.■'■*•■


VALEDICTORY ADDRESS
TO THE
•rakates of tfec fWrcal department
UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE,
DELIVERED FEBRUARY 28, 1857,
            by \sr '

THOMAS R. JENNINGS, M.D.,
      PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE FACULTY-^^ THE CLASS
NASHVILLE, TENN.
      1857. 
V
^ 
VALEDICTOEY  ADDRESS.
 Gentlemen :
   At this, the  parting interview between  you and those
 who have been for  a time  your instructors—who  have
 stood by your side, to be your guides  and auxiliaries in
 your efforts to obtain that knowledge  which  is requisite
 to fit you for the practice of the arduous profession, on the
 duties  of which you are now  about to  enter—no  more
 appropriate theme for reflection can be suggested than that
 which will fix your attention  on the course of training to
 which you have thus for  so long a period been subjected.
 So far  as your  corps of teachers is concerned, being their
 spokesman on this  occasion, I know such a retrospect will
 be to them  a  matter both of pleasure  and of profit: of
 pleasure, because it will recall the enjoyment of those fre-
 quent communions with you, when their earnest efforts to
 impart useful information were crowned by the assurance
that they were not,  in the nature of labor, expended in
vain: of profit,  because such reminiscences cannot fail to
nerve them  with fresh determination  to prosecute  with
energy the great task of the same nature, which their hope 
                           4
of prolonged life and usefulness, so excited, will open out
to their mental vision in long and brilHant perspective.   In
your bosoms, too, animated  as  they are and as they should
be by the vivid emotions and the bright anticipations char-
acteristic of youth, I am confident that the same glance at
the late events of your educational career will elicit similar
joyous feelings, and  give  birth  to like felicitous  results.
.The fault, indeed, will  be  in the  speaker and  not in his
theme, if, whilst you  follow him in the course of the medi-
tations proposed  as  the employment of the passing hour,
you do not dwell with rapture on visions recalled  to your
imaginations, of  toil  rewarded by the fruition  of  success
exceeding  even your most high-wrought expectations, and
are not at the same time transported by enthusiastic resolu-
tions that the future of your career shall exhibit a complete
fulfilment of all the expectations which your education has
excited, not only in the minds of your relatives and friends,
and of the community in which you live, but in .your own
visions—highly colored as they may be—of future  success
and ultimate distinction.
   But two years since, at a recurrence of these anniversary
exercises, one of my colleagues joyously exclaimed, whilst
performing the duty  I have now undertaken, "  We are all
here."  Alas! that it is not in  my power now to repeat
such  a  congratulation.   Two  of those who were lately of
our number, (one a preceptor, the other  a pupil,)  are not
here.  They have.vanished from  our midst; and  the ex-
clamation now most suited to our circumstances proclaims,
" What shadows we  are, and  what shadows we pursue!" 
5
In regard to the decease of both, however, we may indulge,
without impropriety, in a  feeling of  exultation,  mingled
though  it  be with  melancholy associations.   Death  with
both was the death of martyrs.  One  of them fell a victim
to his ardor in the work -of imparting, the  other, to his
assiduity in the task  of acquiring, knowledge.   These our
lamented  colleagues, then, being, like , ourselves, sworn sol-
diers in the cause of humanity, have  fallen whilst at the
post  of duty.  Do  I  not,  therefore,  give utterance  to a
supplication which meets a response in  the heart of every
one of us, when I implore that we too may thus die the death
of the righteous, and that our last end may be like theirs ?
   I have invited you to a review of the course  of instruc-
tion  through which you have just passed.  As a fitting
preface, and as a proper tribute to the memory  of departed
worth, I give you an assurance that Dr. Porter, who was
one  of  the founders of this school of  medicine, was  also
one of its ablest and purest  counsellors.  If its success in
respect to the attraction and  the qualification of students
is in any degree attributable to honesty and wisdom in its
policy, he, then, is entitled to a full share of the credit due
on account of the  origination and perfection of the system
by which it has been conducted.  I appeal with confidence
to his surviving colleagues, when I ask  them to sustain me
in the assertion,  that during  our deliberations  he always
manifested a steady, fearless, and  supreme regard  for the
honor of our profession, the  cause of medical science, and
the interests of those who confided in him as an instructor;
never looking either to the right ort to the left, to effect an 
6
 object of self-aggrandizement.  His influence over us, whilst
 he lived, was the salutary influence which a magnanimous
 spirit ever exercises  over all who  come within the sphere
 of its manifestations:  his  power over us hereafter, will be
 of a nature that should  not  be  resisted, and,  if it were,
 could not be successfully opposed.  Men  may disregard,
 nay, pass rough-shod  over the counsels of the wisest and
 the best  of their living coadjutors; but they change their
 course with horror, when convinced that it leads  them to
 trample  on the ashes of the dead, by whose precepts they
 were once enlightened, and by whose example  they  were
 wont to be swayed.
   The retrospection which we are now to commence, we are
 assured will afford abundant material on which  to base  a
 confident assertion, that you will stand forth, without hesi-
 tation, to bear testimony to the fact that we  have labored
 faithfully to teach you the science of medicine,  and to
 indoctrinate you  touching  its art and practice,  by the  only
 method which  the principles  of philosophy can  ever indi-
 cate.  We know that, on  summons, you will  prove your-
 selves swift witnesses for  us,  that  our  efforts have been
 unremitting to fit you for the practice of the profession you
 have chosen, not by the inculcation of the doctrines of any
 authoritative leaders or teachers, but by extending  a help-
ing  hand to guide you on to  the  true  fountains  of  the
knowledge of which you were in pursuit.  You know well,
that in the school of whose highest honors 3^011 are now in
receipt, you have never been directed to sit down at the
feet of any Gamaliel in .medicine, to imbibe his notions, and 
7
 to become adepts in the  slavish work of defending  his
 dogmas.   On the contrary, you must have a feeling of con-
 viction that we have acted  as  mere recruiting-officers, to
 enlist you under  no banner but that of nature.   Your re-
 sponse must be in the affirmative, when we appeal to you
 to know  whether, from  first  to last of the long  course of
 tuition through which we have conducted you, we have not
 exerted  ourselves strenuously to  impress it on your minds
 that, as it was  your intention to devote your lives  to the
 work of healing, and, when you  could  not heal, of mitigat-
 ing the  diseases  of man, you could qualify yourselves for
 the task  in no other way than  by a diligent study of the
 physical,  intellectual, and moral structure  of man;  next,
 of the vital manifestations, which are the results, or, more
 properly speaking, the constant concomitants of that struc-
 ture ;  next, by the assiduous investigation  of the  derange-
 ments of that structure, and those miraculous manifestations,
 which constitute the diseases the treatment of which is to
 be your life-long  employment;  and, lastly, of the means,
 by the skilful  application of which you may  be enabled
 either to  arrest such derangements, or, when irremediable,
 to  soothe  their attendant sufferings.   So taught, then, by
 your own admission in  regard  to the true foundations of
 medicine,  may we not venture on a confident  assertion in
 regard to your future career, that, whatever others may do,
 you will acknowledge no master but truth;  and that, whilst
you refuse to bow down  in adoration even of the  demigods
of medicine, you will look with ineffable scorn on the stocks
and stones which  are the  idols  of those pitiable pagans in 
8
medicine, the  deluded followers  of a Mesmer, or a Preiss-
nitz, or a Hahnemann!
  Taught in accordance with the system just indicated,
each one of you has been required, as a preliminary condi-
tion of your application for the honors now to be conferred,
that you should give diligent attention to  two  thousand
lectures, demonstrations, and exhibitions, carefully prepared
and studiously enforced on your attention by eight teachers,
who, whilst they look with all proper feelings of humility
to an  enlightened  community for an estimate of their abili-
ties, appeal with confidence to you for a testimonial of their
fidelity and assiduity.
  Censure of  the medical profession,  on account of alleged
negligence in regard to  the initiative training of those who
enter  its ranks, is a thing  of common occurrence.   How
clearly does the recital of your course of studies refute every
accusation of the kind!  Where  is there  another craft  or
calling to be found in our society  that exacts  a series of pre-
paratory exercises one-half so tedious or so thorough ?  The
apprentice  to  mechanical pursuits passes  the period of his
indenture, for the most part, with no  more instruction than
that which suits the interest  of  his employer.  The  clerk
in the counting-house, with some honorable  exceptions, is
treated more like the drudge than the pupil of him who  is
the head of the  establishment.   The future mariners of our
great seafaring republic, who are hereafter to carry our flag
in triumph through the exterminating battles of the ocean,
or to  display it proudly in quest of gain in every part of
the navigable globe, are  even now, at the outset of their 
9
adventurous career, required to waste a long period of their
lives  serving  in  the  capacity of mere  scullions  and shoe-
blacks for the crew in which they are enrolled.   Of our
students of law,  little else is exacted than a lounge of a
few months  in the office of an established  counsellor or
attorney.  The mass  of our  politicians  are self-constituted;
being as well  qualified to be pillars of the State  as is a
mushroom to be a column of support and  decoration in a
magnificent temple.  In  one word, no  candidate for admis-
sion, either into the callings enumerated, or into any other
which is important to the public interest, is required to go
through  a course of  preparation one-half so  rigid as that
which has been  exacted  of you; and yet,  for the want of
sufficient enlightenment  on  the subject, the mass of the
community wink  at. the  great  and real abuses  we have
enumerated, and are loud in their denunciations of one that
is  in  great degree imaginary.   We desire, however, not
to  be  misunderstood   on  this head, either by yourselves
or  by any portion of the intelligent audience  we  address.
We do not contend that our system of medical education is
faultless.  So far are we, indeed, from assuming such a
defenceless position, that  we are willing to admit that there
are other countries than  our own which greatly surpass us
in this respect.   What we contend for is  embodied in the
proposition that, regard  being had to  our age and circum-
stances  and .condition as a people, our scheme of prepara-
tory training for our physicians is in advance of that which
we countenance  in  almost every other important calling
which  either  necessity or custom  has estabhshed in  our 
                            10
 midst.   Reforms, to be sure, may be and should be effected
 in our medical schools; but, like other educational rfeforms,
 they must be gradual, to be salutary.  A nation's mode of
 training its youth is not a thing of isolation.   Inextricably
 interwoven with all the peculiarities of every given age and
 period of its existence, such a system must cljangej either
 with those peculiarities, or but slightly in advance or them.
 It was because of a failure  to appreciate this truth, on the
 part of two of the greatest minds that were ever exhibited
 in human form, that Milton and Locke—an observer no less
 acute than Dr. Johnson  being the witness—did, in- their
 day and generation, serious injury to the cause of learning
 in Great Britain, by their writings, profound  and  ingenious
 as they were, on the subject of  education.           I
   Make your entrance then, gentlemen, on the  theatre of
 active life with your heads erect, and your feelings of confi-
 dence fully nerved, so far as regards your  passporjt to public
 confidence.   Confront  those who would gainsay'your pre-
 tensions by instituting a comparison between your own and
 any that they themselves  can rightfully set up.   Your edu-
 cation as physicians has been conducted in accordance with
 a plan  shaped out  by the  wisdom  of some of  the  most
practical amongst the  many great minds  of the early days
 of our republic,—by Rush,  and Kuhn, and  Shippen, and
Wistar;  a plan, too, which has been freely canvassed, with
a view to reform, and has  been reformed from time to time,
so far as our national peculiarities would permit;  the whole
of the work, whether of original design and  construction,
or of change and reformation, having been  carried  on  in 
11
 accordance with the counsels of a medical public independ-
 ent in its  mode of  thinking, and  unbiased alike  by the
 fascinations of novelty or the  heavy  clogs of inveterate
 custom  and prejudice.  Who will  you meet with, be he
 divine, lawyer, agriculturist, merchant, or  mechanic,  that
 can boast of better or more careful training ?   Boldly, too,
 may you challenge those about you to point to any device
 for furnishing useful members of society that has been more
 prolific than that which ushers you into the world as prac-
 titioners of the healing art. Our modes of teaching theology
 have undoubtedly  furnished us with an average  supply of
 able, eloquent, learned, and  truly devout  spiritual  guides
 and teachers;  and  similar asseverations may with truth be
 made in regard to our national stock in the shape of states-
 men, lawyers, merchants, and mechanics.   Yet assertions
 of  the same kind are equally if not more true when  applied
 to  the body of physicians which at any given period has
 been diffused  throughout  our land.   Medicine has always
 been administered  to our people with  as  much  skill and
 fidelity as  has attended upon the supply  of any of their
 other demands, whether of necessity  or convenience.  At
 every period, moreover, of our existence as a nation, under
 the practical operation of the system we  defend, the medical
 profession  has contributed its full proportion to the list of
men who, by the  eminence of their talents, and attainments,
and virtues, have given tone  to  public  sentiment at home,
and  increased  the  consideration  which, as a  nation, we
enjoy throughout the world.
  Such and so founded is the advice which we  give you 
12
touching the mode in which you should prefer your claims
to  public esteem  and confidence.   If  that  advice  be fol-
lowed,  we fearlessly predict that  out  of your ranks  our
society will receive  as  large  an accession to the members
who are to be its future props and  ornaments, as from any
other corps of equal force  that anywhere, during the pre-
sent epoch of our national  existence, may be ushered, as
you are about  to  be, out of the scenes of preparation for
active  life, into  the midst of the bustle and anxieties and
toils and dangers of that life itself.
  Again, we admonish you  not to think that because, as
the representative of the Faculty of the Medical College,
through the  exercises of which you have  passed, we have
defended the scheme of education adopted and carried out
there into  practice, either myself  or my  colleagues are  so
wedded to our plan of operations as not to admit the pro-
priety of reform, or that we will not with alacrity engage
in a work of improvement, whenever  such  improvement
becomes practicable.   Without  the  fear  of  contradiction,
we  maintain that you have  never heard from us one word
in defence of that old fogyism which clings to  present
usages,  either because of veneration for their antiquity, or
of greed for  the lucre which may vanish wTith their per-
manency.  On the contrary, we feel assured that what you
have heard of our  sentiments  and seen of our conduct, has
wrought the conviction in your minds that we are eager to
co-operate  in any work of  educational reform which  the
medical public  of  our Union may suggest.  Such a work
of improvement would of course have in view a prolonga- 
13
 tion of the term now prescribed for the study of medicine,
 and an enlargement of the field of investigation which that
 course of study now includes.   The two changes thus indi-
 cated  must  unquestionably be  made  together.   Present
 usage  designates three years as the novitiate of a candidate
 for a degree  in  medicine.   The departments of knowledge
 he is  required  to  review during that  period  of time are
 already  of disproportioned  magnitude.   If, therefore,  more
 be added, increased time must be allotted, to insure the
 performance  of  such an increased amount of labor.  More-
 over,  a  remodelling of the present order of studies is
 proper, and would  become necessary as a  part of the pro-
jected reform.  According to  the system now in  vogue,
 but little distinction is made in respect  to priority between
 the  branches of medical knowledge which are  elementary
 in their nature, and those which are compounded and prac-
 tical.  The  last, it is  plain, can be  readily and fully  com-
 prehended only by those who  have mastered  the  first.
 Beyond  dispute, he who  has not studied anatomy, cannot
 learn to  perform the operations of surgery:  he who  has no
knowledge of chemistry, cannot understand the processes
 of the pharmaceutist; and he who is ignorant of the struc-
ture and functions  of the  human body, cannot be indoc-
trinated  touching the nature of its disorders, and the mode
of their  remedy.   Yet, in despite of  these  plain teachings
of common sense, we  see at every session of  every one of
our medical  colleges,  multitudes of  students who  should
scarcely  be permitted  to set foot on the threshold of the
Temple  of Medicine,  ushered  unceremoniously  into  its 
14
inmost recesses, there to Hsten to prelections and to gaze at
demonstrations, the value of which must in the very nature
of things be to them an impenetrable mystery.
   Let what we have said, then, suffice to prove that your late
instructors are ahve to the existence of faults in the system
of teaching through which you have just passed, and that
they are ready at all times to  stand  forth as  the champions
of a reformation.  What we  have  to  say  further in the
same  connection, will relate to the  mode in which such a
work  of amelioration may be accomplished, and the part,
the very important  part—for  such we  think it will appear
to be—which  you yourselves  may play in its accomplish-
ment.
  A little reflection will make it evident that no thorough
and radical change  of the kind  indicated can  be effected
suddenly, or after a wholesale fashion.   Such a revolution,
if it ever occur, must be the work  of time,  and of efforts
directed in a way to affect the conduct of individuals rather
than the  movement  of  masses.   Medical tuition in our
country, by a  custom too inveterate to be readily uprooted,
is divided into  two periods.  During the first, the student pur-
sues his investigations under the direction of a single precep-
tor, selected because of his eminence as a practitioner  of
medicine; whilst the second is consumed in attendance on the
lectures  and demonstrations of a college.  Accordingly,  to
correct the abuses we have designated, a work of cooperation
becomes necessary, including amongst the agents by whom it
is to be performed, the mass of our profession on the one hand,
and the professors of our schools on the other.  The first- 
15
 named.division of instructors, having control, as they do, of
 the pupil before his mind can have received any wrong bias,
 must labor to impress upon it the necessity of a long, and
 patient,  and  thorough  investigation  of  the  elementary
 branches  of  medicine—of  Anatomy, of  Chemistry, of
 Botany, and of Physiology—as  indispensable preparatives
 to every judicious attempt to fathom the mysteries of the
 practical departments of our profession.  Whilst this  work
 of reform is pressed vigorously, the second division of the
 instructors we have designated  should urge  truths  of  a
 similar nature on the  attention of the same class of aspi-
 rants, and should labor by every artifice to induce such as
 resort to them to  complete their studies, to devote at least
 one  year  of their  collegiate  course  exclusively to the ac-
 quirement of elementary knowledge.
   It  is  evident, therefore, from  the practical view of the
 subject just propounded, that each one of you may very
 soon, if  you will, become active  and efficient collaborators
 with us in the reform of which we speak, and which we all
 regard as so  desirable :  each one of you may and should
 soon become a teacher of medicine.   Our earnest advice is,
 that you will  do so;  that, in a word, one  of your first
 efforts to  attract  the attention of the community, should
 consist  in an attempt  to impart knowledge to those about
 you who  have entered on the career which you have just
 concluded.  Having  taken  this  important step towards
 eminence in your profession,—for such beyond question it
will  prove  to  be,—inculcate the  truths we  have just
announced on the minds of your pupils.  Confine their early 
16
investigations, as far as  practicable, to  the elements  of
medical science,  and urge them to protract their course  of
study  beyond  the  usual period,  and  to  extend  it  far
beyond the Hmits of our present custom.  This  task  being
faithfully  performed, your responsibility as preceptors  in
your offices wiU  cease, being the consummation of a faithful
discharge of your duty;  and all accountability for the future
on the same score will be cast upon us, or others who, Hke
us, control the conduct of an institution empowered to give
passports  into the  domain of medicine.  That balance  of
accountability, moreover, under such circumstances, wiU  be
far from being easy of avoidance.   Those on whom it rests
will  thereby be  plainly designated, at the same time that
they will be shorn  of  all excuse  for  future  dereHctions,
inasmuch  as  a large portion of the  difficulties which now
He in  their way, and seem insurmountable, will then be in
a great degree  either removed or  overcome.
  I  have thus  advised, as  it were incidentally, that you
should, as speedily as practicable, become teachers of medi-
cine.   Let me, because of its  importance, make a  special
inculcation of this wholesome counsel touching the  efforts
you  should make  to  reach professional  distinction, and,
whab is a more  worthy object of your ambition, a position
in which  you may  enjoy the  deHghts springing from  the
consciousness  that  in  your day  and  generation you are
passing Hves of  honor and of usefulness.
   That a step such as we have counselled would carry you
on in the  way of preferment as physicians, is a proposition
to which a little reflection on your part will insure a ready 
                           17
 assent.   Thereby, whilst you bring yourselves in an advan-
 tageous point of view before the pubHc, you will at the
 same time be making your own improvement in knowledge,
 and in the habit of seeking  and ensuing it, and of loving it
 to the extent even of devotion, a matter of assurance.  It
 is far from being an  easy  matter to  impart  to others the
 information which you  have not acquired for yourselves,
 and stored away in your own minds, in a shape of perfect
 order and accuracy.  Your students, too, if you are faithful
 and assiduous in the performance of your duties to them,
 become, as the result of one of the strongest  ties  by which
 the youthful and generous heart can be bound, the present
 heralds  of your reputation, and  its  future most enduring
 monuments.   You can find,  then, no  serious  obstacle  to
 hinder you  in the adoption of the expedient we  suggest,
 other than your own apprehensions arising from your inex-
 perience.  Feelings of distrust, springing from that source,
 may induce you to decline the task we enjoin, because you
 may think it one better suited to the mature judgments  of
 those elders in the profession by whom you will not fail  to
 find yourselves surrounded.  If you take this view of the
 subject, moreover, we  must admit that your  notions have
 some show  of reason in  their favor.   Nevertheless, when
 carefuUy scanned, you will discover that such apprehensions
 suggest no impediment that  cannot be either overcome  or
 circumvented.  Whilst it must be conceded that physicians
 older than yourselves, who have  learned practical medicine
where  alone it can  be  thoroughly learned, in the  field  of
practice itself, and under the feeHngs of responsibiHty which,
         2 
18
in every mind  endued with proper responsibiHty, must be
awakened by the attempt to apply the rules of our art for
the reHef of suffering and  the  salvation of Hves, have on
this score claims to the preceptorship of those who aspire
to become their associates, which are eminently worthy of
consideration: on  the  other hand, you will not fail to find
an offset to  this view of the subject,  when you reflect that
you, at the outset of your attempt to  secure the confidence
of the community, will have much more time to devote to
the work  of instruction than can be  spared by others who
are .already established in  character;  and that, besides, the
very branches of medicine which should receive the almost
exclusive attention  of the  office-pupil, are  just  those in
which you are the most proficient; and, above aU, that inas-
much as you are fresh from your own studies, you are thereby
peculiarly fitted to aid those who are about to commence
them, since  no  one can be better quaHfied to assist others
in surmounting a series of difficulties  than  he who has just
overcome them himself.  Moreover,  if you  are  not  con-
vinced  by  considerations such  as we  have propounded,
every possible  objection in  the  way  of the course we are
urging you  to  adopt will be obviated, provided  you aUy
yourself in  the work  of instruction with some  practitioner
of eminence.   Thereby, whilst you suppHed any deficiency
which might arise from his want of leisure and of famiHarity
with the elements of medicine, he, on  the other  hand, would
bring up, in aid of  your  efforts, his practical  tact  and
matured experience.
   To stop  the mouths of gainsayers, we have just passed 
                           19
in brief review the large  amount of knowledge which has
been spread before you during the period of your pupilage.
Vast undoubtedly it is, compared with the means of acqui-
sition which are made accessible to such of your contempo-
raries  as are  seeking admission into  other honorable pur-
suits.   Still, when what  you 'have learned touching medi*
cine and its associate departments of science  is set over
against what you may yet acquire, the difference between
the  two is like that which exists in pecuniary affairs be-
tween a decent competence and boundless wealth and mag-
nificence.   You weU know that we have never taught you
to think that, by a few years of application, no  matter how
unremitting, you could make such acquisitions of knowledge
as would give you a warrant to fold your hands in idleness,
 even for a single day of  your future career as practitioners
 of medicine.   To he  sure, we have  maintained, as we  do
 now maintain, that  by a  mastery of the general principles
 of  our art, such as we think  you have gained, you  could
 quahfy yourselves  for immediate  activity in a wide sphere
 of usefulness, and  could  display a title  that would be un-
 questionable to precedence over all others, no matter what
 might be their eminence in other branches of learning, who
had never gone through  your series of investigations, and
had never been  subjected  to your course  of discipline.
 This idea we have impressed on your minds, and, convinced
 of the truth  of such an  estimate of your worth, we have
urged you  to  step  fearlessly into the  arena of life, and to
treat with mingled scorn and compassion the pretensions of
 those  who, devoid of your education, would  assume  to be 
20
 your professional rivals, or to controvert your professional
 opinions.   But at the same time we have taught you, as
 we now counsel you, not to look to  a comparison between
 yourselves and others who  have never  enjoyed or availed
 themselves of your advantages, as to a standard of excel-
 lence.   On the contrary,  our admonition to you has  been,
 as it is  now,  to employ yourselves much  more in learning
 the lessons of humility, which are inculcated by noting the
 distance that intervenes between you and those who have
 stood heretofore, and who now  stand, on  the  pinnacle  of
 eminence, than in harboring the unworthy feelings of self-'
 satisfaction, paralyzing as they are to your efforts at im-
 provement, that wiU always be incited  by a paraHel between
 yourselves and those who  are, in certain senses of the term,
 immeasurably your inferiors.  At the same  time that we
 reiterate our  previous counsels on  this head, we take  plea-
 sure in the  expression of our  convictions that one of the
 good fruits produced by the seeds of knowledge we  have
 been instrumental in implanting in your  minds, is made
 manifest by the fact that you now derive, and wiU hereafter
 continue to  derive, more  pleasure from  a contrast which
indicates your inferiority  to those far in advance of you,
than in  a vainglorious survey of the interval which you have
placed between yourselves and  those who cannot be and
who never should pretend to be your competitors.   We
have indeed formed a very  erroneous estimate of the dignity
of your  sentiments, if you  are not able to contemplate with-
out feeHngs of annoyance,  nay, with feeHngs of the purest
dehght,  even  such excellence as you can never hope to 
21
reach, whilst that degree of it which you know to be attain-
able, as the result of patient toil and persevering industry,
affords you a theme for  contemplation infinitely more ani-
mating and pleasurable, as it is infinitely more ameliorating
in its  tendencies, than any picture, however vivid, of that
inferiority above  which you  have a rightful  confidence of
elevation.
   So much for the purpose of  reminding you that we  have
not  instructed you after  such a fashion as would  tend to
make you self-satisfied and careless in  regard to future im-
provement.  Thence we  proceed  to another  consideration
relative to what has been already achieved in the work of
your education—beyond doubt the great work of your lives
—and a consideration, too, which is closely aUied to that
one  on which we have just dwelt.   This is embodied in the
assurance that, valuable  as the information may be  with
which you have stored your minds whilst your studies were
carried on under  our direction, it is as nothing when com-
pared with  the invigoration of the powers of your under-
standing, and their increased aptitude for application, which
are the certain results of  your  late course of instruction.
   You will readily comprehend, thus, how it  has come to
pass that we  have  all  along  attached  more value  to your
habits than to your acquisitions; to the love we may have seen
you  manifest for knowledge, than to the amount of it which
you  may have  attained for the time being.   We know that
you  might fit yourselves for the ordeal of an examination,
actuated by no other feeling than  the love of praise or the
fear  of reproach and disgrace; a  feeling which might sub- 
22
side with the occasion that gave it birth, and might, there-
fore,  be productive of no good  results  of a permanent
nature.   On  the contrary, when we  noted in you a thirst
for knowledge, which would lead you in its pursuit, regard-
less of any ulterior object, and in defiance of all obstacles,
we hailed such a demonstration  as a bright omen of a life
of  usefulness and  distinction.  Again,  then,  we summon
you to stand forth as our witnesses that, though it has been
our effort as your preceptors to make you learned, and that
although, in making  that effort, we  have  carefully  culled
out of the stores of medical science such of its treasures as
ought to be amongst your earliest acquisitions;  still, acting
under the assurance that  profound scholarship could not be
the result of our brief labors for your benefit, we have di-
rected our attention to the more  attainable purpose of so
forming  your habits of observation and reflection, and of
so training your tastes and inclinations, as to fiU your minds
with steady resolves that  the investigations you have here
commenced  should be carried on  to the  very termination
of your Hves, with a perseverance  that  would be untiring,
and a zeal that would grow purer and brighter with every
hour of its indulgence.
   In taking  leave  of this topic, to which we have been so
careful to direct your attention, we cannot resist the "tempta-
tion to quote a  series of observations, of the same purport,
once addressed to  a  class of his pupils by a distinguished
teacher  of Mental Philosophy, himself a member of our
profession.   Speaking of  the  mode of instruction by which
he would ever be guided, he says : " Though I shall endea- 
23
vor  to  give  as  full a view as my limits will permit of all
the objects of inquiry which are  to  come before us, it will
be my chief  wish to awaken in  you, or to  cherish, a love
of those subHme inquiries  themselves.   There is a philoso-
phic  spirit which is far more valuable than any Hmited
acquirements of philosophy, and  the cultivation of which,
therefore, is  the most  precious advantage that  can be de-
rived from the lessons and studies of many academic years;
a spirit which is quick to pursue whatever is  within the
reach of human  intellect, but which is not less quick to dis-
cern the Hmit of every human inquiry, and which, there-
fore, in seeking  much,  seeks only what man may learn;
which learns how to distinguish what is great in itself from
what is merely accredited by illustrious names;  adopting
a truth which no one has sanctioned, and rejecting an error
of which all  approve, with the same  calmness as if no judg-
ment were opposed to its  own,  but which,  at the same
time, alive with  congenial feeling to every inteUectual ex-
ceUence, and candid to the weakness from which no excel-
lence is whoUy privileged, can dissent  and confute without
triumph, as  it  admires  without  envy;  applauding  gladly
whatever is worthy of applause in a rival system, and vene-
rating the very genius which  it  demonstrates  to have
erred."
