After graduating from Harvard, Holmes entered the Dane Law School at Cambridge. He did not feel at all sure, however, that he wished to be a lawyer, and at the end of a year he had so far lost interest in his studies that he gave them up. As the physician's calling seemed much more to his liking, he took two courses of study in a private school of medicine. This preparation was not, of course, sufficient to fit him for a larger practice, so a trip to Europe where he could study under the great professors of the School of Medicine at Paris became necessary. Accordingly, his parents, at some sacrifice to themselves, provided him with the required means, and he set sail from New York in the spring of 1833. During the two years spent abroad, Holmes gave himself up wholly to his chosen study. "I am more and more attached every day to the study of my profession.... I am occupied from morning to night, and as every one is happy when he is occupied, I enjoy myself as much as I could wish," he wrote home. This period of hard work, however, was interrupted by summer vacations spent in the countries along the Rhine, in England and in Italy. Early in 1836, the young physician established himself in Boston. Perhaps it was that people thought him too much of a wit to take their troubles seriously, or perhaps it was that he was better fitted to teach than to practice the doctor's art. At any rate, his success was very moderate. He was very glad, then, to be appointed Professor of Anatomy at Dartmouth College in 1838, a position that he held until 1840. About this time, too, he received prizes for some _Medical Essays_ that are even to-day regarded as valuable. Thus he was gradually fitting himself for the honorable office offered him in 1847, that of Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard University. For thirty-five years Holmes filled this position with the greatest success. He was given the fifth hour in the day as his lecture period because he was the only one able to hold the attention of students who had already been listening to four long and difficult lectures. He enlivened the dry subject with funny stories, droll comparisons and interesting descriptions, teaching while he entertained. In 1840 the young doctor had married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of a highly respected Boston family. His wife was of so gentle and tactful a nature that their home was always a well-ordered and pleasant place of rest for the busy doctor, where unwelcome visitors and other annoyances were not allowed to take his time. Yet he was never too much occupied to find pleasure in what interested his wife and his three children.