742 OPENING OF SESSION AT ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
Profeesor Tuson, addressing the Chairman, spoke as fol¬ 
lows : 
Different lecturers, no doubt very naturally, entertain 
different views respecting the object of the address which it 
is the time-honoured custom to deliver at our various 
medical and veterinary-medical schools, at the commence¬ 
ment of every academic year. 
For instance, some appear to regard the introductory 
lecture as intended to enable them to ventilate their poli¬ 
tico-professional opinions ; some air their real or imaginary 
official grievances; some ride their scientific or professional 
hobbies, and advocate, what they consider to be, the superior 
claims to attention which the special department of science, 
which they are appointed to teach, possesses over every 
other branch of the curriculum ; and so on. 
For more than thirty years I have been actively engaged 
in teaching science—twenty years in this College and the 
remainder of the time in five different schools of human 
medicine~-during this period I have always held, and still 
hold, the opinion that the subject of the annual address 
should be —advice to newly joined students. 
To-day, however, I desire to depart for a short time from 
this course, in order that I may refer to certain events which 
have occurred in, or in connection with, the College during 
the last year, and which are of interest to at least the 
majority of the senior portion of my audience, whose pre¬ 
sence is most gratifying to my colleagues and myself, as it 
testifies to the interest they continue to take in their alma 
mater. 
A few months since we lost by death a governor who, for 
very many years prior to his failing health, took an active 
part in the administration of the government of the institu¬ 
tion, and who up to the time of his decease manifested a- 
deep interest in its welfare. 
I refer to the late Mr. Gaussen, whom to know was to 
admire for his devotion to the work on the Board of Go¬ 
vernors, and to highly esteem for the courteous and kind 
way in which he treated every one with whom he came in 
contact. 
Those who had the happiness to know the late examiner 
in chemistry and chairman of the Court of Examiners—Dr. 
Alfred Swayne Taylor—will feel with me that this profession 
has lost a staunch adherent and supporter. Dr. Taylor was 
emphatically the student’s friend ; for he not only possessed 
that rare, but most desirable, combination of qualities in an 
