president's address. 141 



I cannot see, therefore, from the by-laws that any such 

 technical meaning as is contended for has been affixed to the 

 expression "a six months' course," so that I must construe the 

 words of the testator in that meaning. Indeed, if I am to suppose 

 that the testator had in his mind the provisions of these by-laws 

 when he drew wp this memorandum, and intended students to 

 attend a course of 100 lectures, I would have expected him to use 

 the words "long course,'' which alone are defined as meaning a 

 course of 100 hours' instruction extending throughout two terms. 



Then it is said that at Edinburgh the expression "six months' 

 course" is used to denote a course of instruction in medicine 

 similar to the "long course" of the by-laws of the Sydney 

 University; and that as the testator had in his j^outh been a 

 student of medicine in that University, he used those words in 

 the remembered sense of his early days. But I think I am right 

 in stating that Sir William Macleay never took his degree in 

 medicine, and that from early youth till his death at a very 

 advanced age he resided in this colony, where he was for the last 

 15 years of his life an active member of the Senate of the Sydnej^^ 

 Universitj^". 



It appears to me, therefore, that a circumstance so far distant 

 from the time when this will was executed ought not to compel 

 the Court to hold that the testator used these words in the sense 

 they bore in the University of Edinburgh. 



Again, the evidence before me does, in my opinion, bear out 

 the contention of the Senate, that in the present state of the 

 science of bacteriology a course of 100 lectures on that subject 

 could not benefit students, but would be a mere waste of time 

 which could otherwise be more profitably employed — but as that 

 science advances, a more extended course could from time to time 

 be prescribed. If that is so, it must have been well known to 

 the testator, and it is most improbable that he would have tried 

 to force the Senate to give at the present time and under all 

 circumstances such an extended course of lectures as would be 

 useless to the students. 



