Page:Introductory lecture delivered at the Middlesex Hospital, October 1st, 1877 (IA b22447258).pdf/7

7 the past, and to those of us who are youngest become

"A link among the days to knit The generations each with each."

The comparatively recent death of the aged widow of Sir Charles Bell, a surgeon so gifted that it mattered not to him whether he handled the scalpel, the pencil, or the pen, has severed nearly the last link that bound him to us, except in memory.

It is, however, still a privilege as well as a pleasure to speak of Sir Thomas Watson, though old in years, yet young and vigorous in mind, still able and still willing to attract us by the charm of his writing and the weight of his long experience.

I need trace no further this meagre outline, but I would remind you that up to a comparatively recent date science was nowhere systematically taught, if we except the medical schools. The older universities, unwilling to embrace these new wants, the birth of a new era, clung to the old traditional method of teaching, and only now are beginning heartily to recognise the real value of natural science as a branch of general education and culture. We should all remember that it is to the laborious and long-continued efforts of men of science, imbued with the pure spirit of research, that we owe in large measure our rapid advance in civilisation and our greatness as a nation.

Whilst the medical schools have grown up as necessary offshoots of those charitable institutions which everewhere [sic] mark the progress of a civilised