"Look at what he has done with those anæsthetics," continues Miss Avon. "Isn't it better to find out something that does good to the whole world than give yourself up to making money by wheedling a lot of old women?"
This estimate of the physician's art was not flattering.
"But," she says warmly, "if the Government had any sense, that is just the sort of man they would put in a position to go on with his invaluable work. And Oxford and Cambridge, with all their wealth, they scarcely even recognise the noblest profession that a man can devote himself to—when even the poor Scotch Universities and the Universities all over Europe have always had their medical and scientific chairs. I think it is perfectly disgraceful!"
Since when had she become so strenuous an advocate of the endowment of research?
"Why, look at Dr. Sutherland—when he is burning to get on with his own proper work—when his name is beginning to be known all over Europe—he has to fritter away his time in editing a scientific magazine and in those hospital lectures. And that, I suppose, is barely enough to live on. But I know," she says, with decision, "that in spite of everything—I know that before he is five-and-thirty, he will be President of the British Association."
Here, indeed, is a brave career for the Scotch student: cannot one complete the sketch as it roughly exists in the minds of those two women?
At twenty-one, B.M. of Edinburgh.
At twenty-six, F.R.S.
At thirty, Professor of Biology at Oxford: the chair founded through the intercession of the women of Great Britain.
At thirty-five, President of the British Association.