INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
273 
will find the right places for them somewhere in your progress, and as by 
the addition of fact to fact, of landmark to landmark, the surface-aspect 
of the region you are surveying becomes familiar, you will by degrees as¬ 
cend to higher ground, and there obtain clearer views of its natural boun¬ 
daries. The amount of detail you can impart to your work is no doubt 
partly dependent on the opportunities at your disposal and the bent of your 
mental powers, but its accuracy and usefulness depend on conditions entirely 
within your own command. Of these conditions the first in importance is 
system , or, to put it before you as it bears upon your own course, rather than 
in the abstract,—regularity in the attendance of lectures, demonstrations, and 
laboratory practice. Each step in scientific knowledge is dependent upon 
the one that precedes it, and bears an equally close relation to that which 
follows. To miss a single lecture in a course consisting of a hundred seems 
a trifling matter,—exceedingly trifling when under the spell of those allure¬ 
ments that are ever so near when human nature is weakest,—but the real 
loss is not to be measured by mere numerical proportion. It may easily 
happen that an acquaintance with a principle expounded in the neglected 
discourse is essential to the proper comprehension of many that follow. A 
German author, Richter, speaking of this sort of steady persistence in fol¬ 
lowing out a well-devised course of education, concludes a paragraph with 
words like these, “ Regularity is unity, unity is Godlike, only the Devil is 
changeable.” 
I have no desire to burden you with many precepts in respect to your 
mode of study, indeed, if I were sure I should be fully understood, I would 
put into one word all I have to say—be thorough. The temptation to 
be content with surface-work, to accept the appearance for the reality, the 
gilt for the gold, is always great, but it is naturally strongest if the prospect 
of having to pass certain examinations be too prominently kept in view, or, 
from any cause, comes to be regarded as the aim and end of study. No one 
seriously supposes that any permanent advantage is derived from superficial 
study, or deliberately lays himself out for a course of smattering. Intentions 
are ever good at starting, but it needs a determined and sustained effort 
to resist the compromises between inclination and duty that soon begin to 
present themselves. Enthusiasm and the excitement attending a complete 
change of occupation will carry most young men through the first stage of 
student-life without much drain on their store of good resolutions, but there 
comes a period, after the vigour of the first dash has cooled, when the 
drudgery of learning seems far to outweigh the fruits of knowledge, and 
then it is that so many of those who begin with fair promise seem to fall 
away. It is in this interval of discouragement that the mind most needs 
the support of good resolutions, for it is only by degrees that a false estimate 
can be seen in a truer light. There are two allies waiting to help him who 
will persevere but a little longer,—the force of habit, which is each day gather¬ 
ing strength to make the dreariest routine bearable, and that principle, born 
of curiosity, which, with the gradual acquirement of knowledge, engenders 
an increasing thirst for more. It is in this stage that the temptation is 
strongest to be content with superficial study, when the attendance of lectures 
is apt to become a formal thing, accepted as a task, in the hope that just suf¬ 
ficient knowledge may be obtained for examination purposes. Shun so bane¬ 
ful a self-deception. The listless attendance of lectures can be of no real 
service. It is a mistake to suppose that another can teach you ; all that the 
most gifted professor can do, is to show you the way to learn and to place be¬ 
fore you facilities for the exercise of your own industry. The right acquire¬ 
ment of knowledge is an individual work that no man can perform for you. Two 
persons may easily attend the same lecture and give to it the same apparent 
vol. x. u 
