HOSPITAL VISITS 



377 



meaning of a student's life ; in his presence he became blind to 

 the grace and beauty of youth, seeing only the unregenerate 

 man he was to be, pitying him for writing his own sentence in 

 the book of fate. 



His solicitude for the students' welfare was not confined to 

 the precincts of the College Yard ; when they went abroad he 

 still kept an eye upon them. He often said, " I hold it a part 

 of my business to do what I can for every wight that comes to 

 this place." When they got into scrapes he went to the police 

 courts and watched the proceedings to see that justice was done 

 them, or to give what evidence he could in their favor. He 

 confessed that it was his habit after public days in Boston to 

 take a look in at the Cambridge police court next day to be sure 

 that his boys, if in any trouble, had fair play. 



The hospital was also the scene of many of his beneficences. 

 During the fifteen years that he was Dean he never failed to visit 

 a sick student belonging to his department. In cases of serious 

 illness he called every day ; and in his afternoon walks to take 

 in the Stillman Infirmary was almost a daily occurrence. Going 

 the doctor's rounds in his youth with his father, his studies in 

 anatomy, as well as his ample experience in the ways of ill- 

 health, made him an excellent adviser ; he had passed through 

 so many phases of physical misery and come out fairly whole 

 that he was a cheerful and encouraging friend to the sick. His 

 very presence brought comfort to many a forlorn boy; the 

 down-hearted he encouraged and the one who complained he 

 rallied, telling him "to grin and bear it." During his own 

 last illness he said with a grim smile one day, when suffering 

 acutely, "Perhaps I have been hard on the boys inclined to 

 whine a little after this diabolical operation for appendicitis ; 

 it isn't pleasant after all." There was no home so poor or 

 hospital so well equipped that he did not enter, and, if any- 

 thing was lacking for the comfort of the sick boy, make a 

 vigorous protest and find the means of getting it. 



In the hospital, as one of his students writes, he would pull 



