daily duties of the practitioner. You must learn systematically, for
all that; it is the easiest way and the only way that takes hold of
the memory, except mere empirical repetition, like that of the
handicraftsman. Did you ever see one of those Japanese figures with the
points for acupuncture marked upon it?

--I had to own that my schooling had left out that piece of information.

Well, I 'll tell you about it. You see they have a way of pushing
long, slender needles into you for the cure of rheumatism and other
complaints, and it seems there is a choice of spots for the operation,
though it is very strange how little mischief it does in a good many
places one would think unsafe to meddle with. So they had a doll made,
and marked the spots where they had put in needles without doing any
harm. They must have had accidents from sticking the needles into the
wrong places now and then, but I suppose they did n't say a great deal
about those. After a time, say a few centuries of experience, they
had their doll all spotted over with safe places for sticking in the
needles. That is their way of registering practical knowledge: We,
on the other hand, study the structure of the body as a whole,
systematically, and have no difficulty at all in remembering the track
of the great vessels and nerves, and knowing just what tracks will be
safe and what unsafe. It is just the same thing with the geologists.
Here is a man close by us boring for water through one of our ledges,
because somebody else got water somewhere else in that way; and a person
who knows geology or ought to know it, because he has given his life to
it, tells me he might as well bore there for lager-beer as for water.

--I thought we had had enough of this particular matter, and that
I should like to hear what the Master had to say about the three
professions he knew something about, each compared with the others.

What is your general estimate of doctors, lawyers, and ministers?--said
I.

--Wait a minute, till I have got through with your first question,--said
the Master.--One thing at a time. You asked me about the young doctors,
and about our young doctor. They come home tres biens chausses, as a
Frenchman would say, mighty well shod with professional knowledge. But
when they begin walking round among their poor patients, they don't
commonly start with millionnaires,--they find that their new shoes of
scientific acquirements have got to be broken in just li