Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery - Dental Columbian Yearbook (New York, NY)

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YEAR BOOK to it .... How I could open the Sesame of my imagination as I have of my reasoning faculties! Living in the mind is much more intense and real that in actuality. At least so I have found it. Impressions will crowd the unconscious,-but it is only when 'recollecting' them that they take on clear and well defined form. How many a time have I passed rooms and persons in the college building with but an unconscious momentary noticeg yet, once all alone in my room with the full evening light on the Arabic design on the carpet and these fieeting impressions take a new vivid life-more vivid than in actuality. Particularly 'first impressions'. The 'first sight' of the college buildings and the vivid first scent of the breath of the new paintg the first glimpse of the class rooms and the Infirmaries-Laboratories- all making towards one single thought: friendly respect towards those who took the care to create so pleasant a house for studies. Another first indelible impression was the cor- dial welcome of the registrar, He suggested a cheerful deity of smiles-not a stern professor. Then the first sight of women at scientific lectures. It brought a feeling of strange- ness! . . . There is one incident I always recreate in my mind with a great amount of delight: first lectures. Having attended school for quite a number of years and having heard so many of these 'first lectures' I have come to attach quite a good deal of significance to them. A sort of negative sig- nificance-since they almost invariably create an effect entirely different from what it actually turns out to be. Generally they are very serious, but I have long ago learned that only with German professors are they really so. Professors of all other nations possess a sense of humor and hence I am certain must smile secretly at their own grave assertion on facing a new wave of serious faces. And yet, one of my amusing recollections of these last two years will be the remarkable misjudgment I displayed in the characterization of some of the professors because of these very first lectures. For example one of the professors whom I thought a 'tire eater' and 'per- fect efliciency system' I have found to be one of most pleasant men on the faculty and who has been to me almost a personal friend. And this was not the only instance. Which leads me to believe that judgment by Hrst impressions should be con- fined to inanimate things onlyg human beings are too compli- cated and changeable. Then after painting for you this back-drop,-the scenery so to say. I might have turned to the action of this moving tale. First I would like to have done away with one impres- 17 A STRANGE BUT TRUE HISTORY OF OUR CLASS

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A STRANGE BUT TRUE HISTORY OF OUR CLASS NINETEEN SIXTEEN not part of the action. The devastating butchery with which all the nations are so much occupied right now could hardly be written by any man present on the battlefields and part of the warring factions. All the hatred, stupidity, egotism, and pig-headedness that has made this pastime so popular would enter in the writing and thus make it disproportionately par- tial. It can only be written by a clear thinking man who mentally is not for any particular side, and who, observing all facts from the proper distance,-with but little actual con- tact with them,-sees them in their true perspective. All this can be applied to me to the very letter. For one year I never came near the classy for another I was a member in body only,-when I had to beg keeping my observing intellect at a proper distance from all deep-stirring history-making events. As for the third year, I am so deeply occupied writing this history and the like, and studying the nervous system and the Materia Medica of Arsenic poisoning that at times I must actually kick myself in the shins to force my attention to the fact that I am here to look and observe. Furthermore I have a great passion for writing, or to speak more scientitically, I have a great mania for writing. I could write until I would have the chinese wall bewritten and then do it all over again and derive the greatest joy there- from. Again I have a most fertile and active imagination. It is illimitable in scopeg I do not stop at any thought or image. And nothing proves this better than the fact that I am under- taking the writing of a History . I must explain: I do not believe that there exists any such thing as a history. No one has ever written one, nor will anyone ever write one. The reason Why ?-I shall argue some other timeg the statement of the fact must suffice at the present. Yet, knowing I cannot do it, I will nevertheless accomplish it. If you object to this kind of logic, I must refer you to Pliny's Natural History wherein you will find a full and elaborate explanation of this particular manner of reasoning. Finally, physically I have developed my right phalanges by dint of writing and dentzl practice to herculean strength. Blessed with all these history- writing accomplishments: a marvelous imaginationg a great passion for writingg a lack fa very purposeful lackl of accu- rate knowledge of the events: a dexterity and strength of phalangesg don't you agree with me that I was created for this and no other kind of work! Every word I have written verifies my assertion and every word that I shall write will add 16

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A STRANGE BUT OF OUR CLASS TRUE HISTORY NINETEEN SIXTEEN sion: the stigma of misbehavior. I can hardly frown at the accusation. True, at times the behavior was more fit for the kindergarten than a professional school, but then it must never be forgotten that it was but the expression of exuberant youth,-and nothing appeals to 'this historian' more than youthfulness. To act youthful is the only way to beat old age and perhaps -arterio-scelerosis. So, if at times We did act rather like very young children than men and women of science, let it be remembered that even lustful noise is pref- erable to morose, serious faces. Then I might have turned to the real gist of the history. I might have taken up individual records. Each and every member of the class might have received a careful, just, and admirably written short history. It would have commenced with as early a time as possible and gone thru all mental and physical development and material progress up to the moment when this goes down on paper. If possible I should have in- cluded all the important events of those who had any iniiuence on their career: fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, sweet- hearts. Nor should I have omitted talking of the surrounding influences and the hereditary influences. In other words, the record would have been as complete as it possibly could be. I should have commenced something like this: Profes- sionally the student of the nineteen sixteen class may be read- ily divided into three large classes. Those who study with a serious purpose,-be it because of the interest in science, or the interest in a serious purpose in lifeg or because the work particularly appealed to them. Then there are those who study because they are to derive an immediate benefit-say pecun- iary. . .social. . . And so, good readers, I have given you a fair example of the kind of history I might have written. Are you not thank- ful for having confined myself to the few short lines which you read in the first paragraph fthe secondj I wrote. Of course there may have been a few with a literary turn of mind who could have preferred my many pages of printed lines-to those I apologize and will add a word of comfort and joy: Some day they may yet have the opportunity. When I have no more to worry about examinations and practical 'required cases' I shall turn to write a complete and unabridged history of the class of nineteen sixteen. My models will be Gibbons and Clara Steichen. But one more word before I close. Of course this was no history. I cannot do what is impossible nor would I be guilty A 18