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physicians and surgeons of any age or country; if we have done this, in the short period of sixty years that are passed, what will be our advance in sixty years to come? May 1 not, with propriety, to use the language of a distinguished scholar of our country, say on this, as he has done upon another occasion"He who shall stand where I stand, sixty years hence, and look back on the present condition of medical science, from a distance equal to that from which we contemplate the founding of the first medical school in America, will sketch a contrast far more astonishing, and will speak of our times as the day of small things, in stronger and juster language, than any in which we can depict the poverty of the science in the days of our fathers."

Although I may have detained you too long already, gentlemen, it would not be proper to let the present occasion pass, without some notice of the origin, the design, and the prospects of the Institution which we now bring before the public. Allow me, then, to ask your attention, for a few moments, to a sketch of its history.

In the year 1819, the Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, and the Rev. Luther Rice, impressed with the importance of education, and particularly with the benefits that would result to the community from a University located at the seat of the national govern

ment, projected the plan of establishing a College in this District, and fixed on College Hill for its site. After maturing the plan, they proceeded to purchase the ground, and commenced the erection of the present College edifice. They brought around them a few individuals, who manifested an interest in the object, and applied to Congress for a charter. In the winter of 1821 a charter was granted, constituting thirteen individuals a Board of Trustees, with full power to appoint a faculty, provide means of instruction, and to confer degrees in the liberal arts and sciences.

From the commencement of the undertaking, the founders of the College contemplated a University; an institution which should not only provide for a system of classical education, but embrace distinct departments for Medicine, Divinity, and Law. Soon after the charter was procured, the classical department was organized, a faculty appointed, and a course of instruction commenced.

The Trustees, in their first circular, announced their intention to bring the medical department into operation, as early as circumstances should admit. Soon after, they appointed two professors to the medical department, and in the September of 1824, two others. In October following, the organization of the medical department was completed, and arrangements made for a course of lectures on the various branches of medicine.

With a view to the accommodation of the medical students of this District, as well as those who should resort hither for education from abroad, and particularly that they might enjoy the advantages of clinical practice, the Trustees directed that the lectures should be delivered in a central part of the City of Washington. Agreeably to this arrangement, the building which we now occupy has been procured, and fitted up for the accommodation of the school.

As early as November last, the medical faculty announced to the public, that their first course of lectures on the different branches of medicine would commence on the last Wednesday in March. In conformity with that notice we this day open the school, and commence a course of public lectures. Whether it be with a fair prospect of usefulness and success, and under circumstances which justify the undertaking, we leave for future events to unfold. We do not expect to accomplish, in a day, what has been found equal to the labour of years, in those schools that have gone before us. If success await the enterprise, sure we are that it is only through a series of persevering efforts, and self-denying labour, that we shall reap its fruits, or receive its rewards.

The history of the commencement and early progress of all other schools, informs us that we have much labour to endure, and many opposing obstacles

to overcome; and, resting as we do, on our own resources, unaided by the rich endowments that other institutions have received, and unprotected, except by the guardian care of a Board of Trustees, and the friendly countenance of an enlightened community, we are deeply sensible that we have great personal sacrifices to make, and many difficulties to encounter. Yet I trust that our object is too elevated, and our purpose too fixed, to suffer such considerations to have any other effect than that of stimulating ùs to more active and vigorous exertion.

If, on the one hand, these difficulties present themselves; on the other, a more cheering prospect opens to our view. The period of the commencement of the undertaking seems peculiarly favourable to its. success. We have not to encounter the prejudices of those days, when medicine was considered of doubtful utility, and the science degraded to the rank of a trade. This is an era in the history of the world, when all institutions for the promotion of science, and the melioration of the condition of man, are regarded with public favour, and sustained by a liberality of feeling known to no other age. A period when the utility of medical science is universally admitted, and the importance of medical education is duly appreciated. At this day no one doubts the necessity of medical schools, and of public lectures, to form young men for the practice of the

profession; nor is there any one who calls in question the benefits they confer upon the community.

The circumstances of the place, too, seem not less favourable to the success of the object, than that of the period at which we commence. To say nothing of the country which immediately surrounds us, we have, at the south and west, an extensive territory, abounding with young men of talents and enterprise, wholly destitute of the means of medical instruction. In this District alone, we number a population of nearly forty thousand; and that part of it, particularly, which is occupied by this City, is increasing in wealth and in business, as well as in population, with a rapidity scarcely known to any other town or city of equal extent in the United States. A little more than a quarter of a century ago, the sites of our magnificent Capitol, the house of the President, and the stately blocks of buildings which line our streets and avenues, were covered by a forest of oaks, interrupted only by a few tobacco fields, here and there a decaying mansion, and a dozen miserable huts for the protection of the planters' slaves; and the winding trail of the deer, and the footpath of the savage, were still visible. That forest and those tobacco fields now contain a population of fifteen thousand souls, and we daily see enterprising and intelligent individuals collecting here, from the different parts

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