Foremost among the second group of qualifications stands the matter of age. The student ought to be mature enough to think and to reason, but not advanced beyond the time when the mind is naturally predisposed to acquiring knowledge. Physical health and prepossessing appearance are of the next importance; while cultivated manners and agreeable behavior, as well as talent in adapting himself or herself to all conditions, all circumstances and all persons, are by no means the last to be considered. In addition there are some qualifications yet to be mentioned which form a part of our affectional nature and without which no practitioner can succeed. Of these, the most essential is sympathy--not sentimentalizing sympathy, but the sympathy which never betrays weakness or timidity and which is firm and persevering, controlling every action that it may not become rashness. Modesty and reticence, sobriety and unselfishness are other virtues much desired in the practitioner. And I add here a word of warning against temptations into which physicians are constantly led because I know how often pecuniary gain or social position can be obtained by being untrue to one’s best self. I have also had occasion to see the consequences in those who have yielded to the temptation to abandon their principles. No greater misery can perhaps be imagined than contempt for one’s self; no greater punishment can be endured than the consciousness of having acted meanly and despicably. A man who when alone in his chamber is forced to blush for himself carries hell within him--the loss of a clear conscience is the source of much despair. Conscientiousness, so important for every man of whatever station in life, is still more important in a physician. To be scrupulously honest, to satisfy his own conscience even at the cost of material profit, is absolutely essential for him. It is human life--that most divine element in creation and irreplaceable when once lost, for which the practitioner is responsible; and no regrets, no penitence, no despair will be accepted by those who mourn or will reconcile them to their bereavement. The loss of a beloved wife and mother perhaps brings another life to the grave, or it may fix the unhappy fate of a dozen human beings of whom she was the guardian angel, and who now are left alone. Pause and think for a moment, and try to appreciate the weight of misery which in lonely hours such a picture reveals to the mind of one who in a critical moment was made responsible for life and death, and who must confess that such victims fell a sacrifice to the ambition which prevented him from owning his inability for the work intrusted to his hands.