nd important as it is, is in reality only putting the foot
upon one rung of the ladder which leads upwards; and that the rung of
a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot
long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. I trust
that you will all regard these successes as simply reminders that your
next business is, having enjoyed the success of the day, no longer to
look at that success, but to look forward to the next difficulty
that is to be conquered. And now, having had so much to say to the
successful candidates, you must forgive me if I add that a sort of
undercurrent of sympathy has been going on in my mind all the time for
those who have not been successful, for those valiant knights who have
been overthrown in your tourney, and have not made their appearance in
public. I trust that, in accordance with old custom, they, wounded and
bleeding, have been carried off to their tents, to be carefully tended
by the fairest of maidens; and in these days, when the chances are
that every one of such maidens will be a qualified practitioner,
I have no doubt that all the splinters will have been carefully
extracted, and that they are now physically healed. But there may
remain some little fragment of moral or intellectual discouragement,
and therefore I will take the liberty to remark that your chairman
to-day, if he occupied his proper place, would be among them. Your
chairman, in virtue of his position, and for the brief hour that he
occupies that position, is a person of importance; and it may be some
consolation to those who have failed if I say, that the quarter of a
century which I have been speaking of, takes me back to the time
when I was up at the University of London, a candidate for honours in
anatomy and physiology, and when I was exceedingly well beaten by my
excellent friend Dr. Ransom, of Nottingham. There is a person here
who recollects that circumstance very well. I refer to your venerated
teacher and mine, Dr. Sharpey. He was at that time one of the
examiners in anatomy and physiology, and you may be quite sure that,
as he was one of the examiners, there remained not the smallest doubt
in my mind of the propriety of his judgment, and I accepted my defeat
with the most comfortable assurance that I had thoroughly well earned
it. But, gentlemen, the competitor having been a worthy one, and
the examination, a fair one, I cannot say that I found in that
circumstance anything