i6o 



THh ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



to you the duties which we may properly expect 

 of you in return. Perform these duties well. 

 Remember that the profession of pharmacy is 

 quite as much in need of moral status, moral 

 character and reputation, as it is of professional 

 learning and skill, and see to it that you dis- 

 charge your duties with satisfaction. 



Prof. Chandler : You will now listen to 

 the valedictory address of Mr. David M. Wells, 

 Ph.G., class of '95. 



Mr. Weli<S : Most Worthy Officers and 

 Trustees, Honored Faculty, Classmates and 

 Juniors of the New York College of Pharmacy, 

 and Dear Friends : 



"The world moves and we move with it." 

 Never was more ttuthful expression uttered than 

 this familiar quotation. Man's history is one of 

 progress. From the earliest times to the present 

 era, there has been a gradual, but none the less 

 wonderful, development of mankind. What 

 would our Pilgrim Fathers think, could they 

 come back to earth and behold the wonders of 

 only three centuries ? How amazed would they 

 be, to hear the shriek of the steam-engine as it 

 thunders by, covering in a day as many hund- 

 red miles as our forefathers traveled rods, could 

 they behold our "Ocean Greyhounds" that 

 touch two continents in as many days as it 

 formerly took weeks or months ; witness our 

 fire-engines as they come clanging down the 

 avenue ; view copies of our Sunday newspapers, 

 bringing the panorama of the whole world to 

 our mental sight ; listen to the phonograph, 

 that wonderful fruition of E lison's fertile brain; 

 talk with men a hundred miles away by means 

 of the telephone ; see the mysterious flash-flash 

 of our intercontinental cablegrams ; survey with 

 wonder the magnificent electric light, turning 

 night into day ; and when they have done all 

 this we can imagine hearing them exclain, 

 " America ! Thou hast indeed made glorious 

 progress ! ' ' 



Where a short time ago was our sewing 

 machine— that great blessing to womankind ? 

 Our typewriter with its legibility and rapidity ? 

 Where the Linotype, the wondrous machine 

 for type-setting? The electric car, traveling 

 without any visible power at the rate of a mile 

 in two minutes ? Our marvelous mail system, 

 delivering a letter for two cents in any part of 

 the United States, and for five in almost any 

 portion of the globe ? Where were our depart- 

 ment stores with their hundreds of employees, 

 which deal in every conceivable article, not ex- 

 cepting patent medicines? Where were our 

 electric vehicles; the bicycle, which outdistances 



the fleetest horse ; where the wonderful in- 

 stantaneous photograph as especially utilized in 

 the Kinetoscope ? Where was the "ticker" 

 printing by electricity the news and piices of 

 the instant ? Where was our system of transit 

 with its horse, cable, elevated and electric cars ? 

 Where our manner of conveying money and 

 valuables by express ? The pneumatic tubes in 

 our great stores and Post Office Department ? 

 Where but half a century ago were these won- 

 ders ? Echo answers " Where ? " 



Invention has not progressed alone in her 

 rapid strides toward perfection. Literature, 

 art, commerce and science have been her travel- 

 ing companions ; although their movements 

 may not have been so familiar to the ordinary 

 observer, they have made progress no less won- 

 derful. 



Our banks, exchanges and insurance com- 

 panies are housed in " palaces of finance " that 

 tower in majestic splendor over the housetops of 

 our cities ; their interiors being fitted with a 

 luxuriousness that rivals in magnificence and 

 far excels in convenience the finest palaces of 

 old Europe. 



The many societies, clubs, religious, social 

 and labor organizations, libraries, gymnasiums, 

 schools, academies and colleges are the results 

 of progress and education, and to these and 

 kindred institutions may be attributed our ad- 

 vancement. The old search for a machine to 

 furnish perpetual motion, the iridescent dream 

 of all ages, has been herein successful. 

 " Knowledge is power ; " and like the original 

 current in the dynamo, at first small and in- 

 significant, it at last furnishes the dread, mys- 

 terious irresistible current of electricity which 

 lights mankind on the way to his highest pro- 

 gress. 



Science, mathematical and astronomical, has 

 ever striven to keep step with the march of 

 progress and many surprising facts are being 

 demonstrated every day. Think of it ! Four 

 hundred years ago, our ancestors thought the 

 earth to be flat and the sun to move ! Contrast 

 this almost universal ignorance with the knowl- 

 edge that produces the precision with which 

 eclipses are foretold, and you catch a glimpse 

 of the progress of modern astronomy. 



Turning to art, how wonderful is its influence 

 and its diffusion. Formerly the possession of 

 limited classes, now, through our Sunday 

 papers and its many applications in our daily 

 life, it has been diffused among the masses 

 Every land has its artists and art schools to 

 foster and develop its proper appreciation. 



