When the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England--of which body I have been for more than twenty years a humble member--confer their diploma after examination on a student, they do not consider him to have done more than laid the foundation for that knowledge which is to be afterward acquired by long and patient observation. When a student in law is called to the bar, he is not supposed to be therefore qualified to be a Queen’s counsel, much less a judge or a chancellor. The young theologian, admitted into deacon’s orders, is not supposed to be fitted for a bishopric. When the young surgeon is sent, in the execution of his duties, to distant climes, where he has few and sometimes no opportunities of adding to the knowledge he had previously acquired, it is apt to be impaired; and he may return to England, after an absence of several years, less qualified, perhaps, than when he left it. To such persons a course of instruction is invaluable. It should be open to them as public servants gratuitously, and should be conveyed by a person appointed and paid by the Crown. He should be styled, in my opinion, the Military Professor of Surgery, and be capable, from his previous experience and his civil opportunities, of teaching all things in the principles and practice of surgery connected with his office, although he may and should annually select his subjects. Leave of absence for three months might be advantageously granted to officers in turn for the purpose of attending these lectures, and the Professor should certify as to their time having been well employed. For thirty years I endeavored to render this service to the Army, the Navy, and the East India Company, from the knowledge I had acquired of its importance. To the Officers of these services my two hospitals, together with Lectures and Demonstrations, were always open gratuitously, as a mark of the estimation in which I held them. By the end of that period the enthusiasm of the enthusiast who wished for another battle in 1814 had oozed out, like the courage of Bob Acres in “The Rivals,” at the ends of his fingers. The course of instruction was discontinued, but not until such parts were printed, under the title of “Records of the Surgery of the War,” as were not before the public, in order that teachers of civil or systematic surgery should be acquainted with them. 4 Berkeley Street, Berkeley Square, June 21, 1853. PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.