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There are men and classes of men that stand above the common herd:
the soldier, the sailor, and the shepherd not infrequently; the
artist rarely; rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost
as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) of our civilization; and
when that stage of man is done with, and only to be marvelled at in
history, he will be thought to have shared as little as any in the
defects of the period, and most notably exhibited the virtues of the
race.
--Robert Louis Stevenson, Preface to _Underwoods_.
The physician who is not also a scholar may be a more or less
successful practitioner, but his influence will be confined, his
methods mechanical and his interests narrow. The doctor, the lawyer
and the minister of religion can do but inferior work, unless to a
knowledge of their several sciences they bring the insight, the wide
outlook, and the confidence which nothing but intimate acquaintance
with the best that has been thought and said can confer. The more
accomplished the specialist, the greater the need of the control
which philosophic culture gives.
--Bishop Spalding.
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