industry and capacity to study and understand them be equally at hand!

A work of a different kind, which every student of Medicine should read, and which no ingenuous student can read without signal benefit, is the MEMOIR OF DR. JAMES JACKSON, JR., by his father, the excellent and venerable Professor Jackson, of Harvard University. It is the narrative of a short but intense life of twenty-four years, devoted with extraordinary ardour and success to the acquisition of professional knowledge, and radiant throughout with purity and virtue. Manibus date lilia plenis. Biography has among its records nothing more affecting than the story of such a son related by such a father.

BALTIMORE, DECEMBER, 1863.

NOTICE.

It is necessary to add a few words in explanation of the circumstances under which the following lectures are given to the public.

The author had devoted to their preparation such leisure time as he was able to spare from professional engagements throughout the past summer and autumn, with the view of having the volume ready for the use of students in the Medical Colleges during the present winter.

From the belief that his little book would be found a serviceable manual to those for whom it was intended, he had looked forward with much pleasure to its appearance.

It was ordained, however, that he should not witness its publication.

On the morning of the 25th of December, 1863, shortly after the last proof-sheets of the work had been received from the publishers, he was removed from this world, after an illness of one week with pneumonia.

Those who knew him best, know well that what

ever of purity and truth is contained in these lessons, is but the clear reflex of his own blameless course:"The shape and colour of his mind and life."

S. C. C.

BALTIMORE, JAN. 1, 1864

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

LECTURE I.

I MAKE no doubt, Gentlemen of the Class, but that in accordance with the abundant measure of prudence and discretion with which Providence has seen fit to endow the younger members of our race, and for which they have in all ages been held by their seniors in just esteem, you have chosen the Profession of Medicine as your business for life not without mature and sufficient deliberation.

It may be reasonably presumed, and I therefore take it for granted, that your selection has been preceded and determined by a full consideration of all the various advantages and disadvantages, evils and blessings, pains and pleasures, that belong, or are supposed to belong, to the Medical Profession.

You have also, no doubt, examined-and of course with impartial eyes-your own ability and fitness for

the trials, the labours, and the duties of that pursuit ; quid ferre recusent, quid valeant humeri.

You have made your election, well and wisely as we are bound to believe, happily as we cordially hope; and your choice is certainly in many respects prudent and judicious.

There is nothing in the character of the Medical Profession of which you will have cause to complain. It is a useful and honourable profession. It is one essentially necessary to the welfare of mankind. It is one which has always secured for its true and successful votaries the respect and esteem of the wise and good. It is one, also, by whose duties, studies and labours, you will be assisted and advanced-more, perhaps, than you could be by any other pursuit-in the accomplishment of the most important business of your lives, the great end and object of your existence, the cultivation and improvement of your intellectual and moral faculties.

But admitting the general character of our profession to be all that its friends and admirers can claim or boast,―pure, benevolent and ennobling-the important question still remains, What hopes and prospects does it offer to the youthful cadets who are about to engage in its service? What honours or other rewards does it promise for their exertions?