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Being assured of this, it is yours to perfect the plan which I have briefly sketched out. Under your patronage we may hope that Medicine will put on the form of a regular science, and be cultivated with ardor and success; and that your influence will be employed to promote the several branches of it; to the establishment and perfection of which are annexed consequences, of the highest concern to the American colonies in general, to this province, this city, and this seminary in particular. It belongs to you to collect the scattered powers that arc necessary to be united, in an attempt so important; and to transplant hither some of the most noble and beneficial sciences that mankind are blessed with, the feeds of which, so opportunely sown, will certainly produce a luxuriant growth of the most profitable knowledge.
Perhaps this Medical institution, the first of its kind in America, though small in its beginning, may receive a constant increase of strength, and annually exert new vigour. It may collect a number of young persons, of more than ordinary abilities; and so improve their knowledge as to spread its reputation to distant parts. By sending these abroad duly qualified, or by exciting an emulation amongst men of parts and literature, it may give birth to other useful institutions of a similar nature, or occasional rise, by its example, to nu-