  Such is the spirit of medical philosophy, far more valua-
ble than any  Hmited acquirements of that philosophy itself,
with which it has  been our chief desire that you  should
become imbued.   The acquirements you have  made may
fade—nay, they wiU  fade—from your memories,  unless 
                           24
 their impression be constantly renewed;  but the temper
 and disposition to which they give birth will  be  enduring.
 Scholarship, according to the  ideas which have guided us
 in your instruction, consists not so  much in the stores of
 learning already in the memory and the understanding, as
 in that discipline of the mind which fits  it for a ready dis-
 cernment  of truth, no matter  how impenetrable to ordinary
 observation, and for its  prompt application to the varied
 purposes of practical life, in despite of aU the obstacles that
 may spring from intricacies and complexities.  If you are
 trained, as we trust you are, in  accordance with our intent,
 though  stripped of all your  knowledge,  were such a pro-
 cedure practicable, you would stiU be left in the enjoyment
 of the most valuable part of your  education.  There will
 certainly come to  aU of us a time when  knowledge, as we
 are assured from the pen of inspiration, will vanish away.
 In another and a better state of existence, the learning we
 have  here acquired  will  perish from our  memories,  with
 the perishable objects to which it  related; but  our  apti-
tude for the  attainment  and appreciation and enjoyment
 of knowledge, having become as it were a constituent por-
tion of the only immortal part of our being, wiU remain as
 ever-during and as imperishable  as the soul itself.
  Another consideration which  we have endeavored to im-
press on your  minds, and which is well worthy of reminis-
 cence on the  present occasion,  relates  to the value which
you should attach to your  profession: that, we have  ever
 maintained, should be of a high rate.  We have taught you
to respect the  profession of medicine, because of its useful- 
25
 ness; to love it, because of its intimate aUiance with all the
 virtues that foUow in the train of benevolence; to venerate
 it,  because it reckons  among its ornaments  many of the
 most powerful  minds whose existence  is  graven on  the
 records of history, and because of the vast amount of pro-
 found truth and sublime speculation which distinguishes it
 as  a science, and  signahzes its achievements  as an art.
 Forming so high an estimate of the calHng in the ranks of
 which you are now enrolled, we repeat our earnest soHcita-
 tions that you do all that Hes within the limitsof your power
 to assure it, not an undue preponderance in society, but that
 great weight and that large consideration to which it is justly
 entitled.  This view of the subject opens up to  you a field
 of reform requiring your most assiduous  efforts,  in order to
 a fulfilment of your duties.   In every miUion of our popu-
 lation there may be found,  on  an  average, two thousand
 physicians.  Such a body of educated men must and do
 have weight and consideration with the public.   StiU, they
 have not that degree  of influence to which they are justly
 entitled.   They, in common  with the  clergy, the farmers,
 the  merchants, and the mechanics, are eclipsed in honor by
 the  members of a truly great and  noble  profession, which,
 however, should  not be permitted—as there are  other pro-
 fessions equally great  and noble—to get so far the start of
 this our majestic New  World, and bear the palm  alone.
 All the posts of honor and of profit, growing out of necessary
 pubHc trusts, exhibit amongst their incumbents a proportion
 of five lawyers to one individual of any other pursuit.  This
inequality is, in part, the inevitable result of the  close rela- 
26
tionship which subsists  between  the  profession of law and
our government in its two great departments of legislation
and the administration of justice.   In regard to the effects
of such a condition of things, we are free to admit that they
are such as the philanthropist loves to contemplate.  Law;
yers have always been and are now found in the lead of all
the noble enterprises of our nation.   We must  grant, too,
that  no body of men,  outside of  the body of physicians
themselves, have ever evinced a greater spirit of HberaHty
towards the promotion of the interests of our own science.
Still, with aU its great advantages, great  evils grow out of
the existing  condition of things.   It is wrong, in  the first
place, that any one calling in society should  be permitted
to make a monopoly of its high places.   Then the thing, as
a system, does not work weU.  If it did, the most deserving
of our  legal oHgarchy should fill the most important offices.
This, however, is not the true state of affairs.  On the con-
trary, the largest portion of our  eminent lawyers, devoted
to the  duties of  their profession, do not soHcit, and wiU not
take, posts of political distinction.  It has come to pass, ac-
cordingly, that our  government, instead  of being a lawyer-
archy,  which might be an endurable evil, has taken on the
degenerate form of a pettifoggerarchy.   In that shape, ad-
mirably contrived as it is otherwise, it performs its evolu-
tions in a low sphere, seldom if ever  being brought to bear
for the accompHshment of any great  object,  or the further-
ance of any noble enterprise.  Strive, therefore, to counter-
act this state of evil, as far as Hes within your power.  Lend
your influence, on aU occasions, to the elevation of men of 
27
worth, without regard to their pursuits; and with the same
fearless impartiaHty set your face sternly in opposition to
the pretensions  of aU impudent  upstarts.   So far as your
own aspirations may be concerned, do not think that, by
the counsel just given, we would urge you to seek poHtical
preferment  for yourselves.   We  do say to you, however,
that if inducements of a sufficient character offer themselves,
you should not decHne office because  of inferiority in re-
spect  of qualification  to most of those who will be your
competitors.  We know your attainments and your talents,
and are convinced that there is amongst you as much mate-
rial, out of which to make useful  pubHc servants, as is to
be found in the same number of graduates of any law. school
in any quarter of  the Union.
   As  an important coroHary of the general  advice just
given, we  counsel you always to  exert yourselves, to the
utmost, to place the broad arrow of public disapprobation
upon  every one, within  the circle of your influence, who  ,
entertains and advocates opinions that are derogatory to the
value  of  our  profession, or that  tend to countenance any
system of quackery or delusion.  If by any fair means you
can keep out  of pubHc employ, and of course off of a van-
tage-ground for  the dissemination of his pernicious heresies,
any advocate of empiricism, do not fail to put them in re-
quisition.   Such a  course  of conduct  is due, not only to
your own feelings of self-respect, but also to the interests of
humanity.  Mark it well that you  will be working to effect
your own degradation, and wiU  be dereHct to the highest
trust  confided to you by society, if by direct aid or by re- 
28
missness you  assist in placing any individual of the tribes
we have designated in any post of influence, whether politi-
cal or educational.  Of the man who has  not correct ideas
of medicine you  should  form the notion which the  great
poet has propounded of the man who has not music in his
soul.   Say of  such a one everywhere, by your voice and
your vote, " Let no such man be trusted."  And here, as
something  naturaUy  suggested  by  the train  of  thought
which we  are  now pursuing,  I  cannot refrain from stating
to you, as  something worthy of note in the annals of the
State where you have closed your course of  medical in-
struction, that although every one of its legislatures, for the
last twenty-five years, has included amongst the number of
its members a considerable portion of  regular  physicians,
the appearance of any of the tribe of quacks in that body
has been an unusual event.  This felicitous state of affairs
has been due in part doubtless to the general good sense of
our community; in part,  also, to  the fact that few men who
have either the sense, or  the information, or the tact which
might give them eminence, will defile themselves  so far as
to wallow  in the  cesspools of quackery; but it is with as
much certainty, in good part,  due to the influence exercised
by the corps of two  thousand educated physicians, which,
as already intimated, are  disseminated throughout the length
and breadth of our commonwealth.
