sheep's clothing. Indeed we be- lieve, and shall for a number of years, that it is these old, estab- lished practitioners who are the dangerous class; that it is the freshness of youthful enthusiasm which removes tumors and other unpleasant developments with the most gracefulness and precision, ■end that *it is the sympathetic interest of the young physician which investigates and toils and nurses with the least regard to his own time and comfort; and so we dare ask that you give us, without any mental reservations, your warmest wishes for our immediate future. All through the medical student's course the question of " why do you study medicine?" is flippantly or contemptuously or won- deringly put to him. To tell why, would be a sort of confession of our faith, not inappropriate here. Probably few of us have chosen our profession purely out of love to humanity. Such kind of transcendentalism is sadly rare now; and very likely always has been. It is rather because we desire to earn a living honorably; we love the study and believe we shall love the work which will enable us to earn this living as physicians, while the consciousness that we may do much good to others ennobles us and makes us honor our choice. It is the science of medicine only of which we can speak; but of this who can explain the fascinations! As law, whether in matter or in spirit, is the expression of the thoughts of God, so every mind that would uplift itself at all will love to examine some phase of this. And the study of medicine is the study of law; of law as displayed by nature in her highest form of crea- tion : and because we know that a principle, harmonious, beautiful and certain, underlies the most loathsome disease as well as the most healthful process, we can forget horror and disgust,—some- 00 times compassion, and can study with equal pleasure, the beauti- ful, the curious and the offensive. It is only in part that we know these laws, while much of what is beyond seems constantly to evade us. For there are phantom shapes flitting about the half-explored realms of medi- cal science—shapes which wear the garb of Nature herself, and often deceive the very elect. But Nature is caught sometimes, and every year she has to confess more and more of her secrets. I think it is not strange that we love this land of wonders already discovered, or are ambitious to learn more of the still unknown. Medicine may partly deserve the reproach that it is the science of mysteries; but there is no discouragement to us in this, for there is nothing so fascinating as mystery or so pleasurable as penetrating it. In enthusiasm for our work, then; in the hope of an* honorable career; in the belief that we can benefit our fellow-man, and the knowledge that God is watching over all,—surely, if we enter it thus honestly, we enter no mean or undeserving life. Gentlemen of the Faculty : To you each succeeding vale- dictorian can only express the same earnest sentiments of esteem and gratitude. In bidding you good bye we sever connections which to us have always been pleasant, and still more, which have been perhaps the most useful of any in our lives. The instructions you have given will shape the whole course of our future, and much will be due to you if that is a successful one. The self-sacrifices you have often made for us, the conscientious labor you have always bestowed, the interest you have shown and the encouragements you have given, we believe that we thor- oughly appreciate, and we know we shall never forget. More I need not say; but you may be sure that another class has gradu- ated which bears the warmest feelings towards you, and will keep your kindness and your instructions amongst its most grate- ful memories. Gentlemen op the Junior Class : Class distinctions have made but little difference in our relations with you, and we have always been on the most cordial and friendly of terms. It is with pleasure, then, that we resign to you our now completed duties as students and seniors. We leave to you here the earnest and 23 faithful instructions of the lecture. We give up, without repin- ing, the trembling, stuttering, palpitating pleasures of the quiz, and wish you fair peace and few falls upon that stony pathway to medical knowledge. We resign with cheerfulness the daily walk to the college halls and the voluptuous ease of those benches, upon whose sable softness may you have happy dreams ! We charge you to take a tender care of our janitor,—that dark but gentle spirit who has so often rung us in to instruction, eloquence and joy, and then,—put down the lights. We bid you fill with your enthusiasm the pure and invigorating air of the dissecting- room, and rejoice in its bright privileges. In fine, we give up to you now our past, and cordially wish that, having used well its opportunities, you may all, a year later, with the sound of music, the bloom of flowers and the ring of eloquence, pass from this graduating stage to a long and successful professional life. Fellow-Classmates : It is to us that this occasion has the most real significance. We have formed associations in those old halls which we cannot break without a thought, and we have made warm friendships there which we cannot interrupt without a single emotion. The good-byes which I shall say, however common place, will not sound emptily in your ears. But I shall not indulge in any melancholy musings over final separations ; I will rather believe that we shall often meet again. Neither will I speculate about our future, or build up castles and dungeons in the air. I would rather dwell for a moment upon our past, and call up at this last opportunity some of its many cheerful mem- ories. Now that it is safely over, no recollections will be more pleas- ant than those which embrace the vivid experiences of our quiz. The quiz, I am ready to say now, is a thing of the grandest beauty and usefulness. Nothing brings out the mind of the medical student into bold and conspicuous relief like the stimulus of the regular quiz. What brilliancy of explanation and precision of answer did its inexorable master call forth! How often have we startled him with unexpected attachments of muscle; with new and philosophical arrangements of bones; with provident but or- iginal distributions of vessels. Truly a man built upon our vari- ous suggestions would be a valuable addition to the range of nat- ural history. Do you not remember too, how the stomach-pump 24 in our hands has had its field of usefulness wisely enlarged; and that there is not an organ in the body, which, under the excitement of the quiz, has not been thoughtfully assigned to new and broader functions ! But now our ups and downs therein, the ambrosial joys it has furnished, and the dark Plutonian shadows it has cast, are alike but happy memories. We are done with it forever. And we acknowledge its usefulness, delight in its recollection, but pass it over to our successors without a sigh. Let me recall to you also those nights following nights when with fevered interest we watched the development of chemical equations and the production of unexpected precipitates. How critically and judiciously we admired those equations. And those precipitates,—how we applauded when they were green, and how wild our enthusiasm when they were red! But the fascinating laws of substitution and equivalence, the rhythmic flow of chemi- cal formula? and our two years' fitful fever of test-tubes and gases and smells and explosions, have melted away into the past and the "nevermore." We may hang our harps upon the willows, so much of beauty and joy has passed out from our lives. I can only remind you briefly of the odorous delights of the dis- secting-room and of our somewhat gory triumphs in anatomical research. There we unfolded to ourselves, amidst a tasteful dis- play of bones and barrels and dusky " material," the fact that the true beauty of the human frame lies not upon the outside, in soft outline or graceful curve, but rather upon the wonderful com- plexity and perfection of the structures within. And finally, the happy dreams that would sometimes visit us in spite of polished eloquence or cruel seat; the whispered help that passed along the excited bench ; the earnest discussion—and the beer—which so valuably filled intermission between lectures; these and many other things will always brighten with radiant recollection our hard-working past. But they are over,—and now the farewell. Our student life is ended ; and after all it is a little sad. But we go to our work with hope, ambition and energy ; we will not let the long dreari- ness of waiting, or the quick torture of our firgt responsibilities, discourage us; we will win wealth and fame if we can; we will do our duty any way;—and with such determination, whatever the event, our lives will not be failures. OFFICERS OF THE wMwm OF THE ationat [dical f ottoge of the |,otumtan ||tttt^% w&raiMwm g>.