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Ophthalmologists of intelligence and experience should expect to play an active part in the educational life of their communities, by contributions to medical society programs, by sharing in discussions, or by talks before laymen. The writer or speaker who has no “literary phase” in his makeup will fail to present his testimony with due force. An interest in general literature of the better sort tends toward finer workmanship in medical writings. Robert Louis Stevenson, Michael Foster, and Thomas Henry Huxley are quoted as examples of elegance and clearness. The problems of ophthalmic journalism in the United States are discussed, and emphasis is laid upon the importance for physicians of training in literature and in foreign languages. Abbreviated from an address read before the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, January, 1928.

The science of medicine may be considered as just passing from infancy into childhood. The art of medicine is a trifle older. The fond relatives of the former young gentleman, who is only beginning to feel steady on his legs, are already disposed to look condescendingly down on the other youth, who had his birthday back in those dark ages before the dawn of human civilization, and has been growing very slowly, but very steadily, ever since. The study of history develops a sense of perspective, which in its turn encourages tolerance, breadth of view and hope of future growth. In such a society as this it would surely be both interesting and profitable if we could now and then turn aside from regarding the deeds of the present and give a little time to the study of those of the past. The leading physicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth

Few would deny Emerson's pronouncement that "The first wealth is health." So essential to human happiness and prosperity is health and the normal functioning of the senses that it may be doubted whether any other profession carries so sacred a responsibility as that of the physician. In no walk of life is the combination of high intelligence with thorough training so necessary as in the practice of medicine. A man with either mediocre intelligence or inadequate training is likely to commit fatal errors of judgment or execution, and, even though poor standards are excused in other occupations, they should be rigidly excluded as regards those whose duty it is to protect or restore the health of the body or its members. The physician is interested in medical standards from two points of view: for the protection of the public and for the protection of the physician himself. The physician is