Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MISCELLANEOUS 559
Delivered to the High School Pupils of
the Francis W. Parker vSchool,
March 22, 1907.*
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE AS A VOCATION
UNDER
the illumination of this school to-day, I am
conscious of having a distinct feeling of something
missed when I was of school age. I do not think I
ever felt it so clearly before.
I am an old teacher, accustomed to lecturing to men and
women from platforms without embarrassment — I should
be ashamed, in this school, to use the term embarrassment,
as the term does not fit the situation,— but still I am a little
at sea as to what to say on this subject to-day, because of
the fact that, technically, I am talking about something
that you do not know much about, although generally I
am talking about things which you know as much about
as I do. So it is difficult to know what to say without
getting into territory that is useless to you.
The thought of a vocation, as to what one is going to do
in life, does not strike in at a very early age. But although
you may not weigh the matter very seriously, yet everybody,
from the time of small childhood, has ideas and
aspirations in various directions based upon taste— sometimes
very unaccountable taste.
I remember clearly my determination about a vocation
up to quite an age — and I still retain the taste that determined
me that I was going to be a blacksmith. The reason
was because I wanted to shoe horses. After that I was
determined that it was in my power to emulate a colored
friend and achieve a brilliant career as a coachman. Now,
to a large extent, I have never lost either of those tastes.
If I had to go into any manual trade it would be blacksmithing;
and the one manual work that I could do would be
* The stenographic report of this paper was imperfect, and I have done
the small amount of editing necessary to make it readable.— J. F.