that every one of such maidens will be a qualified practitioner, I have no doubt that all the splinters will have been carefully extracted, and that they are now physically healed. But there may remain some little fragment of moral or intellectual discouragement, and therefore I will take the liberty to remark that your chairman to-day, if he occupied his proper place, would be among them. Your chairman, in virtue of his position, and for the brief hour that he occupies that position, is a person of importance; and it may be some consolation to those who have failed if I say, that the quarter of a century which I have been speaking of, takes me back to the time when I was up at the University of London, a candidate for honours in anatomy and physiology, and when I was exceedingly well beaten by my excellent friend Dr. Ransom, of Nottingham. There is a person here who recollects that circumstance very well. I refer to your venerated teacher and mine, Dr. Sharpey. He was at that time one of the examiners in anatomy and physiology, and you may be quite sure that, as he was one of the examiners, there remained not the smallest doubt in my mind of the propriety of his judgment, and I accepted my defeat with the most comfortable assurance that I had thoroughly well earned it. But, gentlemen, the competitor having been a worthy one, and the examination, a fair one, I cannot say that I found in that circumstance anything very discouraging. I said to myself, "Never mind; what's the next thing to be done?" And I found that policy of "never minding" and going on to the next thing to be done, to be the most important of all policies in the conduct of practical life. It does not matter how many tumbles you have in this life, so long as you do not get dirty when you tumble; it is only the people who have to stop to be washed and made clean, who must necessarily lose the race. And I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance--that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. In fact, if I were to go on discoursing on this subject, I should become almost eloquent in praise of non-success; but, lest so doing should seem, in any way, to wither well-earned laurels, I will turn from that topic, and ask you to accompany me in some considerations touching another subject which has a very profound interest for me, and which I think ought to have an equally profound interest for you.