f the
heart count for something: it is based also on the rational appreciation
of the benefits of a rule, which, while allowing the greatest freedom of
individual action, secures equal rights and protection for all.

"We are, every one of us I hope, loyal to our University, and _to the
University as a whole_, not merely to any particular faculty of it.
McGill has endeavoured, more than most universities, carefully to adapt
its teaching to the actual wants and needs of the student, whether in
the matter of that general academical learning which makes the educated
man, or of that special training which fits the graduate for taking his
place, creditably, in the highest walks of professional life. To this, I
think, its success has been largely due. Yet, with all the breadth and
the elasticity of our system, we cannot perfectly meet every case, and
there are still desiderata, the want of which is most deeply felt by
those engaged in the management of the University. Our course, however,
has been onward and upward, and it may be truly said that no session has
passed in which something has not been added to our means of usefulness.
The future, indeed, has endless possibilities, and there will be ample
scope for improvement--and perhaps also for occasional complaints--when
the youngest students of to-day have grown to be grey-haired seniors.
You have good cause, notwithstanding, to be proud of your University,
and to cherish feelings of affection and gratitude to the wise and good
men, who, amid many difficulties, have brought it to its present
position, and are still urging it onward.

"You should be loyal to the ideal of the student. You are a chosen and
special band of men and women, selected out of the mass, to attain to a
higher standing than your fellows, in those acquirements which make life
noble and useful. It is not for you to join in the follies of frivolous
pleasure-seekers, or to sacrifice the true culture of your minds and
hearts to the mere pursuit of gain. Your aims are higher, and require
isolation from the outer world, and self-denial, in the hope that what
you are now sowing and planting, will bear good fruit in all your future
lives. Live up to this ideal, and bear in mind that self-control, and
the habits of mind which it implies, are of themselves worth more than
all the sacrifices you make.

[Illustration: _J. H. R. Molson_]

"Be loyal to the memories of home. I regret very much that McGill cannot
at