In 1854 Mr. Paget gave one of the series of lectures on Education at the Royal Institution, in which Whewell, Faraday, and others took part. His lecture on the Importance of the Study of Physiology as a branch of education for all classes, was marked by elevation of thought and practicality of aim. One interesting point that he dwelt on was that a wider scheme of education would be more likely to discover men fitted for particular work. “It has seemed like a chance,” he said, “that has led nearly every one of our best physiologists to his appropriate work; like a chance, the loss of which might have consigned him to a life of failures, in some occupation for which he had neither capacity nor love.” The value of physiological instruction is now generally admitted, but the practical application is almost as generally neglected. Sir James Paget has published but too few of his thoughts to the public and the profession; but all that have been given to the world have been of sterling worth. His Clinical Lectures and Essays, collected in 1875, include some of the most interesting reading imaginable. He deals among other subjects with the various risks of operations, the calamities of surgery, stammering with other organs than those of speech, cases that bone-setters cure, dissection poisons, and constitutional diseases. Some of the most instructive of the series are those which describe forms of nervous mimicry of serious diseases. An extract from “The Calamities of Surgery” gives clear expression to Sir James Paget’s views on preparation for operating:— “Look very carefully to your apparatus. I have no doubt that you will look very carefully to the edges of your knives and your saws and all things that are mighty to handle; but look to the plaster, look to the ligatures and the sutures, and all the things which are commonly called minor. When I have seen Sir William Fergusson and Sir Spencer Wells operate, I have never known which to admire most; the complete knowledge of the things to be done, the skill of hand, or the exceeding care with which all the apparatus is adjusted and prepared beforehand. The most perfect plaster, the most perfect silk, not one trivial thing left short of the most complete perfection it is capable of. I have no doubt that the final success of their operations has been due just as much to these smaller things as to those greater things of which they are masters.”