In the science and art of medicine there has not been an advance of the first rank which has not been initiated by young or comparatively young men. Vesalius, Harvey, Hunter, Bichat, Laennec, Virchow, Lister, Koch--the green years were yet on their heads when their epoch-making studies were made. To modify an old saying, a man is sane morally at thirty, rich mentally at forty, wise spiritually at fifty--or never. The young men should be encouraged and afforded every possible chance to show what is in them. If there is one thing more than another upon which the professors of the university are to be congratulated, it is this very sympathy and fellowship with their junior associates, upon whom really in many departments, in mine certainly, has fallen the brunt of the work. And herein lies the chief value of the teacher who has passed his climacteric and is no longer a productive factor; he can play the man midwife, as Socrates did to Theætetus, and determine whether the thoughts which the young men are bringing to the light are false idols or true and noble births. My second fixed idea is the uselessness of men above sixty years of age, and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, political, and in professional life if, as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age. Donne tells us in his “Biathanatos” that by the laws of certain wise states sexagenarii were precipitated from a bridge, and in Rome men of that age were not admitted to the suffrage, and were called _depontani_ because the way to the senate was _per pontem_ and they from age were not permitted to come hither. In that charming novel, the “Fixed Period,” Anthony Trollope discusses the practical advantages in modern life of a return to this ancient usage, and the plot hinges on the admirable scheme of a college into which at sixty men retired for a year of contemplation before a peaceful departure by chloroform. That incalculable benefits might follow such a scheme is apparent to any one who, like myself, is nearing the limit, and who has made a careful study of the calamities which may befall men during the seventh and eighth decades!