University College, London, Faculty of Medicine : distribution of prizes, Monday, May 20th, 1878 / John Simon in the chair.

  • Simon, Sir John, 1816-1904.
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: University College, London, Faculty of Medicine : distribution of prizes, Monday, May 20th, 1878 / John Simon in the chair. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    life can hardly know, that the essential success at which we aim as our final reward in life shall not be lost through over-anxiety to pick up petty prizes by the way. In student-life, where the proposed object is that proficiency in certain branches of knowledge shall be acquired by the student from his teacher, success in class-examinations is evi- dence of approach to the essential object, and each prize got in such examination is as it were a milestone passed in a race. But subse- quent life is less simple. There every man whose work has a real purpose must carefully distinguish between accidental momentary triumphs, and those really important successes which are steps towards ' his final aim. He has to remember Milton’s teaching, that prizes are only real as they are final. He knows, or ought to know, what in- tentions and purpose he has in life, what is the very goal which he hopes to reach, and the reaching of which shall be his prize. By that he has to govern himself. The secret for success in the race is never to lose sight of the goal: not attaching undue importance to the “ brief dust and light, gathered around the chariots as they gobut bearing in mind ever that favourite illustration of Lord Bacon’s, of the golden apples which Meleager, racing with Atalanta, flung before her as she ran—“which while she stoopeth to gather up, lo, he passeth her in the race.” Now, considering the nature of the present occasion, considering that many of the young men who occupy the benches before me are sitting on them for the last time before passing into the world as Medical Practitioners, it may perhaps not be inappropriate that I invite them in particular to follow with me somewhat in detail the line of reflection which I have just suggested. Were I to ask any of them what object he has proposed to himself in entering upon the Medical Profession, he would I presume answer that his object (a very proper one) is to find livelihood for himself, and for those who are, or ■will be, dependent on him. That elementary duty of citizenship— the duty ot self-support and family-support, has of course to be ful- filled by us all, and money has to be earned for the purpose: but money (more or less) may be earned in any one of a thousand different careers: and the question remains, cvhy has the man pitched upon Medicine as the career in which to try his fortune in that respect P Probably the explanation is, that the career has presented itself to his mind in two quite distinct points of view : one, as promising him the money which he must have; the other, as promising to gratify certain tastes or ambitions which are in his mind, and to which I will pre- sently again refer. The charm to him of the medical career has pro- bably been that, in it, those two promises go together: but money in great excess beyond livelihood can hardly have been the motive of his choice. The man who enters our profession, with knowledge and character, may be sure that these will win him livelihood in every reasonable sense of the word: livelihood, which, subject only to the common accidents of life, will be steady and increasing, and will iu- •r ,.'me £oes 0Ifrthe nieans of properly providing for those, who, if his life is to be domestically complete, will be dependent on him : but the cases are few in which, financially speaking, his profits will be much beyond that point. He will probably never become what our modern society, luxurious and spendthrift as it is, counts “ rich • ” almost certainly not what it counts “ very rich : ” our Profession, we know, cannot be looked to as a career for the amassing of great stores