"The faculty recognize that the generosity of the community and the confidence of the students impose upon them reciprocal obligations. They gladly acknowledge themselves bound to teach with candor and enthusiasm, to observe and study with diligence that they may teach always better and better, to illustrate before their students the pure scientific spirit, and to hold all their attainments and discoveries at the service of mankind. Certainly the medical faculty have good reason to ask to-day for the felicitations of the profession and the public. "Nevertheless, the governors, teachers, graduates and friends of this school have no thought of resting contented with its present condition. Instructed by its past, they have faith in its future. They hope they know that the best fruits of their labors will be reaped by later generations. The medical profession is fortunate among the learned professions in that a fresh and boundless field of unimaginable fertility spreads out before it. Its conquests to come are infinitely greater than those already achieved. The great powers of chemistry and physics, themselves all new, have only just now been effectively employed in the service of medicine and surgery. The zoölogist, entomologist, veterinarian and sanitarian have just begun to contribute effectively to the progress of medicine. "The great achievements of this century in medical science and the healing art are all prophetic. Thus, the measurable deliverance of mankind from small-pox is an earnest of deliverance from measles, scarlatina, and typhoid fever. Within forty years anæsthetics and antiseptics have quadrupled the chances of success in grave surgical operations and have extended indefinitely the domain of warrantable surgery; but in value far beyond all the actual benefits which have thus far accrued to mankind from these discoveries is the clear prophecy they utter of greater blessing to come. A medical school must needs be always expecting new wonders. "How is medical science to be advanced? First, by the devoted labors of men, young and old, who give their lives to medical observations, research and teaching; secondly, by the gradual aggregation in safe hands of permanent endowments for the promotion of medical science and of the sciences upon which medicine rests. Neither of these springs of progress is to fail us here. Modern society produces the devoted student of science as naturally and inevitably as mediæval society produced the monk. Enthusiastic devotion to unworldly ends has not diminished; it only manifests itself in new directions. So, too, benevolence and public spirit, when diverted by the teachings of both natural and political science from many of the ancient forms of benevolent activity, have simply found new and better modes of action.