59 ON THE STUDY OF LATIN. 



continues to exist, the science of medicine can make no rapid pro- 

 gress, or, at all events, its progress will be greatly retarded. Surely 

 the study of medicine is sufficiently difficult without adding any 

 useless impediment to its acquisition. To suppose that rendering a 

 man a " walking dictionary" can assist the acquirement of any sci- 

 ence, is an opinion that no one who has impartially investigated the 

 subject can possibly hold. 



The days are, doubtless, fast approaching when what is now called 

 a " sound classical education" — rotten, I should be inclined to say — 

 will no longer be supposed to be indispensable for the Physician ; 

 and, in fact, we have already many signs of this. In the first 

 place, medical books are much less frequently written in Latin than 

 formerly, and neither lectures nor inaugural theses are any longer 

 delivered or written in that language. It is, also, now extremely 

 rare to see a work on Natural History in Latin, although, I am 

 sorry to say, that, in Transactions of Natural History Societies, 

 and in periodicals devoted to this delightful study, the scientific de- 

 scriptions of animals and plants are generally in the Latin tongue — 

 Latin it certainly is, but I would not vouch for the purity of the 

 language. Much complaint has been made, by classical scholars, of 

 the barbarous Latin used by Physicians and Naturalists ; and stu- 

 dents of these sciences have equal right to complain of the contents 

 of so many useful and interesting books being sealed to them. I 

 have lately seen, in the Derby Mercvry, that Apothecaries' boys 

 are now to have a '^ sound classical education" beaten into them. — 

 Leave, then, to the Apothecary's boy the ungainly task of poring 

 over the dusty records of by-gone ages, and let the Physician culti- 

 vate the far nobler and more useful studies of Science, Literature, 

 and the Fine Arts, and the modem Languages ; which last are va- 

 luable only as media Jbr obtaining knowledge, and must not be con- 

 founded with knowledge itself. The Musician is, I believe, more 

 free from the supposed necessity of learning Greek and Latin, than 

 any other cultivator of art or science. It may, however, perhaps 

 be urged that it is impossible to have " good taste," even in Music, 

 without learning — or rather studying, for they are seldom learnt— 

 the dead languages ! Perhaps, also, some very useful remarks for 



