Part 2

1910. Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D., President of the Royal Society.

1911. The Right Rev. Edward Lee Hicks, D.D., Lord Bishop of Lincoln.

1912. The Very Rev. Henry Montagu Butler, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

1913. Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, K.C.B., D.Litt., F.B.A., Head of the British Museum.

1914. Professor William Ridgeway, Litt.D., LL.D., Sc.D., F.B.A., Disney Professor of Archæology, Cambridge.

1915. Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., D.C.L.

1916. The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., D.C.L., LL.D., P.B.A., F.R.S.

1917. Professor Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.R.S.L., Christ Church, Oxford.

As reported in the Annual Proceedings of the Association, Professor Murray at the meeting in 1918, in nominating his successor, spoke of him as a man, "who is not only one of the most eminent physicians in the world, but represents in a peculiar way the learned physician who was one of the marked characters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and stands for a type of culture which the Classical Association does not wish to see die out of the world--the culture of a man who, while devoting himself to his special science, keeps nevertheless a broad basis of interest in letters of all kinds."

In seconding this proposal, Sir Frederic Kenyon pointed out that it had come at a very appropriate time in the work of the Association, for: "During this last year our main activity has been directed towards getting representatives of Natural Science and of the Humanities to work together, on the principle that those subjects never should be in conflict with one another, but merely in friendly competition. Both are equally essential for a liberal education. It is a continuation and a symbol of that policy that we should ask Sir William Osler to become our President, and that he should have accepted cordially and readily, as he did. He is eminent as a man of science, is President of the Bibliographical Society, and represents scholarship in medicine in its best form."

It is quite possible that these last remarks may have suggested to the succeeding President an appropriate topic for his address, for he told the writer a few months later that he planned to talk on Science and the Humanities. He was already turning the matter over in his mind, but where he found time or inclination to write the address it is difficult to imagine.

Staggered by the loss of his son, an only child, who had fallen in action near St. Julien during the Passchendaele battles in September the year before, his days occupied with a succession of duties in connection with the war, his household filled as always with friends and visitors innumerable, and every young American or Canadian in service in England gravitating there, eager above all things to further the progress of the elaborate catalogue of his unique and valuable collection of books, he nevertheless set himself to prepare this, one of his most brilliant and what proved to be his last formal address.

The meeting of the Association was to be held in Oxford, the bed-rock of classical learning--the only place, it seems, where the word "humanism" in its narrow sense still survives in modern university terminology as that part of the curriculum known as Litteræ Humaniores. As was characteristic of his methods, the mere address itself did not suffice, but he prepared for the occasion in other ways. Thus he collected from the various Oxford colleges and placed on exhibition an array of historical objects illustrating the important part Oxford had once played in science and natural philosophy in days antedating the Royal Society which had its seeds of origin there. In addition, and as a possible offset to this, he exhibited from his own collection of books those volumes which constituted in their original editions the outstanding classics in Science and Medicine. A small pamphlet concerning them reads as follows:

Faced with a bewildering variety and ever-increasing literature, how is the hard-pressed student to learn--

1. The evolution of knowledge in any subject;

2. The life and work of the men who made the original contributions?

So far as concerns Science and Medicine, an attempt is made to answer the question by the collection of a Bibliotheca Prima, examples from which are here shown. The idea is to have in a comparatively small number of works the essential literature grouped about the men of the first rank, arranged in chronological order.

I have put out the editiones principes of twenty of such works. The fundamental contribution may be represented by a great Aldine edition, e.g. Aristotle, by the brief communication such as that of Darwin and Wallace in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858, or by a three-page pamphlet of Roentgen. From the card lists of Galen, Hippocrates, Vesalius, and Harvey, those interested will see the aim and scope of the collection.

The works on exhibition are:

Plato 1513 Hippocrates 1526 Aristotle 1495-98 Theophrastus 1483 Galen 1525 Dioscorides 1499 Celsus 1478 Plotinus 1492 Rhazes 1476 Avicenna 1486 (not ed. pr.) Averrhoes 1473 Copernicus 1543 Vesalius 1543 Agricola 1556 Gilbert 1600 Bacon 1620 Galileo 1632 Harvey 1628 Descartes 1637 Newton 1687

Though it is hardly pertinent to this introductory note, the temptation is strong to dwell further on the treasures of his library. These mentioned above were but samples from the Bibliotheca Prima, and the superb collection, with copious notes on each separate item, is further subdivided into some seven sections--Bibliotheca Secunda, historica, biographica, literaria, the incunabulas, and so on.

He was for seven years President of the Bibliographical Society and as great a lover of books as of men, but it should be borne in mind that his library was being collected and catalogued, not as a series of treasures by reason of their rarity, but were regarded as instruments for the advancement of knowledge, and with this end in view the collection was bequeathed to McGill University.

By good fortune, letters which give interesting descriptions of the effect of the address have been received from two distinguished members of Sir William's audience, one of them an eminent classical scholar, the other an eminent scientist. Sir Frederic Kenyon writes that:

The delivery of Sir William Osler's address was a very memorable occasion. As can be seen by those who read it, it was full of learning, of humour, of feeling, of eloquence, and it contained suggestions of real weight with regard to the interconnection of science and the humanities. But it gained much in delivery from the personality of the speaker. No one could hear it without being impressed by his width of outlook, by his easy mastery of great tracts of literature and learning, by his all-embracing humanity in the widest sense of the term. I hope it made many students of science anxious to extend their knowledge of classical literature; I know it made one student of the classics wish that he had a wider knowledge of natural science. Osler himself was a well-nigh perfect example of the union of science and the humanities, which to some of us is the ideal of educational progress; and his address embodied the whole spirit of this ideal.

Professor William H. Welch has given the following account:

Most fortunately for me my last visit to the Oslers' in Oxford happened to be on Friday, May 16, 1919, when Osler delivered his presidential address before the Classical Association.

Of the many honours which came to Osler few gave him so great pleasure, as well as surprise, as his election to the presidency of the British Classical Association. This was a recognition, not merely of his sympathetic interest in classical studies and intimate association with classical scholars, but also of his mastery of certain phases of the subject, especially the bibliographical and historical sides, and the relation of the work and thought of classical antiquity to the development of medicine, science, and culture. There have been physicians, especially in England, well known for their attainments as classical scholars, but I am not aware that since Linacre there has come to a member of the medical profession distinction in this field comparable to Osler's election to the presidency of the British Classical Association.

Osler told me that he had never given so much time and thought to the preparation of an address as he did to this one. The occasion and the whole setting were to me most interesting and impressive. At noon the audience of distinguished scholars and guests assembled in the "Divinity Room," the most beautiful assembly room in Oxford. At one end of the hall the Vice-Chancellor of the University presided and halfway down one of the sides was the high seat of the orator. The distinguished company, the brightly coloured academic gowns and hoods, the traditional ceremonies for such an occasion in Oxford, the figure of Osler himself, the charm and interest of the address and its cordial appreciation and reception by the audience, all combined to make a scene of brilliancy and delight which I shall always carry in my memory.