Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th 1887 (IA b30475958).pdf/5



OTHING would have better pleased me, Mr. President and brother Fellows, than to have revived the ancient and time-honoured custom of a Latin Oration, such as these walls have so often echoed to; and this the more gladly from my belief that the practice tended to maintain the dignity of our College and its reputation for learning. But there is a tide in popular opinion which seems just now to be setting somewhat strongly in a direction opposite to the older and traditional cultivation, and a prepossession abroad