ate what we mean:--encourage
languages, especially French and German, at the early part of their
studies; encourage not merely the book knowledge, but the personal
pursuit of natural history, of field botany, of geology, of zoology;
give the young, fresh, unforgetting eye, exercise and free scope upon
the infinite diversity and combination of natural colors, forms,
substances, surfaces, weights, and sizes--everything, in a word, that
will educate their eye or ear, their touch, taste, and smell, their
sense of muscular resistance; encourage them by prizes, to make
skeletons, preparations, and collections of any natural objects; and,
above all, try and get hold of their affections, and make them put their
hearts into their work. Let them, if possible, have the advantage of a
regulated _tutorial_, as well as the ordinary professorial system. Let
there be no excess in the number of classes and frequency of lectures.
Let them be drilled in composition; by this we mean the writing and
spelling of correct, plain English (a matter not of every-day
occurrence, and not on the increase),--let them be directed to the best
books of the old masters in medicine, and _examined in them_,--let them
be encouraged in the use of a wholesome and manly literature. We do not
mean popular or even modern literature--such as Emerson, Bulwer, or
Alison, or the trash of inferior periodicals or novels--fashion, vanity,
and the spirit of the age, will attract them readily enough to all
these; we refer to the treasures of our elder and better authors. If our
young medical student would take our advice, and for an hour or two
twice a week take up a volume of Shakspeare, Cervantes, Milton, Dryden,
Pope, Cowper, Montaigne, Addison, Defoe, Goldsmith, Fielding, Scott,
Charles Lamb, Macaulay, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Helps, Thackeray, &c.,
not to mention authors on deeper and more sacred subjects--they would
have happier and healthier minds, and make none the worse doctors. If
they, by good fortune--for the tide has set in strong against the
_literae humaniores_--have come off with some Greek or Latin, we would
supplicate for an ode of Horace, a couple of pages of Cicero or of Pliny
once a month, and a page of Xenophon. French and German should be
mastered either before or during the first years of study. They will
never afterwards be acquired so easily or so thoroughly, and the want of
them may be bitterly felt when too late.

But one main help, we are persu