lege of Dental Surgery, out of which our present dental school grew,
was an event of such significance as to evoke that feeling of pride.

It is fitting, therefore, that we commemorate the event and pay
tribute to the men who established the school, and by so doing, laid
the foundation for the profession of dentistry. Dr. Horace H. Hay-
den, the first president, and Dr. Chapin A. Harris, the first dean and
second president of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, were
truly men of broad vision and deep understanding. They saw the
inadequacy of the instruction of dentistry in the schools of medicine,
realized the great difficulty they would encounter in trying to im-
prove the instruction and set about to establish an independent
school of dentistry.

After the college was chartered by the Maryland General Assem-
bly in February, 1840, and the institution organized shortly there-
after, Dr. Hayden and Dr. Harris began their lectures the following
fall to the five students who had matriculated in the first class. From
this modest and not altogether auspicious beginning, then, grew this
great institution which has trained thousands of dentists over the
past century and a quarter. Not only that, the college became the
prototype for schools of dentistry not only of this country but of the
entire world. And thus, Maryland has made a unique contribution
to education and to civilization.

But as proud as we are of that achievement, it would be desecra-
tion of the eminence of men like Harris and Hayden if we displayed
a spirit of apathy and complacency in the face of the challenges which
confront us today. To do proper honor to them in this commemor-
ative year, we must show a concern for the good health of the people
comparable to that displayed by them one-hundred and twenty-five
years ago. We must have an understanding they had of their prob-
lems in 1840. And we must have a vision of the future comparable
with the vision they had when they set up the college of dental sur-
gery here in Baltimore. We revere our past. We glory in the achieve-
ments of illustrious ancestors, but we know, in the words of one poet,
that "past is prologue, "and of another, that "all our past acclaims
our future. " And so, we must move out boldly, as did Hayden and
Harris in 1940, to meet the challenges of our day—a challenge to im-
prove the standards of your great profession, a challenge to meet in
a more effective manner the health needs of the people of this State,
this nation and the world.

It is my belief tonight that we stand on the threshold of new ad-

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