their mistakes, and now and then glory a little in the detection of
another's blunder, a young man would find himself better fitted for his
real work than many who have followed long courses of lectures and passed
a showy examination. But the young man is exceptionally fortunate who
enjoys the intimacy of such a teacher. And it must be confessed that the
great hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries of large cities, where men
of well-sifted reputations are in constant attendance, are the true
centres of medical education. No students, I believe, are more
thoroughly aware of this than those who have graduated at this
institution. Here, as in all our larger city schools, the greatest pains
are taken to teach things as well as names. You have entered into the
inheritance of a vast amount of transmitted skill and wisdom, which you
have taken, warm, as it were, with the life of your well-schooled
instructors. You have not learned all that art has to teach you, but you
are safer practitioners to-day than were many of those whose names we
hardly mention without a genuflection. I had rather be cared for in a
fever by the best-taught among you than by the renowned Fernelius or the
illustrious Boerhaave, could they come back to us from that better world
where there are no physicians needed, and, if the old adage can be
trusted, not many within call. I had rather have one of you exercise his
surgical skill upon me than find myself in the hands of a resuscitated
Fabricius Hildanus, or even of a wise Ambroise Pare, revisiting earth in
the light of the nineteenth century.

You will not accuse me of underrating your accomplishments. You know
what to do for a child in a fit, for an alderman in an apoplexy, for a
girl that has fainted, for a woman in hysterics, for a leg that is
broken, for an arm that is out of joint, for fevers of every color, for
the sailor's rheumatism, and the tailor's cachexy. In fact you do really
know so much at this very hour, that nothing but the searching test of
time can fully teach you the limitations of your knowledge.

Of some of these you will permit me to remind you. You will never have
outgrown the possibility of new acquisitions, for Nature is endless in
her variety. But even the knowledge which you may be said to possess
will be a different thing after long habit has made it a part of your
existence. The tactus eruditus extends to the mind as well as to the
finger-ends. Experience means the knowled