It cannot also be doubted that many original men, who have done considerable scientific work, have often an uncouth, heavy, and hesitating delivery. Yet I have not infrequently seen that such teachers had crowded lecture-rooms, while empty-headed orators excited astonishment in the first lecture, fatigue in the second, and were deserted in the third. Anyone who desires to give his hearers a perfect conviction of the truth of his principles must, first of all, know from his own experience how conviction is acquired and how not. He must have known how to acquire conviction where no predecessor had been before him--that is, he must have worked at the confines of human knowledge, and have conquered for it new regions. A teacher who retails convictions which are foreign to him, is sufficient for those pupils who depend upon authority as the source of their knowledge, but not for such as require bases for their conviction which extend to the very bottom. You will see that this is an honourable confidence which the nation reposes in you. Definite courses and specified teachers are not prescribed to you. You are regarded as men whose unfettered conviction is to be gained; who know how to distinguish what is essential from what is only apparent; who can no longer be appeased by an appeal to any authority, and who no longer let themselves be so appeased. Care is also always taken that you yourselves should penetrate to the sources of knowledge in so far as these consist in books and monuments, or in experiments, and in the observation of natural objects and processes. Even the smaller German Universities have their own libraries, collections of casts, and the like. And in the establishment of laboratories for chemistry, microscopy, physiology, and physics, Germany has preceded all other European countries, who are now beginning to emulate her. In our own University we may in the next few weeks expect the opening of two new institutions devoted to instruction in natural science.