man demands this. But he need not sacrifice scientific acumen and professional ethics on the altar of pecuniary consideration. That is not at all necessary.

I ask you to glance at your own professional acquaintances: Which is considered the more scientific, the better doctor, the wealthy possessor of the brougham and pair, or the hard-working driver of the buggy and flea-bitten bay? Which would you rather have when you or your loved ones are stricken with disease and death hovers in the air? Ah, gentlemen, my contention is true; wealth and true science are incongruous.

Twenty years ago to-day I stood on this stage and delivered the valedictory to the class of 1878. Limned by the wondrous brushes of memory, the scenes of that by-gone day seem so brightly colored, so real, so life-like, that time seems to have stood still, and that I am still the valedictorian of my class in the act of bidding farewell to my professors and to my classmates.

Looking out on this audience of almost wholly unknown faces, it needs but little effort of the mind to substitute the forms and faces of those who sat before me almost a quarter of a century ago.

Down there in front I see the round, full, merry, freckled face of George Ryan, the dark, saturnine, clerical countenance of Alvin Duval, the sturdy form of Ap Morgan Vance, and dozens of others, many of whom, alas! are now no more. I turn, even as I do now, and see the graceful, handsome Lunsford P. Yandell, the blonde and stalwart Cowling, the rotund and jolly Crowe, the old and reverend Bell, the dark, agile, eloquent Palmer, and the stern, gray David Yandell, that Nestor of Kentucky surgeons. And Roberts is there, with his fleeting smile, and Gilbert and Cottell, and last, but by no means least, that Mentor to so many hundreds of medical Telemachi, the faithful, honest, sympathetic Dean, Prof. J. M. Bodine.

It is well that memory paints such a faithful picture, for, of all the professors that I have mentioned, five of them exist for us in memory only; they have solved the problems, not only of life, but also of death, and have passed the final examinations before the Supreme Examiner. They are now post-graduates in the highest school of all. Each of them during his life, like the immortal Roman poet, reared a monument "more enduring than marble, more lasting than bronze," in the shape of duties nobly done, of honest, upright living, of faithfulness, aye, even unto death.

Was not that the death of a true scholar, that of Prof. Bell? After a long life devoted to the highest and best interests of his profession, he fell dead among his books, the faithful friends and companions he loved so well. He died as he wished, in harness and amid congenial surroundings. Though dead he yet lives, and he speaks to you to-day; and so also do Yandell and Crowe and Palmer and Cowling. Their message to you is the same as that of that intellectual giant who, with the century, is slowly passing away at Hawarden: "Quit you like men; be strong, and exercise your strength; work onward and ever upward."

Whether or not you will be engulfed in the maelstrom of utter failure, or stagnate in the still pools of mediocrity, or, borne upon the virile waters of perseverance, patience, adaptibility, and diligence, land at last on the shores of a magnificent success, rests entirely with you.

OWENSBORO, Ky.

THE CLASS VALEDICTORY

Of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, Session of 1897-98.

BY THOMAS GREEN DUNLAP, A. B., M. D., OF KENTUCKY.

"A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,

Is more than armies to the public weal."

In one of the great galleries of Europe there is a picture bearing the title of "The Doctor." It represents a hut in which the evidences of poverty and want are painfully manifest. In one corner, on a rudely constructed cot, there is the form of a dying child. Sitting at its side is a physician, gray in the service of his calling and wearing on his breast the cross of the "Legion of Honor." The anxious expression on his face indicates that he has forgotten position, rank, and dignity in his sole endeavor to save that little life. No one can view this picture and not say, from his heart, "Amen!" It is a sermon on canvas.

We, my fellow classmates, to-day enter this sacred ministry. After years of work and worship in that temple of instruction, the historic old University, we are now to go forth to preach by action the doctrines. of the faith. We have labored with unceasing endeavor after the knowledge of the profession-a profession noble and self-sacrificing, recognized among the sons of civilized men as highest in attainments, greatest in benefits, noblest in aspirations.

Years of careful training and instruction have built in the shelter of the University the hull of our professional craft. This, the day of

commencement, launches that vessel upon the sea of professional life. With us is now left the construction of the masts, the design of the rigging, and the flag of its ensign. Whether we shall be wafted by the winds of practice to the harbor of success is known only to that power that rules the destiny of man.

The gates of the medical profession are thrown open to receive us, to admit us to the competition of the world. By an impressive act we are taken into the fellowship of an honorable and learned profession. Will it be our good fortune to be ushered into the front rank, or shall we be hurried down that broad way, traveled, alas! by so many, where every turn teems with failures and every course presents the evidences of blighted hopes and shattered ambitions? With us, gentlemen, the answer rests. The character of our lives, as time shall reveal it, will shape our destiny. No past action or conduct can supply a sure means of penetrating the mists of the future.

