Professor Pancoast's valedictory address to the graduating class of Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia : given in the Musical Fund Hall, on the 10th day of March, 1865.

  • Pancoast, Joseph, 1805-1882.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Professor Pancoast's valedictory address to the graduating class of Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia : given in the Musical Fund Hall, on the 10th day of March, 1865. 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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    YALEDICTORY ADDEESS It is a pleasant duty that has been assigned me today, Gentle- men Graduates, that of congratulating you on this very happy termination to a laborious course of study, and in the name of the faculty of Jefferson Medical College, of welcoming you into the ranks of our profession. This welcome you have already partly felt. It has been harbingered to you in the swells of music, to which this vaulted roof has rung; it is pictured to you in this sea of upturned faces which I have before me, assembled here to-day to add an additional zest to your triumph, and to invoke in your behalf the auspicious smiles of fortune. You have heard from the lips of the distinguished President of our College the magic words that have, by conferring the long sought degree of doctor of medicine upon you, placed the seal on your professional honors, and put into your hands the open sesame to those many paths of usefulness and distinction which our science oQ'ers. You have received a fair clearing from the safe winter haven that you are now about to leave, and as I feign would believe, fully freighted with the fruits of scientific study, and with minds imbued with many generous and noble feelings. And, I warrant me, that he who has performed this lofty func- tion for many a successive spring, has never looked on a band of greater promise, or ushered one forth at any more propitious time or season. It is a period in which there is scarcely an active or well qualified physician or surgeon in the land unemployed; so great, indeed, is the demand for the skilful services of our profes- sion that I would not, perhaps, be far wrong in saying that there are positions now waiting for your occupation in which all the abilities you possess will find ample scope for their employment. The circumstances, so favoring to you in that respect, at this con- juncture will, in all probability, avert from most of you the tortur-