A NATIONAL VETERINARY INSTITUTE. 393 



and in many instances irresponsible schools in each State — needs no 

 exercise of the imaginative power in order that we may study it in 

 all its bearings. It is more than amply illustrated by the condition 

 of medicine in this country at the present time. In 1876 we had 

 fifty-nine uncontrolled, chartered medical schools in this country. 

 In some States the executive powers were not content with charter- 

 ing one, but willingly increased the number conformably to the 

 pleasure of applicants : as, in New York State, there are seven ; in 

 Ohio, six ; and in the District of Columbia, one. But, not even 

 content with thus disgracing the science of medicine to a most mer- 

 cenary business, we find in some cities three or more schools, as is 

 shown by the following cutting from a daily paper : 



" The city of Chicago contains six medical schools — allopathic 

 and homoeopathic — and, according to the ' Times,' they turn out 

 graduates with greater rapidity, and of poorer quality, than any 

 other medical colleges yet known. No preliminary education is 

 absolutely required as a condition of admission. An attendance 

 upon two courses of lectures, each of twenty weeks, suffices in some 

 of them to secure a diploma, under which the holder is authorized 

 to begin practicing upon his fellow-citizens. The ' Times ' further 

 alleges that in some instances diplomas have been obtained for 

 money, or through the personal influence of friends who were on 

 good social terms with the professors." 



It is a very singular phenomenon, in a country the people of 

 which place so much stress upon the value of public schools, and 

 where the State controls them, and requires every child to have an 

 education, and where the quality and quantity of the education given 

 at schools of certain rank is guaranteed by the State, to see all re- 

 sponsibility avoided by the State, with reference to the academical 

 or collegiate education of our youth ; this lack of responsibility even 

 extends itself to the medical schools, whether connected with col- 

 leges or individual institutions. "While no very harmful results, 

 other than superficialness and snobbishness, have been brought for- 

 ward with reference to the universities and colleges from this neglect 

 on the part of the State, it is quite the contrary with reference to 

 the schools of medicine. As to the universities and colleges, it may 

 be truly asserted that, were they State institutions, strongly funded, 

 and free from the curse which is making America the laughing- 

 stock of nations — politics ; and were teachers appointed on their 

 merits, not on account of their connections, science would have been 

 much further developed than it is now. 



Some singular results may be observed to follow this neglect of 



