746 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
ment; and often, if they do well at last, they are a great 
deal slower than others in taking the places their talents 
ought earlier to have assigned to them. Nevei’, therefore, be 
laughed out of plodding by any “fast” individual of this 
kind, for you may be sure that with all his showy colours he 
is but a snail so far as progress on the right road is con¬ 
cerned. But there is a true sense of the word “fastand 
every calling in life is more and more subject, year by year, 
to be brought under its conditions. The meaning, as I 
would apply it, is, that every profession, with each season 
that rolls over, has to do more for the community, to stand 
firmer in common sense, to be better equipped in education, 
to pay more rigorous attention to science, and to be more 
amenable to public opinion. This is especially the case with 
the newer professions like our own. The law and human 
medicine, even were they not competent for these things, 
could at least plead a high antiquity; and the public, 
holding these professions in high esteem, ivould allow this 
plea of justification, to a very great extent. But when you 
come to a new calling like ours, a new creation, as it 
were, of art and science, only dating back, in this country, 
about three quarters of a century, when this institution was 
first founded, it obviously has no justification but its effi¬ 
ciency and utility to the existing wants of the age. The 
questions, Who are you ? and What are you ? stare it in the 
face, and sheer public service is its only answer. So it is 
that we are obliged, session after session, to require more of 
our students. Human medicine has been and is doing the 
same, though it has such long annals to excuse it, and so 
many laurels on its brow; and we, who are comparatively 
but of yesterday, and who to some extent have our public 
place yet to come, cannot expect to escape from the same 
conditions. 
The first thing that we are obliged to ask of you is so 
much previous training, so much scholastic education, as is 
implied in writing correctly to dictation, and being fairly 
versed in arithmetic. This is not asking much of our 
students as a preliminary to entering upon their studies here. 
Yet, perchance, important results are involved in this exac¬ 
tion, and it will, I feel assured, be viewed by all as a step in 
the right direction. I have said already that the profession, 
the active study of which some of my young friends before 
me are this day for the first time about to enter upon, de¬ 
pends upon itself—that is, its present and future action— 
more than upon its illustrious ancestors for the social consi¬ 
deration which it shall enjoy; and I hesitate not to assert, 
