must remember what you have already stated, so that you may make no contradictory statements to different persons. They are certain to talk between themselves of what you have said, and if the statements are not harmonious, their confidence in you will be shaken. You may not have said anything which was not strictly true, but they may find it difficult or impossible to reconcile your statements. You cannot be too careful in what you say; a doctor's words are weighed meticulously, and he has not infrequently difficulty in extricating himself with credit from verbal entanglements made to different persons. 'For many have been harmed by speech; through thinking, few or none.”

Reverence. This virtue is less common now than it was formerly, and is largely due to the belief that education makes one man equal to another. Nothing is further from the truth; true education will merely show us how much inferior we are to others, not only in the cultivation of the intellect, but in moral character also. Only the person of little sense thinks that there is no one who deserves respect.

It matters not what opinions a person may have nor how much at variance they may be from our own, we ought still to respect them. In most cases they are the result of honest conviction. It is just possible that they may be right, and that we may be wrong.

As younger persons, it is our privilege to respect those who have lived longer than we have, and have so gained a larger experience of life, even though they are much less educated than we are.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow ;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so."

In the practice of your profession you will be asked to treat persons of very varied religious beliefs or some who have no belief. You ought never to criticise these; these beliefs are sacred to each person, and you commit a grave indiscretion besides a great impertinence if you cast slights or make a mockery of what, to them, are solemn realities. Just imagine how you would resent any one who sneered at your religious belief.

"God sends His teachers unto every age,
To every clime, and every race of men,
With revelations fitted to their growth

And shape of mind, nor gives the realms of truth
Into the selfish rule of one sole race.'

If you have made even the slightest study of philosophy you will appreciate all that is good in those who are older, wiser, more religious, or who occupy a higher social position than yourself.

But your studies will have been lost to you if you have not learnt to reverence yourself. Without an adequate self-esteem you can never succeed. Having built up your moral character to the highest point possible for you, it is necessary that you pay proper respect to it. You must do nothing which would lessen the value of your reputation for uprightness either to your fellows or yourself. Be sincere

in all that you do; see that your practice corresponds with your character. The Pythagoreans had as a maxim, "Most of all respect yourself," and Bacon, long afterwards, said that the reverence of a man's self was, next religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.

This self-esteem must, of course, be grounded on

the firm basis of moral excellence, and must not be confounded with conceit, which means taking a too favourable view of one's own good qualities. The shallow-minded person is usually conceited, but has little ground for self-esteem. Only he who has stored his mind with moral precepts and his intellect with ample resources has the right to exercise selftrust and self-esteem; it is only right that he should reverence that part of God within himself.

"Oft-times nothing profits more than self-esteem, Grounded on just and right."

"

If we will but do earnestly and honestly our daily work, not seeking happiness in frivolous amusements, but rather in study which alone affords true satisfaction, endeavouring to perform our duty and keeping our soul "as chaste as unsunned snow,' SO that at any moment we may render it back to the Giver, then we shall be able to arrive at the nearest approach to happiness which is possible on this earth. The ancient philosopher said that happiness exists not in strength, not in wealth, not in power. It lies in yourselves, in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear, in perfect selfgovernment; and in a power of contentment and peace and the even flow of life amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death.

I would advise every young man not only to learn by heart, but to realise in actual practice, the splendid advice of our national poet :

"And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,

Bear't that the oppressor may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

"

CHAPTER II

BEFORE COMMENCING PRACTICE

AFTER having graduated or received his qualification to practise, it ought to be the aim of every young man to secure a hospital appointment for six or twelve months. If it is his intention to devote his life to general practice then a houseresidency in the medical wards of an hospital or infirmary should be his object. If, however, he inclines to surgical work, then a house-surgeonship should be his aim. If possible, one should try to obtain one of such appointments in a non-teaching institution, because in such the young graduate can devote much more time to the clinical investigation of each case, and so to his own advantage from a professional point of view. If the visiting physician or surgeon be a man of energy and capacity, he will prove of the greatest value to his resident, and a store of learning will be laid up by the latter which will be of inestimable value to him in his future life. In hospitals where students receive instruction in clinical medicine or surgery a great deal of the resident's time is taken up in routine work, preparing cases for lectures, superintending students in their work, and so on, so that little time is left for his own personal edification.

Even as a medical student he will in all likelihood have evinced some leaning towards one special

M.C.F.