The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-07-13
COMMENCEMENT NOTES At BUR.
gsNS.EOS.
P,,t iscta Kappa.

The annual meeting of the Phi Beta
Kappa was held at the Institute Hall, at the
University, Tuesday forenoon. Messrs.
Parker, S. w. Landon, Torrcy, w. ii.
Landcn, jenkins and Graves, of the grad
uatng class, were elected members of the
society, receiving that honor as mark of
superior scholarship. The following were
reelected officers of the society
President-G. G. Benedict.
presidential n. Hubbard.
Cor. secretary II. A. 7. Torrey.
Register. l.. Goodrich.
Trcasurer--E. S. Peck.
THE PUBLIC EXERCISES,
in connection with the celebration of the
society," took place at the church at 8 p. IN.
The church was well filled, with highly
cultivated audience. After music by the
band (Ilall's Band OF Boston,, prayer was
offered by Rev. Joseph Torrey, of Hard
wick, Vt, chaplain of the society for the
occasion. The Grafton was by Col. Homer
b. Spraguc, principal of Adelphi academy,
of Brooklyn, n. Y. His theme was John
Milton, the teacher.
DIR. EDsoN's ADDRESS.
The following is the address OF DR.. p.
OMara Edison, at the Alumni dinner of
the medical department. The Doctor
commenced by saying
1t is my pleasant Office to welcome you
to this gathering, intended to knit more
closely the bonds of good fellowship and to
/ inaugurate a society that shall keep up an
active interest in the welfare and progress
of our most worthy Alma Mater. 1t is
proper and in every way commendable that
we are met here. Every occasion that
brings men together in social relations and
separates them for time from their every
day routine of thought and work, makes
them better and stronger, like refreshment
after labor. As medical men we are es-
pecially fortunate in any opportunity of
better acquaintance with one another. The
tendency of strictly professional life and
labor is too apt TO be toward separation,
toward dstrust of one another, and Il lack
of cordial sympathetic intercourse.
| will not stop to consider whether this
st tie of things arises from false nterpre-
tation of the formal ''code of ethics" that
every medical society has seen fit to frame
OF adopt for its government; from the false
codes themselves; or whether it arises
from the common weakness Ct mankind,
fostered in an especial manner by the Pc
cuiar relations imposed upon physicians in
their professional life.
1t is enough that we are obliged to
acknowledge the fact of widely prevail
ing lack of sympathy and genuine honesty
of act and word between each other as
medical men, OF this, the profession must
stand convicted in the minds of most of its
members. 1t needs no declaration from us
to bring it to the cognizanco of persons
outside the profession. True, indeed, our
professional disagrcements may he cited
here as proofs of our human nature as they
have been before, when the query being put
by n lawyer to physician why doctors
always quarreled and lawyers were always
the best of friends, the reply was:
Devil with devil damned,
Firm concord hold,
Men only disagree.
SO, then, being as other men are, capable
of social enjoyment, anything that shall
bring medical men together in purely soca
relations, or with their professional feeling
laid aside, may serve the double purpose OF
satisfying one of the most natural and mo ,.
properly gratiiied needs, and OF indirectly
promoting the well-being and progress o
medical art By so much as hearty and sym
pathetic co-labor must accomplish more
than individual isolated effort.
We can here get back something of tn,
freedom and good fellowship that mad,
student life pleasant and now makes the
recollection of it doubly dear Being met
then, in good fellowship, having brought to
the present something of the old-tml
freshness and heartness, we may consider
how best we can make these annual gather
ings as permanent ms we trust our Univer
slty is to be in all its departments, and how
best we can make them attractive to al
who have had their, medical birth here, S,
that our goodly numbers may be a testi
mOny of our esteem for the good mothc
who endorsed by her diploma our scant,
requirements as sufficient to begin the prac
tice of medicine and surgery with.
AS illustrating our better appreciation o
the true requirements of our profession, 20,
will all agree with me in saying that tn
scanty preparation We then had, needed in
deed the generous kindness of mothe
acting rather from the faith she had in wha
we were to do for ourselves than Il ON an,
confidence she had in the little we had &C
quired.
This sense of unftness is largely increase
by the rapid progress that has been mad,
! by the science of medicine since many O
,, us took our degrees. The opprobrious say
ing, however true once, that medicine is al
empirical art but never a science, is true n
longer, for with all its impcrfections, il la
assumed among the circle of sciences a
;ndonanlent estate freed from tho dammit