Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 5 men and women I, myself, have known, whose proudest reminiscence has been that they once talked with Dr. Osler! After his death, the Medical Society of Maryland placed this record in the Minutes of its proceedings: Died on 29th December, 1919, at Oxford, WILLIAM OSLER, Baronet. Physician, teacher, guide, lover of his fellow man. Noble exemplar of charity and tolerance and tem- perance and work and loveg Untiring stimulator and generous benefactor of this Societyg Whose sparkling wit and genial, subtle humour smoothed the rough way of life for so many weary spiritsg Whose presence banished dis- cord and suspicion. The gap which his absence leaves among us will forever be warmed by the glow of that all- embracing love which radiated from his presence like ia halo of light, and brought to all about him something of the peace that now is his. That was the boy whom this School sent out to serve humanity. He was born, you will remember, in what was then the little Ontario village of Bondhead. Perhaps the won- derful heroism of the last war, in which this School played so noble a part, served to remind us that there are always somebodies in the streets where the nobodies live. And no one knows from what community or household a great man will come. Certainly Bondhead should be a proud little town. And for this, among other reasons. The two Canadians whose names are most honoured and famous throughout the world for the precious gifts which they brought to the comfort and healing of suffering mankind are Dr. William Osler and Dr. Frederick Banting. Bantingks father was also born in Bondhead, in the same month and in the same year as Osler. Truly, July 1849 was a great month for Bondhead, for Canada, and I think for the world. I have not time to tell you of Osler's father and mother and their family. When his mother was 100 years old, the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution con- gratulating her on her own wonderful life and on the fame of four of her sons, one of whom was a leading man of

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4 TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD in medicine, he was elected President of the Classical Association of Great Britain, whose members are the most learned scholars in Latin and in Greek in those islands where those studies have flourished for ages. His Presi- dential address amazed them all by a scholarship both wide and deep. He re-introduced and developed the system of teaching medicine by the bedside of the patient, and nearly every Medical School in the world to-day owes much to his imagination and his work. He has been called the family physician of three nations, and no man in his time did as much to unite the hearts and minds of that Trinity of Nations which means more to us than any others, Canada. Britain and the United States of America. In many far places he always carried with him something of the neigh- borly kindliness of the Canadian frontier, something of the healing strength and warmth of the Canadian sun, something of the clean freshness of the Canadian air that sweeps and sweetens the dusty and the musty places. On his seventieth birthday a book of tributes was issued in his Salutation. After his death a memorial volume of almost 1,000 pages was published in England. It con- tained eloquent words spoken by famous men and humble men from Canada. the United States, Britain, France, Germany and China-all breathing a love for the man and an admiration for his life and work. In the month of July of this year, one of the great American Medical Journals devoted its whole issue to his memory on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. I often think that Britain and the United States almost shame us in our forgetfulness, by their devotion to this Canadian. There are monuments commemorating Osler at McGill, Johns Hopkins and Oxford. His name lives on the lips and in the hearts of countless doctors, nurses, and ordinary men and women who came into the benediction of his presence or have other wistful reasons to cherish his memory. No- body who ever met him ever forgot him, and how many

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6 TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD business and finance, another the most notable Canadian lawyer of his day, another Chief Justice of Ontario, and yet another Sir William Osler, Regius professor of Medicine at Oxford. It is sufficient to say that the house of the Rev. Featherstone Lake Osler and his wife, Ellen, was a home of Christian piety, of simple joys, of some hardships. of laughter and of good talk, and of those deep unspoken certainties which join men in love to one another and in adoration and obedience before the ways and laws of God's Providence. One of Osler's nephews told me the other day how his own mother had brought from that household two lessons which he was never allowed to forget. One was, as his mother constantly reminded him. If you cannot speak good of any one, keep silent and never speak evil g the other. If you are feeling depressed or ill, do not allow your own depression or ill-health to spoil the happiness and enjoyment of others . It is not easy to gaze through the shadows and to see what sort of a boy came to this School nearly eighty-four years ago. When you are older you will find that it is not easy even to remember much of your own boyhood. Does not the greatest of school songs picture those who sing. looking back forty years after and forgetfully wondering what they were like in their work and their play? Because Osler's mother and father were Cornish, he was always described as one of those dark Celts who are usually found in Cornwall or the Western parts of Wales or Ireland or Scotland. He was short in stature and had a swarthy complexion. His eyes Cwhich somebody once called the windows of the soull were full of fire and brightness and seemed to dance in his head. He was Very lithe and brisk and moved very quickly. One of his nieces said that he always came down the street with a swinging pace, with a spring on the ball of his foot--a habit of walking he kept to his last days. As a boy, and even as a man, he was full of pleasant mischief and fond of harmless