Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/23

My Dear Dr. Stopes,

I have read this book in advance with very great interest. So far as I know nothing quite like it has yet appeared; nor is there at present any general manual on contraception. Others have dealt with fragments of the subject, but no one seems to have read so widely as you, and certainly no one has had such a mass of original material upon which to draw, material derived from correspondence resulting from your previous books and from the Clinic you founded two years ago.

There is another matter upon which I should like to lay stress. A story was current in the Oxford of long ago that Martin Joseph Routh, the centenarian who for some sixty years was President of Magdalen College, once received a call from a man about to commence the study of Theology. His visitor asked Routh for advice as to his future studies. The President, whose reputation was then almost worldwide, simply remarked "Young man, always verify your references," a piece of advice which has saved me many a mistake and has taught me how careless writers perpetuate popular errors. From such reproaches your book is free, for you have given references for every quotation you have made.

That you are not on the Medical Register is