524
PRESENTATION TO DR.
J. C. THOMSON.
Dr. Francis Clark, Dean of the Hongkong College of Medicine, presided at a full meeting of the Senate (including the Rector, Sir Henry May), licentiates and students of the College, held in the Council Chamber on the 10th inst. for the purpose of presenting a piece of plate to Dr. J. C. Thomson on his retirement.
Dr. CLARK said-Gentlemen, we meet this evening to do honour to one who has served our College in various capacities and through many vicissitudes for no less a period than twenty-one years. In January, 1889, Dr. John Christopher Thomson took up the appointment of Medical Superintendent of the Alice Memorial Hospital, and at once threw himself with his accustomed ardour into the work of organization and teach- ing in the College of Medicine which had been founded but two years previously. His first appointment was as Lecturer on Pathology, and with the clinical material at his disposal in the Hospital he taught those earliest students, whose names you will find recorded on our rolls, the principles and practice of our craft. From 1892 until 1900 he lectured on the Materia Medica and Therapeutics and for the past n ne years has specialized in the diseases of tropical climates, while of late he has also taught clinical medicine in the wards of the Tung Wah Hospital. In 1891 Dr. Thom- son succeeded Dr. Ho Kai as Secretary, and has held that office until the present time, and that the College is now an unquestioned success you may justly attribute, in no small measure, to his indomitable perseverance, his pluck and energy. It is not easy, indeed, for some of you, who know Hongkong as it is but not as it was, to realize the difficulties which have been en- countered and overcome, but looking back, as I can do, over rather more than two-thirds of the period of Dr. Thomson's willing service, I can see not a few of the shadows by the roadside-times when some of us were dishearteued and felt that our labour was in vain, and when nothing but his cheery optimism has carried us onward to success. To the students Dr. Thomson has been as a father, chiding, encouraging, guiding, and I am convinced that there is not one among them who does not feel acutely the loss he is sustaining on the departure of their devoted teacher. To the licentiates he has been indeed a guide, philosopher and friend-to him they have been able to take their troubles with a certain confidence that sympathy and ready help would always be forthcoming; their successes have been his successes and their welfare as his own. And to the members of the Senate he has been a comrade, just and true, with the candour born of a real friendship and of a vital interest in our collegiate welfare. Truly may we say that
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that nature might stand up And say to all the world, "This was a man." Dr. Thomson, on behalf of the members of the Senate, of the licentiates of our College, and of our students here assembled, it is my privilege to ask you to accept this piece of plate in token. of our appreciation of the valuable services you have rendered to our College, and at the same time to assure you that you carry with you the heartfelt wishes of every one of us that you may long be spared to your family and friends in the dear Home-land. (Applause.)
The presentation consisted of a massive English silver tea tray bearing the following inscription: Presented to John Christopher Thomson, M.A., M.D., D.P.H., D.T. M. and H. by the members of the Senate, the licentiates and the students of the Hongkong College of Medicine, in token of their esteem and in Trecognition of the very valuable services rendered by him to the College during the past twenty-one years. December, 1909."
C
Dr. THOMSON replied as follows-Dr. Clark, Sir Henry May, Members of the Senate, Licentiates and Students,-I thank you from my heart for the generous testimony you have to-day borne to the feelings with which you view my approaching departure from the Colony. Your words, sir, will remain with me while I live; and this massive piece of silvor will be treasured, in my family in long years
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
in
[December 20, 1909.
to come, a silent witness to the happy relations have to live in this Colony. I have inwardly that existed between myself and this College sympathized often when it has been my duty to in the days of my residence in Hongkong. outwardly ignore such personal, claims, and to I arrived in this Colony on the 3rd of demand for this College regularity and efficiency January, 1889, a few days only short of 21 years from all taking part in its work. I congratulate ago; and I was forthwith plunged in that stream you on the inore favourable conditions under of activity that has carried forward this College which in the University you will soon be doing to its present soundly-established position. The your work; and I congratulate the College on organization I found was as yet a very small the prospect it has of so soon merging in a one. There were, in comparison with the movement that promises in the very near future. present time, few medical men in the Colony. to attain such great dimensions. It is matter. Facilities for practical and clinical work, now for great satisfaction to me that the work of existing, were then undreamt of. The recogni- this College, to which so much of my thought tion of our diploma by the Government was and effort have been given during a period of still to come in point of fact, our first so many years, cannot now go back or fall off; students were scarcely fifteen months old. The it is bound to go forward to high ends claim for recognition of our preliminary ex-
that even a year or two ago were far aminations by the General Medical Council of beyond our brightest of day-dreams. I take the United Kingdom, now conceded, was a leave of you, students of this College past thing of the distant future. But, gentlemen, and present, with many regrets. My work the teaching itself given to our first students among you has been almost unmitigated enjoy. was not one whit behind that of to-day. On meut. I love teaching for its own sake; and the contrary, there were giants in those the hours I have spent with my classes, especial- days. I found myself a member of a com-ly since I came to my own in the subject of munity that was small, but nearly every man Tropical Medicine, have been among the was a master in his own craft. Patrick Manson happiest hours I have spent in this Colony. was lecturer on Practice of Medicine; James Your devotion and attention, so far at least Cantlio taught Surgery and Anatoiny; William as my own classes have been concerned, Hartigan occupied the chair of Midwifery and have been beyond all praise.
