In training men thoroughly for the learned
professions of law and medicine, this University will be of great
service to Maryland and the neighboring States. During the past forty
years the rules which governed admission to these honorable and
confidential professions have been carelessly relaxed in most of the
States of the Union, and we are now suffering great losses and injuries,
both material and moral, in consequence of thus thoughtlessly abandoning
the safer ways of our fathers. It is for the strong universities of the
country to provide adequate means of training young men well for the
learned professions, and to set a high standard for professional
degrees.
"President Gilman, this distinguished assembly has come together to give
you God-speed. I welcome you to arduous duties and grave
responsibilities. In the natural course of life you will not see any
large part of the real fruits of your labors; for to build a university
needs not years only, but generations; but though 'deeds unfinished will
weigh on the doer,' and anxieties will sometimes oppress you, great
privileges are nevertheless attached to your office. It is a precious
privilege that in your ordinary work you will have to do only with men
of refinement and honor; it is a glad and animating sight to see
successive ranks of young men pressing year by year into the battle of
life, full of hope and courage, and each year better armed and equipped
for the strife; it is a privilege to serve society and the country by
increasing the means of culture; but, above all, you will have the great
happiness of devoting yourself for life to a noble public work without
reserve, or stint, or thought of self, looking for no advancement,
'hoping for nothing again,' Knowing well by experience the nature of the
charge which you this day publicly assume, familiar with its cares and
labors, its hopes and fears, its trials and its triumphs, I give you joy
of the work to which you are called, and welcome you to a service which
will task your every power.
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