THE SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 301 



7. Must have means enough to pay the expenses of their educa- 

 tion. 



The school supplies sleeping apartments for quite a number of 

 students, and residence for a number of the teachers. It is fitted up 

 with the auxiliaries to instruction, the same as other schools, but the 

 collections of skeletons and specimens in the anatomical department 

 are wonderfully large for so small an institute. The course of study 

 was at first fixed at one year, many students, however, remaining 

 over one, two, or even three sessions, themselves seeing the necessity 

 of a more complete education. In this regard, it may be well re- 

 marked that the first year in any medical school can do nothing 

 more than introduce a student to his work ; and if, at the end of a 

 four-years' course, he has progressed so far as to get a general view 

 of the field before him, and has himself really learned how to study , 

 how to select the chaff from the wheat, he may consider himself as 

 among the few who enter in at the strait gate which leadeth unto 

 knowledge. All this talk about " completing an education," or " he 

 has a complete education," with reference to graduates from schools, 

 simply shows the ignorance of the speaker; for, as I have pre- 

 viously said, it is only the Yirchows, the Franklins, the Darwins, 

 and Hallers among men who get so far as to obtain firm hold of 

 the keys which are to unlock to them the treasury of knowledge 

 in the future, but not without untiring work and unceasing self-sac- 

 rifice, however. The rest never even get hold of the keys ; they are 

 and always remain pettifoggers, dabblers, or mere routiners and fol- 

 lowers in the path of the true lights which lead on to the perfect 

 day. 



The example of the students finally led to an increase of the 

 term of study to two years, after a lapse of twenty-five years from 

 the opening of the school. 



The school had at first four professors (a vast improvement 

 over that at Hanover, which at first had but one, and for a long 

 time but two) and a teacher of horseshoeing. The course begins 

 every year on the 16th of October and ends the 31st of August the 

 following year. Yacations come at Christmas and Easter, but such 

 a number of students must always remain at the school as is requi- 

 site to attend to the patients in the hospital. The library contains 

 2,128 books, and is open to the students under certain regulations, 

 which are very easy to comply with : " They can keep a book out 

 for four weeks at a time, and are allowed all books except such as 

 are very rare or costly, which can only be used in the rooms of 

 the library." 



