420 OPHTHALMOLOGY 



and the answering of the questions which perplex them, that quickens 

 it and vivifies it that renders it prolific and immortal. Ophthal- 

 mology the science is vitally interested in the training of those who 

 apply ophthalmology the art. The greatest service will be rendered 

 to it and through it to mankind by that institution of learning that 

 will establish a broad, well-planned department of ophthalmology 

 for the thorough training, both optic and physiologic, of those who 

 are to apply its accumulated facts and generalizations. The progress 

 of ophthalmology is to-day seriously impeded by the lack of rounded 

 education in all directions from its essential centre. 



Clearly it belongs among the medical sciences. It can continue 

 to grow and prove fruitful only through its connection with their 

 common educational root. But it differs from all other departments 

 of medical science. And that difference, involving a good working 

 knowledge of mathematics and skill in minute observations and 

 delicate manipulations, requires that the specialization in the training 

 for it shall be great, and shall begin early. Difficulties in the way of 

 the required specialization will suggest themselves to any one who 

 has struggled with the problems of medical training. But many of 

 them will disappear as the educational scheme is made to take its 

 proper relation to the peculiar individual needs of each student. As 

 we learn to furnish each growing mind conditions for its best devel- 

 opment, the difficulties of teaching a specialty will grow less. When 

 we have given up that barbaric ideal of forcing a living consciousness 

 into a set mold, we shall get away from the notion that an ophthal- 

 mologist can be best grown in the region of general surgery, and 

 when ready to bear fruit in that field can be safely transplanted to 

 the outlying clearing of ophthalmic science, where he seems to be 

 needed. 



The process of obtaining educative material must be broadly 

 selective. There must be selection on the part of the teacher and 

 selection on the part of the student. We must learn the lesson that 

 the achievements of the race outrun the possibilities of the individ- 

 ual. Even in the free atmosphere of thought, if we take some, more 

 must be left unbreathed. Not that what is taken is of any better 

 quality, simply that it is nearer and can be utilized by less waste 

 exertion. So for each student certain things lie near at hand, within 

 the easy reach of his interest. They may be no better in the abstract, 

 and yet they are better for him. To drag him away from them to 

 seek more distant mental pabulum is to waste a part of his life. In 

 this matter of education, economy of vital force demands that we 

 respect the possibilities and limitations of the individual. 



Upon a thousand fields of discovery eager workers push back the 

 ever-widening margin of the unknown. In a thousand laboratories 

 crude fact, treated in the crucible of experiment, is yielding its gold of 



