48 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 445. 



THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 



DOCTOR VICTOR C. VAV CHAN'S 



CRADUATION. 



On the 18th of June there was presented 



to Doctor Victor C. Vaughan, in the 



presence of alumni, students, colleagues 



and friends, a volume of contributions to 



medical research, containing thirty-four 



papers, dedicated to him by colleagues and 



former students of the department of 



medicine and surgery, in honor of the 



twenty-fifth anniversary of his doctorate. 



ADDEESS OF PRESIDENT JAMES B. ANGELL. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: My duty is a 

 very simple and a very pleasant one, as 

 the official head of the university, to ex- 

 press the gratification which the authori- 

 ties of the university, as well as alumni and 

 iindergraduates, feel on this interesting 

 occasion. We have come to follow a very 

 agreeable custom, which we may say we 

 are indebted to our German friends for 

 establishing, of recognizing the. services of 

 a friend who has been of great use to this 

 institution; and I am very glad that in 

 introducing this pleasant German custom 

 we have here the countenance of our Ger- 

 man friend, Dr. Kiefer, who has done so 

 much for this movement. I should prefer 

 that he would have discharged this pleas- 

 ant duty, but it is proper, perhaps, that I 

 should appear, if only for a moment, in 

 these services. 



I am one of the gentlemen here who are 

 old enough to remember when Doctor 

 Vaughan was very young. I can well re- 

 member when we had the great pleasure 

 of importing him from the trans-Missis- 

 sippi region and the pleasure with which 

 we watched his brilliant progress as a stu- 

 dent. The medical department of this 

 university has tmdergone great changes 

 since that time. The courses of instruc- 

 tion were much briefer then, the period 

 allotted to the study of medicine was very 

 much shorter than it is now, and I pre- 



sume those young gentlemen on the upper 

 seats will believe that it was much less 

 rigorous than it is now. The instruction 

 was very largely given by lectures, and 

 perhaps some of these recent graduates 

 will be surprised to learn that some of the 

 gentlemen in the faculty at that time very 

 strenuously urged that it was far more 

 profitable for the students to hear the lec- 

 tures the second time than it was to hear 

 them the first time. I used to argue this 

 question out at length with one of the pro- 

 fessors, because as a layman it was very 

 difficult for me to understand how hearing 

 the whole course of lectures the second 

 time helped matters, but I was assured 

 that, pedagogically, it was right, that it 

 took the first year to mellow the medical 

 student's mind up to the point where in 

 the second year he could understand what 

 was meant by the lectures. As you look 

 down upon some of these older graduates, 

 who went through that process of training, 

 you must not interpret too literally as cor- 

 rect that view of the case. I presume 

 these gentlemen will deny that that was 

 the pedagogical reason for that course of 

 instruction. 



As I have said, the medical work in those 

 days was more largely given by lectures 

 than at present. The laboratory courses 

 have come into use since that time. It is 

 due very largely, I may say, to the dean 

 of the department, though doubtless by 

 the aid of many of his associates, that so 

 great emphasis is now placed upon this 

 new, and more profitable, mode of scien- 

 tific instruction. Of the important part 

 that he has played during these twenty- 

 five years, I need myself hardly speak in 

 detail; I can assure you, however, that it 

 was with great pleasure that we who had 

 witnessed his career as a student saw him 

 very early fulfilling the promise which he 

 had given as a student, in the brilliant 



