140 



PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



words are to be construed according to their ordinary or 

 grammatical meaning, they mean only that the studies are to 

 extend over a period of six months and two academical ferms, but 

 it is contended that they have a technical meaning and imply a 

 course of 100 lectures. 



If that construction is to be put on the words, the Senate 

 points out that such a course of lectures would in the present state 

 of the science of bacteriology be only a waste of time to students 

 both in medicine and science, and that the lectures for the most 

 part would be mere repetitions of the few topics with which such 

 lectures could deal. 



The question, therefore, whether the Senate could properl}^ 

 comply with the condition or ought to reject the legac}^ depends 

 on the construction of these words. 



From the year 1875 up to the time of his death Sir William 

 Macleay was a member of the Senate, and doubtless acquainted 

 with its by-laws. Between the years 1875 and 1882 (before the 

 School of Medicine in this University was fully organised), the 

 by-laws in connection with the Faculty of Medicine required the 

 candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine to furnish 

 evidence (amongst other things) that he had attended certain 

 specified classes, "each for a course of six months." Between the 

 years 1882 and 1884 the by-laws provided that the undergraduates 

 in medicine should attend a six months' course of dissections, but 

 I cannot find that the amount of instruction in such six months' 

 course is anywhere laid down or defined. So far as I can 

 ascertain, the expression "six months' course" nowhere else occurs 

 in the by-laws of the University and is never used in connection 

 with one course of study in science. From the year 1884, the 

 expression appears to have dropped out of the by-laws, and from 

 that year to the present the fourth Ijy-law relating to the Faculty 

 of Medicine provides for a "long course" and a "short course," to 

 denote respectively a course of 100 hours' instruction extending 

 throughout two terms; and of 50 hours' extending throughout 

 one term. 



