600 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, 
and he had more questions to answer on that day than on 
any other in the week. 
To this Society is attached a library of reference and 
circulation, containing 1000 volumes. 
This leads me to observe that a course of systematic read- 
ing in connection with every branch of your studies is indis- 
pensable. Without it, you can make no real progress ; and 
remember it must be always accompanied with deep and 
deliberate thought Better far to read little and think much, 
than to read much and think little. It is by reflection that 
knowledge is made, as it were, a “ part and parcel” of the 
mind ; and of this be assured, mere desultory reading is com- 
paratively nothing worth. 
Your evenings, in all probability, will be devoted to this, 
although many prefer the mornings, from the then clearness 
of the intellectual faculties. Presuming it to be the first 
named, the plan you should adopt is, to read carefully over the 
subject of each lecture you have heard during the day, making 
notes as you go on. These you will afterwards add to the 
short notes taken by you during the lecture ; for it is advisable 
that short notes be then taken ; but not lengthened ones, as 
these break the thread of the discourse or argument. The 
memory of most persons is too treacherous to be entrusted 
with many important facts, and minute details it is scarcely 
ever retentive of. Here, too, will be perceived the advantages 
of method. 
The 5th and crowning aid to which I shall advert is, the 
ready access you have to your teachers in all seasons of 
doubt and emergency. A teacher does not half fulfil his 
duties who is approachable only in the lecture-room. His 
desire should be, and I believe generally is, to be considered 
as a friend to the student. He has many sympathies in 
common with him. He was once a student himself, and he 
well remembers the many difficulties that presented them- 
selves to him at the beginning of his studies. How harsh, 
and apparently unmeaning, were some of the terms that first 
struck his ear ; how many complex ideas others served to 
express; how very unpleasant was this act, and seemingly 
useless that ; until a friend kindly undertook to point out 
the advantages each possessed. It was then he took courage 
and pressed onwards ; difficulties were at once removed, and 
the mountain became a plain. 
But the teacher is a student still, only he has to work in the 
deeper parts of the mine. What wonder, then, is it, that as 
your pursuits are alike, and your objects the same, he 
possesses for you a fellow-feeling, and is always ready and 
