University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THE MIRROR l ects for usefulness brighter than ever. It has added to its faculty and clinical corps strong and active men, and is better equipped to carry out the purpose of its inception than at any period of its existence. Over twenty-five hundred graduates have gone from this College into practice, and these are scattered all over the civilized world. They are located in nearly every city of Europe. They lead the profession in all the great centers of civilization and have won eminence in England, France, Russia, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. They have carried the honors of the institution into Asia, Australia, and the land of the pyramids, while in every State of our Republic, and in all parts of Canada they have demonstrated their own worth and the excellent training afforded them by their Alma Mater. They have met with signal honor abroad, nearly every court den- tist in Europe being a graduate of this institution. Such in brief is the history of our dear old College, our beloved Alma Mater, where we are now seeking a training which will not only bring dis- tinction to, and benefit us personally, but which shall instil nobler ideas into our minds, and so broaden our characters, that we may become better citizens, and better able to fill our allotted place in life, whatever it may be. And may we ever prove an honor to the calling in which we are about to engage, and to our best friend, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.

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THE MIRROR tributed several papers to medical journals on his physiological researches. Having ever in mind the elevation of the dental profession, he, Dr. C. A. Harris and others sent a petition to the Legislature in December, 1839, to establish a dental college, the faculty to consist partly of dental and partly of medical practitioners. The legislature having granted a liberal charter the college was founded with a faculty composed of the following named gentlemen: H. H. Hayden, M. D., Professor of Physiology and Path- ology; R. W. Baxley, M. D., Professor of Anatomy; C. A. Harris, M. D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Dentistry; and Thomas E. Bond, M.D,, Professor of Therapeutics. Although at the advanced age of 70 years Dr. Hayden entered upon the duties of the chair assigned him, and until the illness which terminated his life, he continued to exercise the duties of his profession and lectures to his class. In 1840 in New York, was held a meeting of the best dentists then in the profession, the outcome of which was the formation of the American Society of Dental Surgeons. This outcome was chiefly due to the labors of Dr. Hayden, and he was unanimously elected President of the society and and reelected each year until his death. He died on the twenty-sixth day of January, 1844, at the age of sev- enty-five. A remarkable feature of dentistry, a feature common to no other pro- fession, is that, although it is one of the most prominent professions of to- day, its evolution is embraced within the space of one human life. The political inauguration of the new college presented a difficulty well known in America, when professors often outnumbered students. At length five legitimate students were found to covet the honor of the new title, D.D.S., and the first course of instruction was given in the winter of 1840- 41. The didactic lectures were delivered in a small room publicly situated, but the teachings of practical anatomy demanded privacy and other pru- dential considerations also suggested the use for that purpose of a secluded stable loft, the prejudice of the community against dissections having shown itself some years before. The College was organized with the design of teaching dentistry as a regular branch of medicine, and in order to denote the phenomenal progress of the old Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, start at the time of its birth; when there were about 1200 practitioners of dentistry in America, more than one-half of whom were ignorant, incapable men, whose knowl- edge was composed of a few secrets which they had purchased at fabalous prices from other charlatans, and who considered three or four weeks ample time in which to attain all the knowledge necessary to the successful pur- suit of the calling, contrast the requirements of that time with those of the present day. This is the sixty-eighth year of the career of the college with its pros- 16

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In, ifrattk t. itUniait |ENTLEMEN of the faculty, fellow classmates, ladies and gen- tlemen : {%5! l! From the day of our entrance upon our college course, un- ' 1 til now, we have been propelled by the same force and guided by the same rudder. For three years the Class of 1908 has looked forward with much earn- est ambition to this day, in which we step from the hard work of student life into the cares and responsibilities of the profession of dentistry. We have pictured this day as the day when we would take our places in the world as men learned in a profession, and the heartfelt buoyancy of the moment seems to exclude a thought of the sterner responsibilities of those duties, which from now we must face. Very soon we must realize that we can no longer lean upon the resourceful minds of our professors and in- structors, for he who goes out in life armed with the equipment of knowl- edge gained in his collegiate career, must strain every energy in the battle of life if success is to be achieved. Success is the bright star on the horizon of the future. This is our goal. How are we to attain it? Genius has been defined as an extraordinary capacity for work. Who has not wondered at the great achievement of someone known to us, who at no time displayed anything above ordinary talent and yet reached the pinnacle of success through the sheer force of incessant work. Work is the wealth of the human race. It creates, it infuses the breath of life into chaos. The greatest minds the world has produced have preached the doctrine of work; without it, great talent atropies. Those who have been endowed for wonderful performances, with what we call a natural aptitude, accomplish nothing without work. They languish in an unpro- ductiveness and their great talents are as sterile as the soil of the dessert. Another quality necessary for success and the full measure of its rewards, is integrity — an integrity of purpose which makes for the higher life. Just as work creates and advances our aim so does it yield its proper and full enjoyment only when conjoined to an integrity of purpose. Men may reach the sphere of success, reap its material rewards, but cannot find 18