titioners. I
pronounce the two benedictions in the same breath, as the late king's
demise and the new king's accession are proclaimed by the same voice at
the same moment. You would hardly excuse me if I stooped to any meaner
dialect than the classical and familiar language of your prescriptions,
the same in which your title to the name of physician is, if, like our
own institution, you follow the ancient usage, engraved upon your
diplomas.

Valete, JUVENES, artis medicae studiosi; valete, discipuli, valete,
filii!

Salvete, VIRI, artis medicae magister; Salvete amici; salvete fratres!

MEDICAL LIBRARIES.

[Dedicatory Address at the opening of the Medical Library in Boston,
December 3, 1878.]

It is my appointed task, my honorable privilege, this evening, to speak
of what has been done by others. No one can bring his tribute of words
into the presence of great deeds, or try with them to embellish the
memory of any inspiring achievement, without feeling and leaving with
others a sense of their insufficiency. So felt Alexander when he
compared even his adored Homer with the hero the poet had sung. So felt
Webster when he contrasted the phrases of rhetoric with the eloquence of
patriotism and of self-devotion. So felt Lincoln when on the field of
Gettysburg he spoke those immortal words which Pericles could not have
bettered, which Aristotle could not have criticised. So felt he who
wrote the epitaph of the builder of the dome which looks down on the
crosses and weathercocks that glitter over London.

We are not met upon a battle-field, except so far as every laborious
achievement means a victory over opposition, indifference, selfishness,
faintheartedness, and that great property of mind as well as
matter,--inertia. We are not met in a cathedral, except so far as every
building whose walls are lined with the products of useful and ennobling
thought is a temple of the Almighty, whose inspiration has given us
understanding. But we have gathered within walls which bear testimony to
the self-sacrificing, persevering efforts of a few young men, to whom we
owe the origin and development of all that excites our admiration in this
completed enterprise; and I might consider my task as finished if I
contented myself with borrowing the last word of the architect's epitaph
and only saying, Look around you!

The reports of the librarian have told or will tell you, in some detail,
what has been accomplished since the 21s