III.

ON MEDICAL EDUCATION.

(AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE IN UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE, LONDON, MAY 18, 1870, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF
PRIZES FOR THE SESSION.)


It has given me sincere pleasure to be here to-day, at the desire of
your highly respected President and the Council of the College. In
looking back upon my own past, I am sorry to say that I have found
that it is a quarter of a century since I took part in those hopes and
in those fears by which you have all recently been agitated, and which
now are at an end. But, although so long a time has elapsed since
I was moved by the same feelings, I beg leave to assure you that my
sympathy with both victors and vanquished remains fresh--so fresh,
indeed, that I could almost try to persuade myself that, after all, it
cannot be so very long ago. My business during the last hour, however,
has been to show that sympathy with one side only, and I assure you
I have done my best to play my part heartily, and to rejoice in the
success of those who have succeeded. Still, I should like to remind
you at the end of it all, that success on an occasion of this kind,
valuable and important as it is, is in reality only putting the foot
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