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when life is in peril, to see to it that men of this character are not 

 deprived of their opportunities for culture and growth. 



For myself, I wish to say to-day, that whatever of value I may 

 have achieved in the past, or whatever of value, little or great, I 

 may achieve in the future, as a medical investigator, is largely due 

 to the lessons of close observation, of patient comparison, of cau- 

 tious deductions, learnt in the close aisles and dusty by-rooms of 

 the old Academy the only institution which I ever have or ever 

 will claim as my Alma Mater the veritable mother of my intel- 

 lectual life. 



A few weeks before the lamented Professor Frazer's death, a 

 prominent business man of this city told me that he called on him 

 in reference to a grandson who rebelled against learning Greek or 



Latin. Mr. asked the Professor, " Is there any use in his 



learning these things ?" " Where is he to live ?" was the reply. " In 

 Philadelphia." "Ah, in Philadelphia ! Why, then it makes little 

 difference whether he is an ignoramus or not." 



There was deep truth in the Professor's sarcasm. It has seemed 

 in the past as though our city was willing to settle clown to be the 

 far-famed paradise of mediocrity a dead level, unbroken alike by 

 abysses of gross ignorance or masses of high culture. 



There has, however, come into this old city of ours, I am most 

 happy to believe, a new life. Arousing herself from her lethargy 

 of years, like a giant refreshed by sleep, she is marching forward 

 in all her interests ; stretching out the arms of her commerce to 

 grasp at once the. Occident and the Orient, pouring forth from 

 multitudinous workshops products of a continent, sending her 

 sons to drag out the untold treasures of the neighboring moun- 

 tains, she is multiplying her wealth with almost magical rapidity. 

 Her educational interests, awakened by the hum of universal labor, 

 are forgetting their feeble steps in this the day of their rejuvena- 

 tion, and it's well that our cherished institution now steps forward 

 to the changing music of the times. 



Not long since there came to a neighboring city a man of years 

 and said to its citizens : I have nothing to give but nry time and 

 my reputation, but if you will find me the means 1 will found a 

 museum that shall far eclipse the famous Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia ; and the citizens of that city, scarcely a 

 third the size of ours, gave him $302,000, and the legislature of a 

 State scarcely as large as a corner of Pennsylvania gave him 



