Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-07-04
Az ADDRESS

JUNE 90, 1879.
The Commencement season that brings us
together is one of harmonious beauty.
Crowned is the forehead of Summer with
bloom of surprising loneliness. Wherever
the eye may rest, upon the mountain, the
valley, the woods lakes, streams, everywhere
is life life in its prime of beauty, life for
life's great end-fruition, a mighty harvest.
This night you enter upon life-work
whose harvest will be what you please to make
it, Tonight you become Alumni of the Uni
yersity of Vermont and my colleagues have
assigned to me the pleasing duty to welcome
you into the medical profession. II il with
pleasure, therefore, that in their behalf, and
that of an ancient and universal brotherhood,
whose history is coeval with that of man, and
whose benefactions stand next to those of the
clergy, that welcome you into the profess
sion of medicine. Having shown yourselves
worthy to be indicted into this priesthood,
and to minister at its affairs, we extend to you
the hand of brotherly communion, and pledge
you the sympathy and support of a common
brotherhood.
1t is greatly to your credit and proof of
your high moral courage, that you have dared
to put aside the glttering temptations of the
commercial world to enter profession pro-
verbally impecunious, and the labors of
which are seldom adequately rewarded in
this life. l welcome you, then, into pro
fesson whose sole end and aim is the relief
of human suffering and the redemption of
human life. In every age of the world have
its representatives ranked among the wisest
and best of men and in every country, civ
iliZod or savage, Christian or pagan. are they
loved and revered At some period in his
life must every man turn to the physician,
and implore him by all things most sacred to
rescue from the jaws of death some one
whom he holds most dear: perhaps beloved
wife, or Il darling child or, it may be, to
avert from himself his own impending fate.
When the angel of death stands by the bed
side, under the ashen shadow of his wings
the merchant forgets his ships, the mser his
gold, and the millionaire his possessions, and
together with woman in her gentleness, and
childhood in its helplessness, ahjectly turn to
the doctor for aid, and pteOusly supplicate
him to stand between them and the shaft of
death. During such moments do the most
the shortest span. How shall you take these
new, untried threads of life, these privileges
and responsibilities of so high calling, and
so weave them into your future as to honor
the profession you have entered and lay
fresh laurels upon her affairs How climb
with self-reliant hearts the rough heights to
fame? How journey over this great high
way of trials, that each sunset may witness a
fresh milestone of progress marking your
career? In answer TO these queries would
simply point you to the history of medicine
1t is as ancient as that of the ages, and is
written in imperishabe characters in the rec
ords of our race. Her principles rest upon
the eternal and immutable laws of Nature
These are the foundations on which rest the
canons of her practice these are the bound
airy lines which you are to protect from en-
croachment, and marching always in the
van of the century, to wear your pro-
fesson as the glory of your life. Follow the
example of the long list of illus trious names
which adorn the annals from the dim regions
of antiquity to the present MONDAY of civil
cation.
Behold what wealth and weight of con-
be en- bestowed by our profession. The term
physician, in its true import, is not limited to
me an simple dispenser of remedies at the
bedside, but rather a natural philosopher one
W no comprehends the laws of nature wheth-
e those laws relate to the stellar universe, to
the humble rock which forms a page in the
history of the globes vicissitudes, or to the
organic germ which, in obedience to law of
unvarying succession, is to assume its appro-
pirate form of development, thence to be
again resolved into parent dust.
The true physician must, then, first of all
things be a philosopher. Philosophy is the
only proper foundation of any science, be-
cause it is the formal expression of that sys-
TEN of universal method which, under the
generic name of law, has its seat in the bo-
som of God. Not only does it constitute the
foundation of every department of learning,
but it enters, also, into its superstructure and
subdivisions, and forms a bulwark for its
protection against errors within or foes with
out
But graver consideration also comes into
view, and one which you must never for a
moment lose sight of-one which to a great
is, that profession means something before
and beyond a mere license to trade, and i'm
plies more than legalzed property in certain
qualifications Talents, the special gift of
God, and a franchise to be used in cultivat-
ing intelligence under the sanctions always of
the moral law, are not objects of barter and
trade, like the products of human industry,
nor can their worth be estimated by any mer-
camille standard of value. Whoever has
their seal upon him wears the livery of the
Deity, and should demean himself as one
holding the threads of achievement in his
own hands, and not as one waiting the tardy
coming of a patron, whose whims, even in
rendering him professional service, must be
INDUCED. The practice of a profession
should be, in spirit, cultivation of science
for the sake of science, and on the broad,
catholic ground that the development of fund
amental principles, constituting, as they do,
the laws of the universe, not only does hon.
age to the Creator, but ennobles the man who
undertakes it in sincerity. Whoever, there
fore cherishes the daylight of science, and
makes her temple the habitation of his most
earnest thoughts, will find his confidence re-
WIN hOlhSAiJ bohoAohi'J ASA AAS VI
portunity, however humble, but she will con-
vert into golden hour of achievement Fur
thermore, the physician is the true minister
and interpreter of Nature, and should be the
most rigid follower of her laws in his system
of practice Let him initiate her in all his
actions and thus dignity his vocation by per
petually elevating it. Nature is never mean
never common, but digniies all her acts by a
certain grandeur and majesty of department.
The same law which holds planet suspend
ed in sea of ether, sustains feather, and
the tiny germs floating in the sunbeam. The
same law, with equal majesty, as with equa
care, watches over the safety Of both great
aud small. A noble profession, then, can