What fate has in store for you, what crowns are to bedeck your brows are wisely concealed by Providence. We have, however, this assurance, that the course of our lives is in a large measure the result of our own steering. Genius is only patience-success only the fruits of labor. The good seeds sown by our previous instruction and nourished by industry must at length yield a goodly harvest.

No battle was ever won, no great success or renown ever achieved without toil, patient and unremitting. The greatest truths and problems of science which the brain of man has sought and solved, the most cunning mechanical devices which the ingenuity of man has conceived and constructed, are but the results of energy of body and of mind.

The discovery of the circulation of the blood by the illustrious Harvey was not the labor of a day but of many years, and Pasteur spent a long and consecrated life in isolating for our instruction and benefit the micro-organisms of disease. Scan the world of medicine from its far off eastern horizon, where twinkles the star of Hippocrates, to its high zenith, where shines the mighty constellation of the great physicians of to-day, and you will hear but one word uttered forth by the "glorious voice that sounds out the music of these spheres," and that one word is "work."

The men whose names adorn the pages of medical history possess one faculty in common, perseverance. Their lives were spent in one long search for truth, undismayed by failure, unconfused by contradictions. Ever pushing on with valor and zeal, they laid ceaseless

siege to the walls and portals of knowledge until victory placed upon. their wrinkled brows the crown of laurels.

In the practice of medicine the physician is brought face to face with every phase of life. Who like him knows so well the cords which move the inmost souls of men? Whose touch like his can awaken them to sweetest harmony or provoke them to harsh discord? In sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in the emptiness of poverty and the fullness of riches he shares the lot of his fellow-man. The palace of prosperity and the hovel of adversity alike know his form. His life is one long sacrifice to the cares and afflictions of others. The sun of renown seldom illumines his path, the goddess of wealth seldom smiles upon him. Yet he comes in response to every call, whether it be the rich man's plaint or the poor man's cry, and by words of encouragement and the offices of therapeutic art makes the shadows of despair to vanish and the radiance of hope to shine.

A man who enters the profession of medicine possessed by no higher motive than a desire for wealth and power is a growth out of time and place-a neoplasm upon the body politic, a counterfeit of the true physician, and unworthy of the honors of professional life. Let your primary object and ambition in medicine always be intellectual and honorable. If fortune comes, treat it as a secondary consideration; ever holding as the first and foremost object, reputation for honest, upright service, and real scientific worth.

When the land is under the scourge of the pestilence and terror is upon the faces of the children of men, there is but one friend and counselor, the physician! He stands a barrier to the approaching evil and opposes the forces of death with the armament of science:

"Or, seek the crowded city, summer's heat

Glares burning, blinding in the narrow street,
Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air,
Unstirred the yellow flag that says 'Beware!'
Tempt not thy fate-one little moment's breath
Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death;

*

Smiling, he listens; has he then a charm
Whose magic virtues peril can disarm?
No safeguard his; no amulet he wears.
Too well he knows that nature never spares
Her truest servant, powerless to defend
From her own weapons her unshrinking friend.
He dares the fate the bravest well might shnn,

No r asks reward save only Heaven's 'Well done!""

With reverence and awe do we look back upon the early promotors of this beneficent calling and honor the names engraven high on the monuments and tablets of fame. It is a blessing to live as we do in the closing years of the nineteenth century, a century in which genius combined with industry has wrought undreamed of wonders in the scientific world. With us now rests the furtherance of these investigations, and the day may not be far distant when, armed with the experience of the past and backed by the forces of nature, we can successfully oppose all disease and make man immune to those destroyers, which in former times unhindered wrought such havoc in his ranks.

And now, professors of the faculty, on behalf of the class of 1898, I must say farewell. The hours spent in your learned presence have been both pleasant and profitable, and will ever be remembered by us with tender regard and pleasant reflections. We are deeply thankful for the kindly interest shown by you to each and every one of us, and, as emotion can not be expressed, we can only say we are thankful. We leave you trusting that it may be our privilege and pleasure to keep in touch with you in our future work, and with the resolve that we will do our best to reflect honor upon our famous "Alma Mater."

To us, my fellow classmates, this is a day of days, a day of vital significance and mighty transformation, for it marks a new era in our lives, wherein we pass from the transitional stage into one of full development, where energies both mental and physical have combined to make one grand harmony. Gathered together here in the presence of friends, amid the fragrance of flowers and the sounds of joyous music, by an impressive act we are admitted into an honorable and learned profession. Let us go forth like the Olympian to a great game, where honor, power, and fame were all at stake. May we run well and never lose sight of the goal.

We are about to leave the wise and solicitous guidance of our beloved faculty and choose for ourselves a path in life. As the present merges into the future, may we march on without misgiving or dismay, and if, when at our journey's end all mists shall be dispelled, we do not see the portals of the "Temple of Fame" open for our triumphant entrance, we may at least hear the welcome plaudit, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

With earnestness of purpose and diligence in work there can be no failure in life, and the man who seems worsted in the fight, who has failed to secure what the world calls success, may still find solace