INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
605 
substituting the excitement of intoxication, for the mutual in- 
terchange of healthy ideas. If you wish to be respected, you 
must avoid all friendships which involve a sacrifice of self- 
respect , for there is nothing so destructive in its consequences 
and so difficult to recover from as this. 
I beseech you then to avoid ail companions, high or low, 
equal to you, or beneath you, who infringe the great, and I 
may add moral principle of strict sobriety ; for such practices 
lead to pains and disabilities which, I regret to say, make the 
history of our profession a sad tale. 
At the beginning of my address 1 told you that the multi- 
farious knowledge necessary in your adopted calling, requires 
the best conditions of brain and mind in order to apprehend 
and retain it; but how can you expect to do this, unless you 
keep your heads clear, and the cerebral tablet, on which 
memory writes with photographic rapidity, clean and white* 
for the impression of the details of science? 
“ Half-and-half” is not the fluid which will make you 
sensitive to the impressions which you are to receive in this 
theatre. The company of those beneath you in education 
will but ill prepare you for that attention to scientific details, 
often very complicated, which constitute the chief point of 
your education within these walls. Let me then counsel you 
so to spend your evenings, that your faculties may be bright 
and vigorous for the enjoyment of the instruction of the next 
day. Come to this place, and each to his own seat, with your 
ideas as clear mirrors to reflect the information given by your 
teachers. 
I know very well that this is a distasteful subject, that 
es drunkenness” is an objectionable word* and that most men 
will disclaim any participation in the vice. But then, on the 
other hand, what evils have I not seen arising from the 
reality of its practice, and this not only during pupilage, 
but in after-life. How many a gifted and facile brain 
has been stricken down by the pleasures of drink. How 
many a man has lost his conscience in these pleasures, 
and drowned his care and his skill in the same bowl of 
perdition. 
My mind’s eye at this very moment sees a long shore 
strewn with these wrecks. I would therefore direct your 
vision in this course ; and beg of you to pause and hesitate 
before you enter on the beginning of these insane pleasures. 
To those of you who are here for the first time, I would 
say, begin in sobriety, and cultivate intimacy with those only 
who will support and guide you in your studies ; and to the 
elder students I would also say, reconsider this day your 
