62 THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 



is not the one who sits on the fence, hut the one who lias had experience 

 on both sides. 



Ignorance is the root of narrow-mindedness. It is the ignorant man 

 who argues that, because his course in life is rational, a diametrically op- 

 posed course is irrational. It is the ignorant man who throws away every 

 fact that does not fit into his own experience. It is the ignorant man that 

 knows no scale of proportion by which to judge relative values. 



The seeds of narrow-minded opinions and of broad views sprout to- 

 gether, like the wheat and the tares, in the mind of the student to whom 

 the knowledge of the world is being unfolded. It is hard to differentiate 

 them in their early stages. 



The student who has no use for a science that he has studied only three 

 months and the one who has no use for anything but that science are 

 alike equally in danger of becoming narrow-minded. 



If they are studying medicine, they will probably become '"specialists" 

 before they are general practitioners. If they are theologists, they will 

 rivet their fathers' creeds into fetters, or else smash them utterly. If they 

 are students of so-called "pure science," they will have a pitiful contempt 

 for any one who applies the science practically and makes money out 

 of it, and if they are scientific, only from the business standpoint, woe be 

 to the professor, or laboratory worker, or mere writer of monographs that 

 thrusts his unprofitable person into their presence. 



There is a woeful lack of tolerance in the educated, a petty jealousy 

 of position, and a bickering spirit of contempt that reminds one of the 

 restrictions of rank in a decaying aristocracy rather than the healthful 

 liberality of the republic of Thought. 



An intimate acquaintance with stonecutters and bricklayers might re- 

 veal the fact that the one class barely tolerated the work of the other in 

 the building they were both engaged on. A very intimate acquaintance 

 with different groups of scientific men discloses the fact that each man 

 regards his "ology" as the keystone to the universe, and his brother's 

 "ologies" but indifferent supports to his superstructure. To be broad- 

 minded is to be very humble and very well informed. To be broad-minded 

 is to be very silent about one's own work, and very attentive to suggestions 

 from others' work. But, first, last and always, to be broad-minded is to be 

 tolerant of narrow men. and to accept their work, independent of their 

 spirit. 



