INTEREST IN UNDERGRADUATES 257 



Another of his activities, though necessarily less 

 public than those already mentioned, was his practical 

 help to young men who may have attended his lectures 

 or his Sunday evenings, in their efforts to obtain work 

 after leaving the University. The editor of this 

 memoir has received at least a score of letters from 

 people who have asked him to record Newton's sympa- 

 thetic help to them, often unsolicited, when they were 

 making their first flights from Cambridge. The fol- 

 lowing letter, written to a young graduate already 

 embarked on the career of Medicine, would almost have 

 persuaded most people to follow the unprofitable (in a 

 worldly sense) line of zoological research : — 



I suppose I ought to congratulate you also on win- 

 ning the Surgical Scholarship, and if it makes you any 

 the happier I would do so ; but I do view with jealousy 

 anything that binds you closer to your *' profession," a 

 very good and noble one I admit it to be, but I would 

 much rather see you devoted to Zoological Science, in 

 which the harvest is plenteous and the reapers, so far as 

 I can see them, so few. 



I have the highest opinion of Lord Lister, but I 

 would far sooner be a John Hunter or a Cuvier. The 

 professional man is very good, but the unprofessional, 

 with no other aim than that of advancing knowledge, is 

 far better, and there are, unfortunately, so few men 

 comparatively who can follow science (as I believe you 

 can) regardless of professional success, the plain English 

 of which is fees ! 



However, we must be thankful for what we get, and 

 if a professional man of first-rate ability will but occa- 

 sionally devote a little of his spare time to purely 

 scientific (and unpaying) questions, we ought to 

 applaud him, and be grateful for the small mercy.* 



* Letter to P. H. Bahr (now Dr. P. Manson-Bahr), March 26, 1907. 



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