not have been as well for them if they had worked and saved for a few years before entering upon medical school, thus bringing a larger maturity to their studies, incurring smaller obligations and being perhaps as far at the age of thirty as if their educational training had been continuous.

One ambitious young man who spent the vacations of his college course in selling subscription books secured a position as a district manager with his employers and from this employment he was able to make enough during his vacations while attending the medical college to provide for all his expenses. At the end of his college course he went back to his college and organized selling squads among the students and directed these squads during his vacations while taking his medical

course.

Another young man graduating out of the same class went into the office of a manufacturer of medical supplies expecting to work a few years before going to medical college. His work was so satisfactory that he was soon started on the road as a salesman. He applied himself so energetically to his work that within three years he was able to save enough for his entire medical course. In addition to his earnings he secured an experience which gave him a most helpful outlook over the professional field.

A physician who has a lucrative practice as a specialist in nervous diseases, when interviewed, gave this story. As a country boy he drifted to the city to make his fortune. For want of anything else he accepted a place as a waiter in a restaurant, and later secured work in the dining-room of a large hotel. This experience recommended him for a better paying position as

an attendant at a sanitarium in which he was able to earn good wages and save considerable money. The physician in attendance being attracted by the way in which he handled the patients advised him to take up the study of medicine. By the time he was twenty-five he had saved enough money for his medical course and had advanced himself in his studies so as to be able to meet the requirements for admission to the medical school.

A young man, now thirty years old, who holds a position in a government laboratory with a $2,750 salary, explained that during college he had specialized in biology and after graduation accepted a position as teacher of the subject in a city high schood, which he held three years, meanwhile doing some of the required medical college work so that he was able to graduate after two years of regular attendance.

A young colored man who supported himself by working as a waiter in a boarding house while he was taking a special college course in chemistry, worked as an assistant in a chemical laboratory for a few years after his graduation from college, saving about half of the money necessary for his medical course and attracting the favorable attention of an employer who volunteered to make him a loan to meet his additional financial needs.

A young Hebrew who graduated from one of our medical colleges with credit, in 1914, had landed with an older brother in this country at the age of sixteen with a fairly good elementary education. His eyesight was not good, he could not speak the language of a strange land, but he secured admission to a city high school on the strength of his school credentials, and not only maintained creditable standing while attending this school but supported himself by serving a news

paper route mornings and evenings, working from four in the morning to ten in the evening. In addition to paying his share of the modest quarters which the two brothers occupied he paid for two suburban lots on the installment plan. When he was ready to enter the medical college he sold these two lots for $1,200 and with the assurance of support from his brother entered upon his medical course with no special worries about the sources of his income.

A young woman, who after graduating from high school decided to take up medicine, prepared herself as a stenographer and acquired an experience which recommended her for a position as stenographer to the dean of a medical college. While serving in this position she was able to take occasional lecture courses and after she entered the medical school as a regular student she made a considerable part of her expenses by selling typewritten copies of her lecture notes to other students.

It is usually not difficult for young men and women to obtain remunerative work as attendants at hospitals and sanitariums. This kind of work gives the prospective medical student a chance to test his fitness for the peculiar requirements of the profession and at the same time makes it possible for him to earn something more than he would earn in those occupations which are ordinarily open to those without any special training. In another chapter there is given a list of such institutions in different parts of the country to which application can be made.

CHAPTER V.

FINANCIAL REWARDS.

The exceptional few, who are impelled to take up this profession because they are endowed with such a rare combination of native talents as to find that the routine of the physician makes to them a special appeal, will be sure to succed and to find the calling so remunerative and satisfying that it would have been a misfortune to them to have permitted themselves to be drawn to anything else; but the average man at the outset will want to know what he may expect in the way of monetary returns from his labors and for the time and money which he is called upon to expend in making his preparation.

No definite information in regard to the earnings of physicians is available. The Medical World estimates that in 1902 there were in the United States 100,000 physicians whose average income was $1,000 a year; 20,000 averaging $2,000; 8,000 making an average of $3,000; not over 2,000 reaching the $5,000 a year mark; only 1,500 averaging $10,000; 200 reaching $20,000; perhaps 100 specialists making $25,000 apiece; and not over 100 who could claim $30,000 or more.

This would mean average earnings of between $1,000 and $1,500, or stated in another way, an average expenditure for medical services for each man, woman and child of $2.20 per year, which is perhaps not far wrong. The average salaries of the 374 full and part time

physicians employed by the city of New York in 1912 were $1,300. Some of these gave their entire time to the public service and a comparatively few remained in the service for any number of years; four of them after an average service of seventeen years had attained annual salaries of $2,550; seven, averaging fourteen years of service, had attained to averages of $3,000.

The Bureau of Standards of the same city, after a careful investigation in 1915, recommended the following schedules of pay for physicians in the municipal service medical internes in hospitals and institutions with maintenance $240 for the first year and $360 for the second; assistant physicians in institutions with maintenance, from $900 with annual increases of $120 to $1,380; senior physicians from $2,520 with annual increases of $240 to $3,480; and for part-time services averaging not less than eighteen hours per week, $1,500 with annual increments of $120 to $2,100; medical superintendents and chief physicians, $2,780 to $4,680.

In 1914 the authorities of Harvard University compiled from answers to inquiries sent to graduates the following table of average total earnings in law and medicine: