210 
A  DISCOURSE  ON  TITLES,  ETC. 
so-called  profession  of  medicine  lias  a  well  recognized  status  in 
the  community ;  it  has  been  for  centuries  placed  in  a  separate 
and  quite  distinguished  niche  in  the  social  edifice.  Doctors  were 
long  expected  to  appear  in  broadcloth,  with  well  polished  shoes, 
clean  soft  hands  and  well  shaven  chins.  They  must  carry  them- 
selves with  a  genteel  and  professional  air,  and  converse  in  good 
English  with  some  show  of  classic  lore. 
The  professional  intercourse  of  such  with  the  public  is  some- 
what reserved ;  guided  by  rules  of  ethics  that  shut  them  out  in 
good  degree  from  the  ordinary  effects  of  competition,  they  sit  in 
closed  offices,  approachable  only  by  a  knock  or  ring  at  the  bell. 
Neither  trafficking  in  merchandize  nor  creating  material  products, 
their  commodities  are  knowledge  and  skill,  and  they  exact  fees 
rather  in  proportion  to  their  reputation  than  the  amount  of  labor 
bestowed. 
In  which  of  these  points,  brethren  of  the  pestle  and  mortar,  do 
we  resemble  these  professional  men  par  excellence  f  As  we  look 
over  our  Conventions,  do  we  recognize  that  odor  of  gentility, 
that  professional  air,  which  in  popular  estimation  would  entitle 
us  to  range  with  these  distinguished  classes  ? 
1  admit  that  in  regard  to  dress  and  manners  the  old-fashioned 
distinction  to  which  I  have  alluded  has  in  good  degree  disappeared 
with  the  progress  of  civilization  and  refinement,  and  he  must  be 
ignorant  indeed  who  would  found  any  classification  of  his  fellow 
citizens  upon  such  unmeaning  particulars. 
Language  furnishes  a  rather  higher  grade  of  distinction,  gen- 
erally giving  some  clue,  if  not  to  the  extent  and  variety  of  edu- 
cation, at  least  to  early  domestic  training  and  culture,  yet  who 
has  not  known  most  esteemed  doctors  of  the  law,  of  medicine 
and  even  of  divinity,  who  have  misused  and  mispronounced  the 
plainest  words,  and  have  talked  as  unpolished  English  as  an  or- 
dinary tradesman  or  mechanic  ?  - 
The  truth  is  that  now-a-days  the  masses  are  being  brought  up  ' 
in  general  education  and  refinement  where  the  learned  profes- 
sions were  two  generations  ago,  and  if  asked  to  select  models  of 
intelligent,  influential  and  even  cultivated  men  we  should  proba- 
bly find  almost  as  many  in  mercantile  circles  and  among  master 
