SUNY Downstate Medical Center - Iatros Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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P1 eszdevzt Elev 12 Dr. Frank L. Babbott

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LONG ISLAND COLLEGE OF MEDICINE BROOIU..YN, NEW YORK OFFICE or THE PRESIDENT 25 April . 1937 Members of the Student Body: Again. I welcome the opportunity offered by the members of the Editorial Board of the 'Lichonian' to bring my greetings a d best wishes. Recently, I came across the following quotation from Seneca. From it, it is evident that he was commenting on the fashionable students of Imperial Rome, whose work was of a less vital nature than that of the students of medicine today. Yet, there is a sufficient universality of intellectual and emotional constitution to make the quotation of current interest: 'What then,' you say. 'do we not know certain men who have sat for many years at the feet of a philosopher and yet have not acquired the slightest tinge of wisdom?' Of course I know such men. There are indeed persevering gentlemen who stick at itg I do not call them pupils of the wise, but merely Usquatters.' Certain of them come to hear and not to learn. just as we are attracted to the theatre to satisfy the pleasures of the ear, whether by a speech, or by a song, or by a play. This class, as you will see, constitutes a large part of the listeners,- who regard the philosopher's lecture-room merely as a sort of loung- ing-place for their leisure. They do not set about to lay aside any faults there, or to receiye a rule of life, by which they may test their charactersg they merely wish to enjoy to the full the delights of the ear. And yet some arrive even with notebooks. not to take down the matter, but only the words, that they may present- ly repeat them to others with as little profit to these as they themselves received when they heard them. A certain number are stirred by high-sounding phrases, and adapt themselves to the emotions of the speaker with lively change of face and mind - just like the emasculated Phrygian priests who are wont to be roused by the sound of the flute and go mad to order. But the true hearer is ravished and stirred by the beauty of the subject matter, not by the Jingle of empty words.' As students of medicine, we trust that you are 'ravished and stirre not only by the beauty of the subject matter, but by the appreciation of the social importance of the effect of your learning. We wish you 1iveS of 1121995- ness and satisfaction, both as undergraduate and as gnaduate students of medicine. Sihcerely yours, 414 64:5-6wffT f' F. L- Babbott, M.D- President

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LICHO'NIAN Twelve Dusty at journey end our worn hearts find The recompense of living is the quest. What though we faltered, and our eyes went blind, As pillowed on a stone we sank to rest? Yet has the guerdon called us, and we rose To follow onward till we came to die I-Iemmed by the dark walls of an earthy close Witless of sunlight, and the racing sky. Fair was the quest, although the quest was vaing Yet was it vain that, all unsatished, We sought the wide world mid the sun and rain For something nobler than ourselves, and died? When sunset dims, and lifels short play is through, Shall we be less than the high dreams we knew? WADE OLIVER