Establishment of the Medical School of Maine

“Should any enquiry be made about continuing the grant, I beg you to say that its discontinuation would be nearly fatal to the school—almost as much as to cut a man’s carotid arteries, and leave them until…
No medical school has ever been more extensively useful in the hometowns than this. If you wish to know our standing, go not to Boston, but to Philadelphia.
Our Library is however in some sense the foundation of our usefulness, without this library, we never could induce eminent Professors to come here and give our Lecture – but without such instruction, our School could not prosper.

Such is the rapid progress of Medical Science – so man Medical Journals from Europe and America must be taken to keep pace with their progress – and to many new books on medicine are annually published, that it would be impossible to keep up our present rank and usefulness without aid from the State. It is this grant, which prevents all occasion of obtaining subjects in this State. Our State Law has never been violated – and never will be, while the grant continues.
Every man can feel the benefit of a good surgeon or physician – and I believe no grant from a legislature was ever more cheerfully [illegible] than that to the Medical School.
I thought it possible that the above remarks might in some way be useful to you or Judge Ware.

Yrs with much [illegible]
P Cleaveland”