Page:Advice to Medical Students (1857) William Henry Fuller.djvu/23

23 treatment at your hands, and he must have an ill-regulated mind, and must be strangely shortsighted in regard to his own interest, who fails to appreciate and act up to this principle. Let your maxim be, whether now or hereafter, to "do unto others as you would they should do unto you;" and you will have your reward in the gratitude of the sick, the esteem of your fellow-men, and the tacit approval of your own conscience.

I come now to a point on which your success in life may possibly turn. I refer to the employment of your leisure hours. Nothing will more surely conduce to establish differences between you in after years than the use you make of your leisure moments. If you have ever noted the daily course of a good or a successful man, you must have observed how carefully he economises his time. Regularity is a marked feature, not only of his studies, but of his exercise, his recreations, and hours of repose. Though convinced that it is his duty to devote himself to his labours, he feels that he is entrusted with the preservation of his health, the most precious of earthly blessings; and that if he were to do aught to cause that to fail, he would check or mar the successful prosecution of his studies. Therefore he so divides his time as to enable him to get through the largest amount of work with the least possible injury to his physical and moral energies. Prudence, gentlemen, if no higher consideration, should lead you to adopt a similar course. If you would preserve your youthful vigour, and run successfully the course which is before you, you must neither overtax your physical or mental powers, nor neglect to take reasonable care of your health. Social intercourse, active exercise, bodily rest, and mental repose, are, each in its turn, as essential to your well-being, as they are to your personal comfort; and you must endeavour so to eke out your time as to give to each its fair share, without interfering with the hours that ought to be devoted to work.