Page:The Medical School of the Melbourne University - an address delivered on the twenty fifth anniversary of the opening of the Medical School, in the Wilson Hall, March 23, 1887 (IA b22293346).pdf/11

11 books are to be decently shelved, the room is to be reasonably well furnished, and the sum of £150 a year is to be devoted to its maintenance. It is not a large sum, but it is hoped that the Council will, after a while, melt into a modified tenderness, and that the allowance of £150 will expand accordingly.

I think it will be seen, therefore, that a good deal has been done to make the School an efficient means of teaching the science of Medicine, and that there is no need for our young men to go to Europe to learn their profession. I do not forget that the disposition -to undervalue everything Australian has not seldom found its expression in a sneer, both at our University generally and our Medical School especially. Even the Council itself has not been entirely free from this kind of prejudice, seeing that two of its members have sent their sons to Europe to be medically educated. But I do not think the prejudice is increasing, and I feel confident that every year will tend to diminish it. My belief on this point is the more assured, when I remember how more than creditably our medical graduates have acquitted themselves, both as practitioners in the ordinary work of their profession, and as the occupants of offices in which exceptional medical knowledge is necessary. I might mention many names of gentlemen, whose medical training has been wholly obtained in this University, who are properly regarded with respectful consideration by those most competent to judge of them. It may suffice, however, to speak of one, who, being most nearly under my own observation, has supplied me with larger and more frequent opportunities of judging of him. Need I say that I refer to Professor Allen? This gentleman, a native of Victoria, educated entirely within the colony, and never having had the opportunity of studying in those larger spheres of observation, supplied in the great capitals of Europe, has, nevertheless, completely mastered the several sciences which make up the great collective science of Medicine. I do not think that, of any branch of that science, Professor Allen is not an expert. I have watched his career from the time he entered as a matriculated student of this University; I have observed every step he has taken, and I can assert, with truth and emphasis, that he has never taken a retrograde step. His watchword seems always to have been "Onward!" and he has consequently secured the leading position