I hope your Diseases of Women; Gregory P. Jordan was profit has some sense corresponded. I responsible for Pathology and Morbid Anatomy;" have recognised from the first that your and J. M. Atkinson for Physiology. Medical chief defect is the obverse of your best qualities, Jurisprudence was taught by Ho Kai, a member and I have done my utmost to correct it. For of the English bar and a graduate in medicine many hundred years your ancestors have had a of the University of Aberdeen; Botany by system of education that largely consists in Charles Ford, head of the Government memorizing; and you have inherited splendid Afforestation Department; and Chemistry by powers of committing what you wish to memory. W. E. Crow, Government Public Analyst. I have striven to compel you to add to this a At a time such as this one tends to become full measure of practical work in every depart- reminiscent; and I am strongly tempted to refer ment of medical study; and especially in my in detail to ono and another of the very many
own classes I have insisted that you should see, who have been my colleagues in th working of
and hear, and touch, and do for yourselves, this College, but I have decided to spare you. wherever it has been in my power so to arrange. I cannot refrain, however, from brief mention The relations established between this College of my relations with one whose comradeship has and the prospective University of Hongkong been more to me than that of any other with are in my opinion suitable and satisfactory.. whom I have been thus associated : refer to You owe it to your Rector, Sir Henry May, your prosent Dean, Dr. Francis Clark. Since that your, interests as students were so well 1897, when he followed Dr. Cautlie in this office, conserved in the original negotiations regarding we have been in continuous consultation re the new scheme; and I am confident that in the garding the affairs and interests of the College; working out of details, now in progress and and his.courtesy, urbanity and strong common- likely to come in the, near future, you will sense have never failed me. He is one of the continue to be adequately represented by your busiest men in Hongkong, but I never found Rector and his Aessor, Hon. Dr. Ho Kai. him too busy to discuss with me forthwith the Both of them, fortunately for this College, are most trifling matter I have considered it neces- members of the working University Committee, sary to submit to him as Dean of the College, and both are themselves university men and When in these recent years my efforts to press upward the standard of teaching and the general efficiency of our organization have seemed to come in conflict with the interests of individual teachers, the assurance of his sympathy and co-operation have been to me a source of strength and confidence. Into the work of his own lectureship he has carried that conscientious punctuality, that precision of detail, and the quiet enthusiasm that are characteristic of all he undertakes. One aspect of his many sidedness is a fascination for the subject of law, to which he has devoted much of his leisure; and his discharge of the duties of his chair of Medical Jurisprudence is the work of a man who is coincidently riding hard his own hobby. When in the next few years he strives directly, and through your future Secretary, to still further elevate your standards, and enable you to claim for the Faculty of Medicine in the near approaching University of Hongkong absolute equality with the corresponding faculty in any university of the United Kingdom, I pray you have it in mind that in the work of his own chair in the years that are past he has earned the right to claim a very lofty standard in the work of those who have elected him their Dean. I have been honoured with his friendship; I am glad that this at least I do not leave behind me when I take my departure from these shores. I thank you all, gentlemen, for your forbear ance with me, when at times I have urged more than has seemed to you fitting the claims of your undertakings to this College, None has realized more than I have done the immense amount of self-sacrifice that has been involved to all of you in the systematic teaching of your various subjects in a climate such as this, amid the claims of the busy life we all of us
heart
to.
sense of the
and soul in the project. And now, gentlemen, Members of the Senate, Students of the College, of yesterday and day, I must bring these discursive remarks to a conclusion. I wish you well; pray you all prosperity in every word, to each of you individually, to all of you in your collective capacity, as members of the Hongkong College of Medicine. Again, ere sit down, I thank you for this most generous token the good will you bear me, and you, Mr. Dean, for your eloquent expression of it in the words you have addressed to me.
BISHOP INGHAM'S VISIT.
The Right Reverend Bishop Ingham, in com- pany with the Right Reverend the Bishop of Victoria, returned on Saturday from a week's visit in the country districts east of Canton. During the tour Bishop Lander dedicated three churches in different villages. These buildings had been ancestral halls, and after being renovated at the expense of the residents
Christian they have been handed over for worship. Large numbers of those who were interested in the Gospel attended at every service, and before leaving the district the Bishops
present were
at the half-yearly meeting of the Chinese Church Council,
During the present week Bishop Ingham's time will be occupied with engagements in and around Hongkong. On Wednesday at 5.30 p.m. he will address Church workers in St. John's. 1 athedral. the Bishop and Mrs. Ingham will eave for Colombo by the s.s. Delta on Christmas Day.