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Queen's College, by its constitution and profession, has all along borne an important witness in behalf of the cause which it was established to serve. And we may fairly claim that it has done much good educational work. Its students have had the advantage of being taught by distinguished men, and many of them gratefully recognise the awakening and inspiration which have been still more valuable to them than the literary or other instruction which they have received in the College. I could recite a long list of honoured names, of women as well as men, associated in various ways with the work of Queen's College, but I leave them to your knowledge and memory. There is one of its officers, however, who has an altogether exceptional claim to be mentioned on such an occasion as this—my learned and accomplished predecessor, Dr. Plumptre. Connected with the College as one of its teachers from the year 1851, Dr. Plumptre for more than 20 years—for two-thirds of its life—was the acting head of its administration; and the obligations under which Queen's College lies to the unwearied services of such a man cannot easily be measured, and will not soon be forgotten. But this College has gone on doing its own work quietly and unobtrusively, without taking much account of the educational movement outside its walls. Its constitution, perhaps, has not been favourable to change or enterprise. When we look out upon the English world around us, we see that the relation of our College to the female education now going forward, is a very different one from that in which it stood to the same education in 1848. So great an advance has been made in lines independent of Queen's College.
Let me note briefly the principal incidents of this progress. I take only the most prominent, and do not keep strictly to the order of time. Queen's College, as you know, though it forbears to put forward "denominational" pretensions, has always been under the Bishop of the Diocese as its Visitor, and has proposed to give instruction, not only in the books of Holy Scripture, but in Theology and Church History. I suppose that it was chiefly on this account that another College was founded, having nearly the same educational objects and methods as Queen's, which though it has recently changed its local habitation still bears the name of Bedford College. This is dissociated from
