624 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol,. XXVI. No. 671 



largest possible return for the time and 

 the money which you are investing. If 

 you slight your work, evade or seek to be 

 excused from it, is it not evident that you 

 are injuring only yourself? This would 

 seem to be the merest commonplace, but it 

 is far from being recognized by all. Men 

 come here from schools and colleges, and 

 they do not always realize that inherent 

 conditions are difEerent. In the college 

 course the man whose only ambition is to 

 get through and secure a degree can save 

 himself trouble by selecting easy subjects 

 where he has choice, by slighting his work 

 to the point of maintaining a bare passing 

 stand, or by dint of cramming, cribbing 

 and faking he may secure his ends and, in 

 a sense, get the better of his instructors. 

 But in a medical school it is not so. There 

 are, and can be, no equivalents and elect- 

 ives, no purely disciplinary or culture 

 studies, and there should be no superflui- 

 ties. Every subject is connected with some 

 other and all are essential. Perfection is 

 not expected, and it is not denied that some 

 matters may be sacrificed or slighted and 

 one's standing maintained, but none the 

 less it is true that just in so far as work is 

 neglected the delinquent is a loser, and if 

 any one is cheated he is the suflrerer. 

 ■ Another thing I think ought to be said. 

 You will find the work here harder prob- 

 ably than any you have done before. You 

 will need to devote to it more hours a day 

 than you have ever probably given to study 

 in any other institution. Some advisers 

 would therefore caution you as to the care 

 of your health and the dangers resulting 

 from a too strenuous application, but these 

 are more imaginary than real, and I shall 

 give you no such caution. I have known 

 many men injured by too much exercise 

 and harmed by too much recreation, but I 

 can recall no instance, in my own personal 

 experience, of injury resulting from too 



miich study. I do not deny the possibility, 

 but I consider the probability so remote 

 that words of caution are uncalled for. 

 Such exercise as you need you can secure 

 in simple and inexpensive ways. Leave 

 out-door sports for the present to those who 

 have leisure for such diversions, for you 

 have other things to do and wiU have little 

 time to give to them. School teachers, 

 clergymen, studiously disposed persons 

 generally, who lead sedentary lives, ordi- 

 narily enjoy the best health, and the risks 

 and dangers to which the medical man is 

 exposed do not result from over-study or 

 too close confinement, and even if they did, 

 remember that the mere preservation of 

 health and prolongation of life are not the 

 highest conceivable aims, and that these 

 considerations may be, and often are, dis- 

 regarded with advantage. Intellectual 

 growth and spiritual supremacy are more 

 important than muscular development and 

 physical superiority, and while the sound 

 mind in the sound body may be the ideal 

 toward which we should strive, if either 

 must suffer let it not be the mind. 



Gentlemen, you are prosecuting your 

 medical studies at a propitious and in a 

 momentous time. The science of medicine 

 is making great, and is probably destined 

 to make still greater, advances. The place 

 you have chosen for your study is favor- 

 ably situated and Albany is doing her part 

 in the advance movement, to the progress 

 of which you may have opportunity to con- 

 tribute. Its importance and influence as a 

 medical center is daily increasing. Its hos- 

 pitals are of the best, its laboratories well 

 manned and productive, and this old school 

 is entirely in sympathy with the modern 

 trend in the development of the medical 

 sciences, and is employing modern methods 

 in its work of teaching. Its graduates 

 rank high in the profession, and occupy 

 important and conspicuous places in the 



