614 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
Recollecting my own pupilage, and likewise my ow r n first 
day of the session, I can sympathise with you in these very 
natural and even proper feelings. Nor would I abate one 
jot the weight of responsibility which fixes on your minds, 
and which, the more vividly it is felt, the better earnest it 
becomes that you are here to work, and not to play; and 
that you will thus be enabled, on the last day of the session, 
to acquit yourselves of these responsibilities to the satis- 
faction of your teachers, your examiners, and the profession 
which you aspire to be members of. 
The hopes of the world often rest on new beginnings. 
Turning over new leaves is our especial privilege, and an 
incentive to duty. To you who are altogether new to this 
institution, I would say, keep your page clean, and write 
upon it all the knowledge which your instructions and 
studies enable you to gather. Let no blot of dissipation 
obscure it ; no apathy or inattention mar the legibility, or 
the remembrance of the facts which you have to record. In 
short, begin well, and be jealous of keeping unsullied the 
good resolutions of “ this first day.” To you who have been 
pupils before, and whose faces and past career and attain- 
ments are known to me, I would also urge home the beneficial 
influence of a new beginning. Let an additional momentum 
be given to your industry ; and remember, that as the period 
of your examination approaches, as the time of your pro- 
bation grows shorter, as the hopes of those who have sent 
you here become more anxious, you have increased motives 
for not wasting an hour, for not omitting an opportunity of 
acquiring knowledge, and above all, for not indulging in 
a single habit which is contrary to that assiduity which study 
demands, or which, if continued, might interfere with the 
successful prosecution of your adopted calling. 
To me, each beginning of a session, I confess, has its peculiar 
difficulties, and these are heightened by the fact, that I have 
so often addressed similar audiences within these walls. In 
such moments as these, your predecessors (past generations, 
so to speak, of veterinary students), pass before my mind’s 
eye, as, for more than a quarter of a century, I have wit- 
nessed them from year to year launch forth into the world. 
It is usual for many of these adult sons of the College, to 
favour us with their presence on these anniversaries; and 
they remember, I trust not without pleasure and satisfaction, 
the day when they first took their station as students upon 
the benches which you now occupy. They have listened to 
me before upon themes necessarily very similar to those 
which I must dwell upon to day, and which I fear will render 
