INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
13 
pupils. It may be the lot of some one of you to fill 
this very place from which you are now addressed; and should 
the selection ever be made from among you, the choice will 
undoubtedly fall upon him who may prove himself most de- 
serving. His deserts being measured by the coincidence 
which may appear between his own character and the profes- 
sional and moral attributes already stated. To no class of 
young men do greater or brighter prospects open than to 
yourselves. Your anticipations of a successful professional 
life are heightened by the preferments already pointed out. 
Nor are they limited to them; the wide field of employment, 
as professional teachers, is opened in all its extenttoyou,as well 
as toothers, wheneveryou prove your abilities to discharge such 
duties. We have all seen, in the past history of our own Col- 
lege, that desert has met its reward ; and in the promo- 
tion which some of her professors* have realized, that through 
her porches and forum lies one road to eminence and distinc- 
tion. This way lies open to you as well as others, provided 
the prerequisites of character, knowledge, and faithful devotion 
to duty be adopted as your motto, and ever cherished as the 
objects of your search and incentives to your exertion. 
These encouraging prospects which have been shown to 
gild the terminus of the journey upon which you are now 
advancing, may with confidence be regarded as the rewards 
of time well employed now; but recollect, that their acquisi- 
tion depends upon evidence of merit; and with the same cer- 
tainty that merit will be appreciated, may you anticipate ig- 
noble disregard and insignificance, if that evidence be want- 
ing. It is greatly to be feared that numbers have left these 
scenes of instruction, and it may be the purpose of some of 
you to do the same, unfurnished with one important link in 
the chain of proof. Of the number who are inscribed as 
pupils since the institution of these lectures, now nearly twenty 
years, who have availed themselves of the advantages thus 
provided, how few have presented themselves for examina- 
tion, and secured for themselves an honorable distinction as 
* Professors Jackson, Wood, Griffith, and Bache. 
