116 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: v 



authority of tlic President of the College of Sur- 

 geons, Mr. Quain, whom I heard the other day in 

 an adniiral^le address (the Huntorian Oration) deal 

 fully and wisely with this very topic.* 



A young man commencing the study of medi- 

 cine is at once required to endeavour to make an 

 acquaintance with a number of sciences, such as 

 Physics, as Chemistry, as Botany, as Physiology, 

 which are absolutely and entirely strange to him, 

 however excellent his so-called education at school 

 may have been. Not only is he devoid of all ap- 

 prehension of scientific conceptions, not only does 

 he fail to attach any meaning to the words " mat- 



* Mr. Quain's words {Medical Times and Gazette, Feb- 

 nmry 20) are : — " A few words as to our special Medical 

 course of instruction and the influence upon it of such 

 changes in the elementary schools as I have mentioned. 

 The student now enters at once upon several sciences — 

 physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, botany, pharmacy, 

 therapeutics — all these, the facts and the langiiage and the 

 laws of each, to be mastered in eighteen months. V\\ to 

 the beginning of the Medical course many have learned lit- 

 tle. We cannot claim anything better than the Exatniner 

 of the University of Ijondon and the Cambridge Lecturer 

 have reported for their I'niversities. Sup{)0sing that at 

 school young people had acquired some exact elementary 

 knowledge in physics, chemistry, and a branch of natural 

 history — say botany — with the physiology connected with 

 it, they would then have gained necessary knowledge, with 

 some practice in inductive reasoning. The whole studies 

 are processes of observation and induction — the best dis- 

 cipline of the mind for the purposes of life — for our pur- 

 poses not less than any. ' By such study (says Dr. Whewell) 

 of one or more departments of inductive science the mind 

 may escape from the thraldom of mere words.' By that 

 plan the burden of the early ^Medical course would b»; much 

 lightened, and more time devoted to practical studies, in- 

 cluding Sir Thomas Watson's 'final and supreme stage' of 

 the knowledge of Medicine." 



