14 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
graduates of the College? Surely, of the large number who 
have drank from these fountains of instruction, there must be 
many capable of proving that their thirst has been slacked, 
and their labor refreshed by the draught, than our records 
are able to show. No enduring evidence remains with us, of 
their attainments, they " come like shadows, so depart," satis- 
fied with their own sense of their acquisitions, their own esti- 
mate of their capacity to fulfil all the requisitions of their pro- 
fession. Can it be that the honorable ambition of winning 
the honors of the College, and the approbation of their pre- 
ceptors, has been overcome in some, by diffidence, in others 
by dread, or by some/let us hope but few, who, from a homefelt 
consciousness of utter incompetency, have shrunk from an 
examination, certain of disgrace? What injustice do those 
who withhold themselves from examination do to their 
own characters, and how depreciate their attainments in the 
eyes of all their friends, by thus voluntarily leaving College, 
unprovided with its Diploma, unfurnished with any evidence 
that their studies have been pursued with advantage? If all 
who have left these halls, in this destitute condition, had re- . 
fleeted upon the parallel which they had drawn of themselves 
with the most ignorant and unqualified, they certainly 
would have felt one sentiment of self-respect, one spark of 
ambition, one throe would have been excited to shake off their 
ignoble associates, one effort would have been made to dis- 
solve the degraded connexion. It is a self-debasement which 
they thus impose, in suffering their dread of a vague, uncer- 
tain difficulty, to prevent their entering as candidates for the 
reward which the College presents to those who prove them- 
selves worthy to receive it. In the public eye, all who leave 
here without such examination, are classed together as unable, 
from incompetency, to obtain a diploma, as all those who do 
submit to examination and secure evidence of their qualifica- 
tions, are regarded with favor, and esteemed as proficients, by 
the judgment of the same tribunal. The distinction being 
more marked and obvious, from the strong contrast in which 
the two classes are placed by comparison. Let those who 
have slighted the proffered reward of the College, known tc 
