A plea for stability and permanence in institutions of learning : delivered before the trustees, officers and students of the Cleveland Medical College, February 26, 1845 / by Rev. George E. Pierce.

  • Pierce, George E. (George Edmund), 1794-1871.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A plea for stability and permanence in institutions of learning : delivered before the trustees, officers and students of the Cleveland Medical College, February 26, 1845 / by Rev. George E. Pierce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    some local or transient design, which may be accomplished and then go into oblivion, or which will fail to awaken interest when the cir- cumstances that gave it birth shall have passed away ? Whichever end may be aimed at, the institution ma\ be expected to have a dura- bility according to the design for which it. was originated. A college or a university or a professional school, may be started for the sole purpose of benefiting a town, a village, or a city ; or it may be sent off into some remote wilderness to enhance the value of property; or it may have for its end to sustain the interests and advance the senti- ments of some political party ; or it may have a sectarian character and devote itself to the propagation of some new forms of theological doctrines ; or it may devote itself to the establishment of some new theory in medicine, or some vagary in morals or in the elements of social life ; and as the interests and opinions which gave it birth shall die away, or prove themselves vain and fanciful, the institution also will be left to languish and die. The appropriate objects of an insti- tution of learning are great and permanent, and are essentially the same in every age and nation. You may have for your object in lay ing the foundations and providing the endowments of a seat of learn- ing, the establishment of truth and righteousness, the discovery and promulgation of the great and immutable principles of science, the subduing and invigorating of the human intellect, the imparting to the mind the richest treasures of knowledge, and superadding that dexter- ty and refinement and ait which give to knowledge its power; you may have it for your object to provide an adequate number of learned men to fill the professions of Medicine, Law and Theology—the Phy- sician, to apply the principles of the healing art to the frail tenement of life, to stand by the bed of distress, and arrest the progress of dis- ease, and alleviate pain and ward off the hand of death—the Lawyer, to guard your property, enact your laws, and maintain the welfare of 3'our country—the Theologian, to enlighten your ignorance, make plain the path of duty, soothe your sorrows, lead you gently to tho gates of death, and aid your triumphant entrance into life and immor- tality. Let these be your objects, and let them be kept steadily in view, and you may rear an institution durable as the interests with which it is blended, and permanent as the nation whose welfare it up. holds, and whose glory it adorns. Another cause of the stability and permanence of an institution of