  You are yourselves ushered before the pubHc  under a fiat
in regard  to your professional  quaHfications, issuing from
an institution that is  governed  by medical men, and by
them  exclusively.   There,  accordingly,  you  have  been 
29
 taught, both by precept and example, that in order  to in-
 sure a healthful condition of the general interests of physi-
 cians, so much  of them as  relates to the mode of  medical
 education must  be retained  in the keeping of the profession
 itself.   If resigned into other hands, they must be confided
 either to the public at large or to associations of individuals.
 In the public, the profession  might place rehance, for the
 mass of the community, though  a minority may  err, are
 not prone  to give  countenance to systems  of charlatanry.
 But the community has other engagements, and cannot give
 such concerns the attention they demand. Hence, the govern-
 ment of medical institutions, if surrendered by physicians,
 must be given  up  into the hands of associations, in the
 nature  of  boards  of trustees; and such associations, care-
 fufly selected as they may be, are  always prone to  take on
 the form of cliques, and to be controlled  more by  feelings
 of  whim, or  by a selfish desire for the aggrandizement  of
 their own families,  or their own political party, or  their
 own religious sect, than by  a  sense of  propriety.   For
 proofs of the practical evil results  growing out of such a
 state of  things,  we need point  to but two instances—one in
 our own country, the other in Europe.  In the University
 of Detroit, a Board  of Regents  have lately attempted to
 foist an advocate of the doctrines of homoeopathy into one
 of  the  chairs of  its medical  department; and the  same
 sacrilege has been actuaUy perpetrated, by a set of authori-
 ties similarly constituted, in  the heretofore venerated  CoUege
 of Edinburgh.   Take warning, therefore,  from the obser-
vance  of such  desecrations, and do  all that  Hes in  your 
30
power to prevent their repetition.   The chief means  of ac-
compHshing an object of so much importance, has already
been  designated.  No other precaution  can be taken that
will prove of much avail.  To  prevent its high places from
being filled with impostors, the medical profession has, we
repeat, no other resource left to them than that of grasping
the reins for  themselves, and becoming the exclusive arbi-
ters of aU  questions  affecting their  own interest.  Take
your stand,  then, firmly on this ground. Resolve neither to
be teachers  in, nor patrons of, any institution for medical
instruction which, by any procedure of the kind designated,
commits an outrage  on  the general sense  of the medical
world.
  In thus advising you to stand by the rights of your pro-
fession  to self-government, we do  not counsel you to any
course which should be deemed unreasonable.   On the con-
trary, we only caU on you to observe a universal custom  of
society.  The members  of  every  other  calHng and  trade
assert  their right to regulate  the  customs of their  craft.
With what show of justice,  therefore, can your pretensions
of a similar kind be gainsaid ?  Would the divine submit
without resistance, if we  assumed  to  control the ecclesias-
tical  seminaries  of  our  country;  or the  lawyer, if  we
affirmed a right to  prescribe a  course  of  legal  studies?
On what just  ground of pretension, then, can they, or any
other class  of society, undertake  to  do for us what they
will not permit us to do  for them ?  In the history of un-
justifiable interference, or at least  as much  of that history
as is furnished  by the annals of our own nation, there is 
31
perhaps but  one other instance which equals in  flagrancy
the attempts that have been made from  time  to  time to
place the educational interests of the medical world beyond
the control of physicians themselves.
   That has been evinced in the various  efforts  that have
been made to take the  control of our judicial tribunals out
of the hands of men learned in the law, by placing  side by
side on the  bench with a judge so qualified for the per-
formance of his duties, two others, to overrule his opinions,
and to expound and administer faithfully those rules of jus-
tice, of whose very  existence they must of necessity have
been whoUy ignorant.   This outrage on common  sense, the
offspring, as it has ever  been, of low  demagoguism and
mean jealousy of the  legal profession,  has  always been
strenuously,  and, in most instances, successfuUy resisted.
Emulate, accordingly, the example  thus set before you, and
assent to no arrangement whereby the avenues to our caU-
ing shaU be guarded otherwise than by the vigilance and
discrimination  of its own members.   Your reward for the
observance of this  injunction wiU be found in the assur-
ance, of life-long  duration, that you are a member of an
honored and  honorable association: your punishment  for
its neglect, on the other hand, will come in the shape of
the humiHating  conviction that a large body of your col-
leagues are  charlatans and  impostors, and that  you your-
selves, being judged of by the  company in which you  are
found, hold a  place but a degree higher in public  estima-
tion.
   In connection with the topic on which we  have just des- 
32
  canted, we cannot refrain from paying what we would have
  regarded  as a marked tribute  of respect to the  Board of
  Trustees,  to whose  care  the authorities of the  State, in
  whose metropolis we are assembled, have confided the inter-
  ests of the University, of one of whose highest honors you
  are now the recipients.   That body, ever since its first or-
 ganization, has comprised, as it now does, some of the first
 citizens of our repubhc.   Its acts, too, have been in keeping
 with its composition.  And of those acts, leaving upon them
 the stamp of liberality of feeHng, and of an earnest, unselfish
 desire for  the  advancement of the cause of learning, none
 is more worthy of eulogy than  that which laid the founda-
 tion  and insured the success of the  school of medicine
 which you have selected as your Alma Mater.   Thereby
 the control of the institution which it founded is given with-
 out reservation  into the hands of an association of physi-
 cians.  No layman can intermeddle with its poHcy,  nor
 can, by intrigue nor by influence, foist any empiric into  any
 of its seats of instruction.  Such a display of disinterested
 munificence is  as single in its  defiance of the clamors of
 demagoguism as in its regard for the public  welfare.  If,
 therefore, in after times, you  note that the Medical School
 of the University of Nashville  maintains  itself uncontami-
 nated by every foul imposture—standing forth proud and
 unblemished, whilst others which are its contemporaries show
a tarnished escutcheon—you will know to what source to
ascribe the  chief portion of the honor due on account of such
a pre-eminence.   One  pledge, to be  sure, was exacted  by
the founders of our college from those  to whom they sur- 
33
rendered its control, embodied in a covenant that they would
estabHsh a school of medicine, and maintain it on a respect-
able footing.   The pledge was given without hesitation. '
The security for its redemption is  found in the  fact, as
already stated,  that those who are obligated are themselves
physicians, who know the foundations  on which the honor
of their profession reposes, and whose  interests and. duties
in that respect can never come into  conflict.   Before high
Heaven, then, and the  cloud of witnesses here assembled,
we renew the vows we  have taken.   Conscious of the sin-
cerity of  our determinations, we now accordingly  proclaim
that, let others do as they may, we will stoop to no un-
worthy expedients.  Others  hereafter, as others have done
before, and are doing now, may offer their degrees  on cheap
terms—cheap,  we mean, so  far as expenditure of  time and
labor is concerned—for the purpose of  sweUing  the cata-
logue of their pupils:  we will  continue, as we now do, to
deplore their errors and to prevent the contagion of their
example.  You well know that we never enticed  you into
the walls of our College by syren songs, having  for their
burden the abridgment of the  course of preparatory study
enjoined by the established custom of  the  country.   On
the contrary, you have the evidence on record, that we have
always been ready to prolong rather  than to curtail that
course, and that, whilst we have lamented the errors which
it involved, and have  caUed for  reform, our  cry has been,
not for amendments which would shorten, but for such as
would  protract both the period  and  the number  of the
         .3 
                           34
 studies of those who are anxious to enter the ranks of our
 profession.
