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THE SCHOOL DOCTOR AT HOME
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educational method, and not mere statisticians or recorders of disease. Almost certainly a fair number would be genuine enthusiasts, attracted, not by the pay (since the payment at first could not be a very tempting bait), but by real love of the work. Their reports would then need consideration—the consideration of trained medicos, not of brilliant litterateurs, or of politicians, or men of every and any order of experience and education except that kind of knowledge that would make them able to judge of the value of this new information. And so we should have to follow the example of Japan—and the example of Germany. A central medical board would be wanted, not to frame cast-iron rules, or to interfere with the new growth, but to preserve it and keep for it a place where it may grow, if the living impulse in it is strong enough.

Later there might be prizes, even many prizes, to offer in this profession, as in others. But they would be won by service and self-devotion, not by influence or through the ignorance of the public and at its expense. There are many victories—every man in an army is a victor—towards the end of a battle, but not at the beginning. Workhouses, prisons, refuges—great sums are spent in providing all these, and in making deep channels as it were for the dark, swift