Memoir
of
George B. Wood, M.D., LL.D.,
Late President of the College.
By
S. Littell, M.D.
[Read October 1, 1879.]
"The Sun sets at night, and the Stars shun the day,
But glory remains when their light fades away."
Mr. President,
I accepted with great diffidence your appointment to prepare for the College a memoir of its late President. He was no ordinary man. Like the future king of Israel, he was pre-eminent among his brethren. Few of them have attained to the height of his moral and intellectual stature; and fewer still have equalled him in the variety and extent of his professional knowledge and achievements. His long, useful and laborious life is a bright example, and contains much of encouragement and instruction. It was this lofty excellence that made me hesitate. I feared that the subject would be injured by my feeble treatment; I knew that I could not even realize my own ideal; and I should have been pleased if choice had been made of a Fellow more competent to do it justice. But since it has been otherwise ordered, I address myself with loving heart, though weak endeavor, to the performance of the grateful duty which you have enjoined.
