erns, without intermeddling with those of others. It is true my
friends advise me to work as a journeyman a few years longer; but it is
a hard way of living. Besides, what shall I learn all this while, that
I do not already know? They say I shall be improving in the _practical_
part of my business, if not in the _theory_ of it. But shall I not
improve while I work for myself? Suppose I make blunders. Have not
others done the same? If I fall, I must get up again. Perhaps it will
teach me not to stumble again. The fact is, old people never think the
young know or can do any thing till they are forty years old. I am
determined to make an effort. A good opportunity offers, and such a one
may never again occur. I am confident I shall succeed.'

How often have I heard this train of reasoning pursued! But if it were
correct, how happens it that those facts exist which have just been
mentioned? More than this; why do almost all men assert gratuitously
after they have spent twenty years in their avocation, that although
they thought themselves wise when they began their profession, they
were exceedingly ignorant? Who ever met with a man that did not feel
this ignorance more sensibly after twenty years of experience, than
when he first commenced?

This self flattery and self confidence--this ambition to be men of
business and begin to figure in the world,--is not confined to any
particular occupation or profession of men, but is found in all. Nor is
it confined to those whose object in life is _pecuniary_ emolument. It
is perhaps equally common among those who seek their happiness in
ameliorating the condition of mankind by legislating for them, settling
their quarrels, soothing their passions, or curing the maladies of
their souls and bodies.

Perhaps the evil is not more glaring in any class of the community than
in the medical profession. There is a strong temptation to this, in the
facility with which licenses and diplomas may be obtained. Any young
man who has common sense, if he can read and write tolerably, may in
some of the States, become a knight of the lancet in three years, and
follow another employment a considerable part of the time besides. He
has only to devote some of his _extra_ hours to the study of anatomy,
surgery, and medicine, recite occasionally to a practitioner, as
ignorant, almost, as himself; hear one series of medical lectures; and
procure certificates that he has studied medicine 'three years,'
in