us it would be so.

From observations like these we can obtain certain principles from which
we can argue deductively to facts of a like nature, but the process is
limited, and we are suspicious of all reasoning in that direction applied
to the processes of healthy and diseased life. We are continually
appealing to special facts. We are willing to give Liebig's artificial
milk when we cannot do better, but we watch the child anxiously whose
wet-nurse is a chemist's pipkin. A pair of substantial mammary glands
has the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned
Professor's brain, in the art of compounding a nutritious fluid for
infants.

The bedside is always the true centre of medical teaching. Certain
branches must be taught in the lecture-room, and will necessarily involve
a good deal that is not directly useful to the future practitioner. But
the over ambitious and active student must not be led away by the
seduction of knowledge for its own sake from his principal pursuit. The
humble beginner, who is alarmed at the vast fields of knowledge opened to
him, may be encouraged by the assurance that with a very slender
provision of science, in distinction from practical skill, he may be a
useful and acceptable member of the profession to which the health of the
community is intrusted.

To those who are not to engage in practice, the various pursuits of
science hardly require to be commended. Only they must not be
disappointed if they find many subjects treated in our courses as a
medical class requires, rather than as a scientific class would expect,
that is, with special limitations and constant reference to practical
ends. Fortunately they are within easy reach of the highest scientific
instruction. The business of a school like this is to make useful
working physicians, and to succeed in this it is almost as important not
to overcrowd the mind of the pupil with merely curious knowledge as it is
to store it with useful information.

In this direction I have written my lecture, not to undervalue any form
of scientific labor in its place, an unworthy thought from which I hope I
need not defend myself,--but to discourage any undue inflation of the
scholastic programme, which even now asks more of the student than the
teacher is able to obtain from the great majority of those who present
themselves for examination. I wish to take a hint in education from the
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agricultur