140 
president's 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 terms, 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 properly 
comply with the condition or ought to reject the legacy 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 doub bless 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 by-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. 
