438 TRUMAN W. BROPHY 



these earnest followers of this calling felt that the time was 

 ripe for placing it among the scientific professions, and their 

 earnestness found expression in the organization of the first 

 dental college. This occurred in the city of Baltimore, and the 

 Baltimore college of dental surgery was the first college of 

 dentistry the world had seen. -^Speaking of this birth of the 

 profession, Dr. Shepard says, ''Let us not forget to hold in the 

 highest honor the devoted men who assisted at this great birth. 

 They are not the fathers of scientific dentistry. The primal 

 causes date further back; but their care, over-sight and official 

 administrations in guiding and assisting in the culmination 

 of evolutionary changes, at its critical period, was most credit^y 

 able. Like the great physician, they thought less of self than 

 of humanity. They brought into the world the good evangel 

 of dentistry, for previous to that time, knowledge and skill 

 were guarded and sold as private property, while that day 

 heralds the advent of good tidings to every man in search of 

 knowledge for the good of men. The dental aspirant before 

 that time, found every avenue to knowledge carefully defend- 

 ed. Knowledge could only be obtained in the private office 

 of a dentist, and the ambitious student was obliged to buy it, 

 frequently at fabulous prices, prohibitive to the majority." -v 

 To Drs. Chapin A. Harris and Horace H. Hayden, and 

 their associates in the organization of this first college of den- 

 tistry, the highest honor belongs. Here we have the beginning 

 of systematic dental education, and from this progress has 

 been rapid. The course of instruction during the first session 

 of this first dental college, covered the following subjects: 

 Theory and practice of dental surgery, theory and practice of 

 dental mechanism, dental pathology and therapeutics, anat- 

 omy and physiology. The student was required to attend two 

 courses of lectures of four months each before being considered 

 a candidate for graduation. Five years in dental practice, 

 or graduation in medicine, was considered the equivelant of 

 one course of lectures. In comparing these requirements for 

 graduation with those of dental colleges of to-day, one is duly 

 impressed with the great progress which has been made. The 

 educational qualifications of the candidate, for admission to 

 this first school of dentistry, were not considered. The simple 



