THE REFORM OF THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM 639 



he proposes ? The efficacy of concentrating the teaching of 

 the scientific subjects in three central institutions is, as he admits, 

 a matter of controversy. Two of these institutions would 

 preferably be attached to hospitals, he states, in order that 

 a technical flavour might be given to the training at the outset ; 

 but many will fail to see in what respect a class of eighty or 

 ninety students, such as is frequently assembled in some of 

 the larger of the metropolitan schools, would be benefited 

 by removal from a laboratory attached to a hospital to a similar 

 laboratory attached to another hospital or in a separate institu- 

 tion. In the latter case, indeed, the technical flavour would 

 be completely eliminated, and what is more, clinical teachers 

 working in the research laboratories which Prof. Armstrong is 

 evidently unaware have long existed in many of the medical 

 schools would no longer be able to confer with their scientific 

 colleagues, as the writer can testify they constantly do at present. 

 The suggested elimination of examinations is a course the 

 expediency of which is again open to grave doubt ; while the 

 student of exceptional ability might possibly be left in ignorance 

 of his own deficiencies, the average student would be liable 

 to lose the concentration of purpose and the orderly habits 

 which examinations undoubtedly inculcate ; such a student 

 would learn little about his subject and still less about its 

 methods. There is much to be said on both sides, but most 

 teachers will agree that on the whole the abolition of examina- 

 tions would lead to far greater harm than is caused by their 

 imposition ; in schools where the teaching is good there is 

 rarely much complaint on this account. But that examinations 

 can be improved is obvious ; the writer well remembers, indeed, 

 how Dr. Armstrong himself some fifteen years ago, when 

 examiner in this University (a position which it is difficult to 

 believe he sought as a " bold advertisement "), expressed 

 emphatically the opinion that examinations if conducted in a 

 scientific manner were by no means the artificial tests they were 

 currently reputed to be. And progress has steadily continued : 

 the elaboration of practical examinations ; the introduction 

 of questions involving a knowledge of laboratory work, and 

 therefore incapable of being crammed ; the allowing of a wider 

 latitude to candidates by means of a choice of questions — all 

 these have made examinations in science very different from 

 what they were when Dr. Armstrong taught medical students. 



