Of such a sort was Samuel Parr, the father of the famous classic scholar and Whig politician of the same name. The elder Parr was a general practitioner at Harrow, "a man" (as his son described him) "of a very robust and vigorous intellect." Educated in his early years at Harrow School, Samuel Parr (the son) was taken from that splendid seminary at the age of fourteen years and apprenticed to his father. For three or four years he applied himself to the mastery of the elements of surgical and medical knowledge--dispensing medicines, assisting at operations, and performing all the duties which a country doctor's pupil was expected to perform. But he had not nerve enough for the surgical department of the profession. "For a physician," he used to say, "I might have done well, but for a surgeon never." His father consequently sent him to Cambridge, and allowed him to turn his intellects to those pursuits in which Nature had best fitted him to excel. Dr. Parr's reminiscences of this period of medical instruction were nearly all pleasant--and some of them were exquisitely droll. At that early age his critical taste and faculty caused him to subject the prescriptions that came under his notice to a more exact scrutiny than the dog-Latin of physicians usually undergoes. "Father," cried the boy, glancing his eye over a prescription, "here's another mistake in the grammar!" "Sam," answered the irritable sire, "d---- the prescription, make up the medicine." Laudanum was a preparation of opium just then coming into use. Mr. Parr used it at first sparingly and cautiously. On one occasion he administered a small quantity to a patient, and the next day, pleased with the effects of the dose, expressed his intention (but hesitatingly) to repeat it. "You may do that safely, sir," said the son. "Don't be rash, boy. Beginners are always too bold. How should you know what is safe?" asked the father. "Because, sir," was the answer, "when I made up the prescription yesterday, I doubled the dose." "Doubled the dose! How dared you do that?" exclaimed the angry senior. "Because, sir," answered little Sam, coolly, "_I saw you hesitate._" The father who would not feel pride in such a son would not deserve to have him. Though Parr made choice of another profession he always retained a deep respect for his father's calling and the practitioners of it; medical men forming a numerous and important portion of his acquaintance. In his years of ripest judgment he often declared that "he considered the medical professors as the most learned, enlightened, moral, and liberal class of the community."