in.] O^V MEDICAL EDUCATION. 57 



upon one rung of the ladder which leads upwards ; and 

 that the rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, 

 but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him 

 to put the other somewhat higher. I trust that you will 

 all regard these successes as simply reminders that your 

 next business is, having enjoyed the success of the day, 

 no longer to look at that success, but to look forward to 

 the next difficulty that is to be conquered. And now, 

 having had so much to say to the successful candidates, 

 you must forgive me if I add that a sort of under- 

 current of sympathy has been going on in my mind all 

 the time for those who have not been successful, for 

 those valiant knights who have been overthrown in your 

 tourney, and have not made their appearance in public. I 

 trust that, in accordance with old custom, they, wounded 

 and bleeding, have been carried off to their tents, to 

 be carefully tended by the fairest of maidens ; and in 

 these days, when the chances are that every one of such 

 maidens will be a qualified practitioner, I have no doubt 

 that all the splinters will have been carefully extracted, 

 and that they are now physically healed. But there 

 may remain some little fragment of moral or intellectual 

 discouragement, and therefore I will take the liberty to 

 remark that your chairman to-day, if he occupied his 

 proper place, would be among them. Your chairman, 

 in virtue of his position, and for the brief hour that he 

 occupies that position, is a person of importance ; and it 

 may be some consolation to those who have failed if I 

 say, that the quarter of a century which I have been 

 speaking of, takes me back to the time when I was up 

 at the University of London, a candidate for honours* 

 in anatomy and physiology, and when I was exceed- 

 ingly well beaten by my excellent friend Dr. Eansom, 

 of Nottingham. There is a person here who recollects 

 that circumstance very well. I refer to your venerated 