   In carrying out the determination, thus  expressed, to
 move firmly on in the path of duty, we are deterred by no.
 fear of consequences.   Honesty,  we  confidently beHeve,
 will in  this, as in all other instances, prove to be the best
 policy.   Some pupils may, and no doubt will, be induced
 to give  a preference to the schools  which pretend to desig-
 nate a  short route to the really distant summit  of know-
 ledge.    The  majority, however, we  are convinced, will,
 with yourselves, prefer a certificate of qualification  coming
 from some other quarter.   Nothing, indeed, in the present
condition  of the  medical profession in the United  States,
 tends more clearly to prove that the feeHng which pervades
 and actuates  it is of a healthful  character, and such as may
well challenge the  admiration of the community, than the
 fact that the  schools of medicine which set up and  adhere
 to a high standard  of education are the  most flourishing
 and prosperous;  whilst  those who flaunt other, and, of
course.  iUusive banners, have a patronage as scanty as their
 deserts  are diminutive.  Such is  undoubtedly the present
 condition of things, and such we trust it will ever cqntinue
to be.   Should a revolution  occur in  times  to come, we
 hope that our hold on your confidence will command your
belief,  when  we  give you an assurance that it  shaU  not
 involve us in  its  direful vortex.  We  know, that in times
 to come, it will be  a matter of pride  and  pleasure  to you
 to learn that the institution through which you entered the

   * 
35
ranks of your profession, stands nigh in esteem and patron-
age ;  but we know, furthermore, that you  would prize its
honor beyond its prosperity.  When you hear of it, then,
as you will often hear in future, you may learn that its
classes, numerous as they have been of late, are diminished
in numbers, perhaps that its  haUs are closed because they
are no longer, as  now, a place of throng  for  instruction;
but you shall never hear  that, through a groveUing lust for
pupils, it has sacrificed its principles.  The  Medical Depart-
ment of the University of Nashville stands to you now, so
far as your education  is  concerned, in the  relation of a pa-
rent.  You may hear,  perhaps, before you complete your
own earthly career, of  the dissolution  of that parent; but
it shall never discredit  your birth into the world of science,
by dying in disgrace, and being huddled unceremoniously
and undeplored into a grave of dishonor.
   What we have just said touching the extraneous influ-
ences bearing  upon our professional interests,  has relation
exclusively to the action of individuals or smaU associa-
tions.   Closely alHed to  that topic, there is another, which
leads us to a consideration of the amount of governmental
interference with our concerns which is compatable with
our interests  and  the  good  of the  community.   On  this
head, we have said all that we deem  it necessary to  say,
when we notify you that, in the existing condition of pubHc
sentiment, you are Hkely to be but Httle annoyed by  any
officiousness on the part of our legislatures.  They may, it
is true, create boards of  censors or examiners, to open or
close  our doors of admittance; but  the authority of such 
36
tribunals,  though by  no means  pernicious in its exercise,
will be  rendered comparatively null by the  custom of the
country, which gives to the diploma of a  medical school a
large degree of credence as a passport to public confidence,
whilst it quite ignores a certificate of quahfications issued
by a Board of State Censors.  Equally inefficient, too, as
experience has  demonstrated, will prove to be all enact-
monts which may be  from  time to time made for the pur-
pose of thwarting  the devices  of quackery.   Until  the
spirit of the times has undergone that  change which is
ever a  gradual,  and  never  a  violent   revolution,  large
amounts of nostrums will be manufactured, puffed,  and
vended, and swaUowed;  and such  amounts would be rather
increased  than diminished under  the  perversity of feeHng
too often engendered by prohibitory statutes.
  If,  therefore, your  opinions accord with  ours on these
points—and scrutiny of the subject cannot  fail, we think,
to bring about such  an agreement—you will not be found
amongst the number of those who are  clamorous for legisla-
tive aid, either to our recruiting service, or to the defensive
works which we may be striving to  erect against the as-
saults  of  quackery.  Nevertheless, we are ready to unite
with you  in an earnest endeavor—the importance of which
you should never  for  a moment lose sight of—to keep it
well impressed on  the minds of our legislators that, in all
the attempts which they make to fulfil their obligations as
the  guardians  of education-—obligations which the  wise
framers of our constitutions here  inscribed high on the list
of their duties—they should not give  to  medical education 
37
less  than its due share of regard.  Make them to under-
stand the importance which is attached to it in every other
portion of the civiHzed world.  Be prepared, also, to inform
them in regard to the munificence of many of their prede-
cessors in our own country.  Let  them know, on aU fitting
occasions, that the States of New  York, Pennsylvania,  Vir-
ginia, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisi-
ana, have  all,  from  time to  time, made large  bequests
to medical  coUeges.  Enforce particularly on their attention
those views of the subject which, whilst they set forth in
strong light the necessity of medical knowledge to the weU-
being of the community in time of peace, will demonstrate
clearly that, in time of war, it enters into the structure of the
right arm of our public  defence.   Remind them often  that
even in the countries of the old world, where the common
soldier is for the most  part  culled out from amongst the
offscouring of the earth, and  esteemed only as  fit food for
gunpowder, the pubHc sense of humanity would be excited,
to the extent of an outbreak, were it proposed  to send an
army into the tented  field, to  encounter the risks and the
horrors of war, without the appendage of an able, skilful,
and weU-appointed corps of medical attendants.   Then  the
memories of those who for the time being control our public
affairs, being so refreshed, force them to the conclusion  that
a neglect which would disgrace any nation of the old world,
would be a horrible atrocity amongst us.  Let them never
forget that, when our republic engages  in the dreadful work
of war, her armies are  made  up for the most part, not of 
                           38
                                                        i
base hirelings,  but of gallant volunteers; that the blood
which  is  shed  in  our defence on the field of battle flows           1
from no caitiff's veins, but is the best blood o£ all the land;
and that, therefore, it is among the highest and most solemn
of their obligations to provide aU the means that may be
necessary to  give  assurance that not one drop of the pre-
cious fluid shaU ever be spiUed unnecessarily or in wanton-       *
ness.
  Another appeal, which we make to you with confidence,
touching the nature of your response, relates to the practi-
cal nature of  the training which you have received at our
hands.   Certain we are that there is  nothing in our mode
of instruction which would tend to make you  mere book-
worms, men of  learning without tact in respect to its appli-           ^
cation.   Books  have been recommended to you, not because
their contents were the real treasures of which you were in
pursuit, but because they were aids, great, nay indispensa-
ble  aids to the  attainment of  those treasures which are to
be found in actual  embodiment only in the store-houses of
nature herself.  AH along have we endeavored to make you
understand, that after the  acquisitions  of  science  which
you may have  made  in the mere preliminary  task  of ob-
servation,  contemplation,  and meditation, your work  would
remain unfinished,  until you had gained the more important
knowledge which relates to the mode of turning  those ac-
quisitions  to account, by applying  them to useful purposes.
