Still more when he contemplates the many evils which they perpetuate unconsciously and with impunity! As it can be maintained that all the great advances have come from men under forty, so the history of the world shows that a very large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians--nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels, and not a few of the bad sermons and speeches. It is not to be denied that occasionally there is a sexagenarian whose mind, as Cicero remarks, stands out of reach of the body’s decay. Such a one has learned the secret of Hermippus, that ancient Roman, who, feeling that the silver cord was loosening, cut himself clear from all companions of his own age, and betook himself to the company of young men, mingling with their games and studies, and so lived to the age of 153, _puerorum halitu refocillatus et educatus_. And there is truth in the story, since it is only those who live with the young who maintain a fresh outlook on the new problems of the world. The teacher’s life should have three periods--study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, professional until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance. Whether Anthony Trollope’s suggestion of a college and chloroform should be carried out or not, I have become a little dubious, as my own time is getting so short. E. G. Dexter[3] disputes Osler’s conclusions by referring to such well-known cases as Gladstone, Bismarck, von Moltke, Rockefeller, Morgan, etc., and finds that according to the last census there are 4,871,861 persons over sixty in the United States. He recognizes the fact, however, that many corporations refuse to add new men to their working force who are beyond forty years of age. Dexter had previously tabulated the age of the nearly 9,000 persons mentioned in the 1900 edition of _Who’s Who_ and found that comparatively few who were under forty attained the distinction of being included in this list. Of 6,983 men the median age was 54, only one in six being below 40; that is, some 16 per cent were within Osler’s period of most effective work. But he concludes that in _Who’s Who_ younger men did not receive the recognition given to their older _confrères_. This ratio he finds to be as follows: 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 3.9% 39.5% 36.4% 17.6% 2.4% Thus the decade from 30 to 39 shows only very slightly greater productivity than the next one, and less than one-half made good, so far as public recognition is concerned, before the age of 40. This is irrespective of vocation.