that a liberal appropriation by Congress to carry out a conscientious work for the advancement of sound knowledge and the bettering of human conditions, like this which Dr. Billings has so well begun, would redound greatly to the honor of the nation.  It ought to be willing to be at some charge to make its treasures useful to its citizens, and, for its own sake, especially to that class which has charge of health, public and private.  This country abounds in what are called “self-made men,” and is justly proud of many whom it thus designates.  In one sense no man is self-made who breathes the air of a civilized community.  In another sense every man who is anything other than a phonograph on legs is self-made.  But if we award his just praise to the man who has attained any kind of excellence without having had the same advantages as others whom, nevertheless, he has equalled or surpassed, let us not be betrayed into undervaluing the mechanic’s careful training to his business, the thorough and laborious education of the scholar and the professional man.

Our American atmosphere is vocal with the flippant loquacity of half knowledge.  We must accept whatever good can be got out of it, and keep it under as we do sorrel and mullein and witchgrass, by enriching the soil, and sowing good seed in plenty; by good teaching and good books, rather than by wasting our time in talking against it.  Half knowledge dreads nothing but whole knowledge.

I have spoken of the importance and the predominance of periodical literature, and have attempted to do justice to its value.  But the almost exclusive reading of it is not without its dangers.  The journals contain much that is crude and unsound; the presumption; it might be maintained, is against their novelties, unless they come from observers of established credit.  Yet I have known a practitioner,—­perhaps more than one,—­who was as much under the dominant influence of the last article he had read in his favorite medical journal as a milliner under the sway of the last fashion-plate.  The difference between green and seasoned knowledge is very great, and such practitioners never hold long enough to any of their knowledge to have it get seasoned.

It is needless to say, then, that all the substantial and permanent literature of the profession should be represented upon our shelves.  Much of it is there already, and as one private library after another falls into this by the natural law of gravitation, it will gradually acquire all that is most valuable almost without effort.  A scholar should not be in a hurry to part with his books.  They are probably more valuable to him than they can be to any other individual.  What Swedenborg called “correspondence” has established itself between his intelligence and the volumes which wall him within their sacred inclosure.  Napoleon said that his mind was as if furnished with drawers,—­he drew out each as he wanted its contents, and closed it at will when done with