Dental Commencement. [Volume: 2, Issue: 8, March, 1861, pp. 441-446]

PROCEEDINGS OF DENTAL SOCIETIES.

443

A just sense of the faithful performance of every duty admits of no
plea for infidelity, and from the very nature of your duties fidelity becomes
the keystone in the arch that will give stability and solidity to your every
achievement. Confidence on the one part should ever inspire faithfulness
on the other; then to be steadfast in every duty, true to every trust, and
ever faithful to the commendation of your Alma Mater here publicly
ratified. It should be your highest professional prerogative in your intercourse with patients and with the world, to have your standard of excellence bear an elevated tone, and let all your acts comport with that refinement and dignity of character that belongs alone to the true man and
gentleman. In life's relations, either business or social, there is scarce
anything to be regarded more worthy of imitation than that of cultivated
and refined taste indicated in polished manners, so that in your intercourse,
if there is a genial, complaisant, and commanding deportment, it will not
fail to redound both to your praise and profit. So act that your life may
truly be a combination of integrity, intelligence, erudition, and skill, purified in the great alembic of truth, accompanied with gentlemanly deportment, suavity of manners, and polished, beautified, and perfected with the
brilliancy of unalloyed rectitude. In dental surgery, the importance of
regular and systematic study, of theoretical and practical instruction as
afforded in well-regulated colleges, cannot be over-estimated, and is no
longer a matter of doubt or disputation.
Private tuition, moreover, is recommended and recognized by all as an
important if not essential preparation for the more thorough collegiate
course. It may become your duty to assume the office and responsibility
of such preceptorship; and in imparting to others a knowledge of the
truths and principles of our science and art, fail not, whenever it is your
privilege, to reward genius or merit with a prompt and judicious commendation. Infused with such a spirit, carry it out into your whole course
through life, for many a genius has had the fountain of effort chilled, and
many a generous impulse has been paralyzed for want of genial influences.
I think I can, in a measure at least, form a proper estimate of the aspirations of genius, with her fountain of native truth, and element of intuitive power and trust, that I can fully appreciate what should be her
merited reward. Quite sure I am that instead of lending encouragement,
strengthening effort, and giving credence to every achievement, the too
common and practical policy of the present day is to underrate ability and
praiseworthy effort, or to withhold the inciting word of merited praise and
commendation.
Since the earth and the world were formed, activity and labor, or, in
the more general phraseology, work, seems to have been the great motor
force of the universe; for whether with outstretched vision we strive to
measure the vastness, sublimity, and beauty of the wondrous systems of
the universe, to investigate and comprehend their controlling forces and