At the same time that we so instructed you, we endeavored
to guard you against the  erroneous opinion too commonly
entertained, that  you could  acquire such  an amount of 
39
learning as would prove an impediment in any sphere of the
active duties of Hie.—That learning is never in truth that
                 ———" Cobweb of the brain—
              That art of encumbering part and wit,
              And rendering both for nothing fit,"

which many regard it.—That, on the contrary, he who is
designated as a mere bdok-worm—whose mind is nothing
more than a lumber-room,  filled with good things  of which
he is able to make no use—is the victim not of an excess,
but of a deficiency of knowledge.—That such a  one, in a
word, is unfitted for the duties which his education assigns
to him, not because he is too learned, but  because either
through error of his own or of his teachers, or through lack
of capacity, he is  but half learned,  having never yet ac-
quired the art of making an appHcation of his knowledge to
useful purposes.  What proves the correctness of  the views
we thus propound and reiterate as a matter of  vast import-
ance to  you, is the undeniable proposition  that we would
not  either improve or reform the  book-worm  by stripping
him of any portion  of his acquirements.  Thereby  we.would
only subtract from his claims to consideration without add-
ing a mite to his capacity  for usefulness.   The latter meta-
morphosis could be effected only in one mode.   That, when
adopted and carried out, would reject no part of his learning
as useless and cumbersome, but would bind  him down assi-
duously to the task of making new acquisitions.   He would
come into our hands in some sense a scholar.  Our training,
to be successful, must make him  not less, but more, a scho-
lar.   Facts in great abundance are already stored away in 
40
his understanding.   We would make him a fool if we robbed
him of such wealth.   We complete, on the  other hand, the
work of wisdom already  begun in him, when we give him
more knowledge—knowledge, to be sure, which  exceeds all
other kinds of attainment in value, but none the less know-
ledge on that account—knowledge of the modes in which
knowledge may be displayed in such a fashion  as  to heap
honor on its possessor, and inestimable benefits on the race
to which he belongs.
   You go  hence to enter upon scenes of trial and difficulty.
Enrol yourselves as a member of what community you may,
the task  before you is one  hard  of accompHshment—one
indeed that, but for the lights of experience, would seem
almost impracticable.  If you seek to make a home amongst
strangers,  herculean efforts will be required to bring those
around you to  the  conviction that it would be a thing of
prudence on their part to commit the keeping of their health
to a youthful and  unknown  applicant for a trust  of such
magnitude.  If you return  to the homes of  your  infancy
and boyhood, whilst you will there no doubt enjoy every
manifestation of that  kindness and regard to which your
known character and the strength and  respectabiHty of your
connections give you an indisputable  title, you wiU not fail
to find many of your  best friends  slow .of heart to believe
that the stripling who lived  amongst them theretofore as a
claimant of their guardianship and protection, has attained
to a maturity in understanding  and in wisdom such as fits
him to play a tutelar part in  matters which involve the very
being  of themselves and  of  all who are bound to them by 
                             41
  the dearest ties  of affection.   Let such  obstacles, great  as
  they may be, and great as they undeniably are, awaken  in
  you feelings  of  animation, not of despondency and discou-
  ragement.   What would the prize be worth that  could  be
  won without a struggle ?  Nerve yourselves, therefore, for a
  determined effort, and having commenced it, strive on with
*  that firm assurance of success with which you must be  in-
  spired when you reflect on the success of your predecessors.
  Prove by your assiduity in study, in observation, and in  at-
  tendance at the bedside of the sick, that  you are enthusiasts
  in the cause of suffering humanity, which you have espoused.
  Demonstrate to aU around you, what at first thought  may
  seem  incredible, that man when  prostrate in his physical
  and inteUectual and moral powers, nay,  when loathsome to
  ordinary contemplation from the  effects of sickness, is  to
  you an object not only of the deepest solicitude, but of the
  most  eager curiosity.  Show by your conduct that, whilst
  others devote themselves with rapture to the work of scru-
  tinizirig the human  body in its  might and magnificence,
  when its  every Hneament  is" radiant with  strength and
  beauty and intelligence, and its  every movement  and atti-
  tude  is the perfection of grace and majesty, you  can, with
  no less display of earnestness and  devotion, consecrate your-
  selves to the same masterpiece of creation, when it is so me-
  tamorphosed, as it may be, by the foul spell of disease, that
  its presence brings before the senses and imagination a world
  of horrors  and disgust, instead of its wonted world of wonder
  and delight.   This point having been  attained,  complete
  success will soon be  the reward of  your perseverance. 
                          42
Monuments  of your skiU, too, will  soon rise in numbers
about you—monuments not  of inanimate material, bearing          ^
flattering inscriptions, such as would  tend rather to awaken
distrust than to  command beHef, but Hving, moving monu-
ments, whereon a record to  your honor  wiU be found en-
graven in unmistakable characters—the  characters which      *
indicate restored health and renewed vigor of body and of
mind—-characters which, being the device of Heaven itself,
can never be counterfeited or made the vehicle of falsehood.
  The brightest results that you can confidently anticipate
as the reward of  the  toil  and privation through which
you have heretofore  passed, and through which you  have
yet to struggle, is  distinctly indicated in one of the most
animated pages of Scripture history.   There it is recorded           v
of the most afflicted  of mortals, that, in the  course of the
subHme speculations and profound reflections iUumined by
bursts of eloquence such as have never been surpassed, into
which he was  led by the events of his adversity, he passed
over in review aU  the enjoyments which poured in  upon
him Hke a flood during the days of his unparaUeled prosper-
ity.   In this  melancholy retrospect, what do we note him
to designate  as  constituting the  cHmax  of his feHcity?
Was it the splendor witji which unbounded wealth had sur-
rounded  him ?  No;  for he had well learned to place its
proper estimate on the vanity of absurd pomp.   Was it the
luxuries that were  strewed  around him  in a profusion that
made him a stranger  to  want, and almost ignorant of the
very nature of desire ?  No; for sensuaHty had been long ex-
punged from his nature by a taste for purer, more lasting, 
43
and more ennobHng pleasures.  Was it the honied adulation
poured, in his ear by troops  of professed friends, in words
and tones of choicest selection, at every opportunity ?  No;
for his present  experience  impressed too forcibly  in his
mind a sense of the just value of summer admirers and sun-
shine sycophants.  Was it the honor  and distinction which
were heaped upon himself  and  his  family by the.world
around, ready then, as it is now, to bestow its favors where
they are least required and less merited ?  No;  for he had
just had a most impressive lesson touching the fleeting na-
ture of earthly  honor and earthly preferment.   On what
one, then, of his recoUections of bygone  rapture do we find
him dwelHng with most transport ?  Making Hght compara-
tively  of aU things else, we note  him rapt in ecstacy while
he recounts the  fact that there was once  a period of his life
when " the  blessing of him who was ready to  perish came
upon him."  " The  blessing," he  exclaims, " of him who
was ready to perish came upon  me."  Here, then, gentle-
men, as just intimated, your  highest hope of reward  is
clearly indicated.   Toil on, as you have heretofore  toiled,
in fulfilment of the great task you have imposed upon your-
selves ; and whether wealth or poverty be your lot, whether
you pass your Hves  surrounded  by a throng of admirers,
or in the soHtude of neglect; whether you are loaded with
distinction,  or live but obscurely useful;  still, you  can pass
through  your existence here, supremely happy in the as-
surance that, over and over again, "the blessing of him
who was ready to perish has  come upon you!" 
H
I
I
v