[Introductory lecture] : Glasgow Veterinary College.

  • Moffat, R. C.
Date:
[1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Introductory lecture] : Glasgow Veterinary College. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    /Z&Q.y# LECTURE Lft-- ■—^ Gentlemen, In accordance with the custom of former years, the opening of a New Session is made the occasion of an Introductory Lecture; and I have the honour this day to bid you welcome to this College to inaugurate the commencement of another Winter Session. This day is to break the quiet of a six months’ vacation, and it is also to proclaim that your laborious studies are now to be resumed, to fit you for your walk of life. To those gentlemen who have already attended the classes of this College, and are now to work their own advancement, and that of the profession generally, and whose well known faces link the past with the present, allow me, in the name of your respected Principal, the other Professors, and myself, to bid you most heartily welcome back to the field of your vocation. To the junior students who, for the first time, enter this institution to begin their professional labours, permit me as sincerely and heartily to give them an earnest reception. That both classes of our students should each in their turn have given to them a careful, well-grounded, and intelligent acquaintance of the entire Veterinary Profession, is the sincere wish of all your Professors; and that a brilliant after-career in life may be the destiny of all of you, is the fervent desire of your teachers. In entering upon a profession such as yours, where much responsibility is often cast upon your shoulders, there is one thing to be obtained before all others, and that is a good name. It is ever to be kept in mind that a good name in all cases is the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents; it is not created by external advantages; it is no necessary appendage of birth, of wealth, or station; but the result of one’s own endea- vours. This is the more important to be remarked, because it shows that the attainment of a good name, whatever be your external circumstances, is entirely within your own power. No young man, however humble his birth or obscure his condition, is excluded from this invaluable boon. He has only to fix his eye upon the prize, and press towards it in a course of virtuous and useful conduct, and it is his. And it is interesting to notice how many of our worthiest and best citizens have risen to honour and usefulness by dint of their own persevering exertions. They are to be found in great numbers in each of the learned professions,