Dr. Wood alludes to the ignorance of the American medical student, and makes a statement "not founded on the authority of official publication," in which he endeavors to show that from "six to ten per cent." of American medical students have an ignorance of vulgar fractions and rudimentary astronomy that would exclude them from an ordinary infant-school. Every one familiar with the students attending our first-class American medical colleges knows perfectly well that in origin and in culture they compare favorably with the young men engaged in the study of law and divinity, or with those entering upon mercantile or manufacturing pursuits. True, there are some imperfectly educated, but certainly not "six or ten per cent." destitute of that knowledge taught even in _American_ infant-schools, and without knowing, and without the statement "being founded on the authority of any official publication," I _infer_ that in _Europe_, owing to their "better methods," similar knowledge is communicated to the average European child many months _before its birth_. Next follows a comment on the poverty of the American medical student. Dr. Wood says: "Even worse than this, however, is the fact that the summer between the winter courses is often not spent in study, but in idleness, or, not rarely, in acquiring in the school-room or harvest-field the pecuniary means of spending the subsequent winter in the city." Alas! this _is_ too true. Providence seems to have ordained that our young _American_ doctors are not always reared in the lap of luxury and wealth as the fittest preparation for the trials, hardships and self-denials of their future lives. It is also true that some _other_ young American professional men have been compelled "in the school-room or harvest-field" to acquire the means to prosecute their professional studies. Daniel Webster, the son of a New England farmer, taught school at Fryeburg, Maine, "upon a salary of about one dollar per diem." "His salary was all saved ... as a fund for his _own professional_ education and to help his brother through college." "During his residence at Fryeburg, Mr. Webster borrowed (he was too poor to buy) Blackstone's _Commentaries_." Mr. Webster's great rival, Henry Clay, also was compelled to resort to the "school-room and harvest-field to obtain the pecuniary means," etc. etc. etc. The son of the poor widow with seven children "applied himself to the labor of the field with alacrity and diligence;" "and there yet live those who remember to have seen him oftentimes riding his sorry horse, with a rope bridle, no saddle, and a bag of grain." "By the familiar name of the Mill-boy of the Slashes do these men ... perpetuate the remembrance of his lowly yet dutiful and unrepining employments." American biography is so filled with similar instances, showing how the great characters of her great men acquired their development and strength in the stern gymnasium of poverty, even in "the school-room