16 UTILITARIAN SCIENCES 



have been lengthened, higher preparation for entrance has been 

 exacted, though in almost all our schools these requirements are 

 still far too low, and a more active and original type of teacher 

 has been in demand. Even yet, so far as medical instruction is 

 concerned, the hopeful signjs to be found in progress rather than 

 in achievement. A college course, having as its major subjects 

 the sciences fundamental to medicine, is not too much to exact of 

 a student who aspires to be a physician worthy of our times and of 

 the degree of our universities. First-hand knowledge of real things 

 should be the keynote of all scientific instruction. "Far more 

 effort is now made," writes a correspondent, "in both the prepara- 

 tory and the clinical branches to give the student a first-hand know- 

 ledge of his subject. This tendency has still a long way to travel 

 before it is in danger of being overdone. The practical result of this 

 tendency is that the cost of education per student is greatly in- 

 creased and the profits of purely commercial schools are thereby 

 threatened. This forms, doubtless, the main source of the objec- 

 tion made by the weaker and less worthy schools to better methods 

 of instruction. We need well-endowed schools of medicine that may 

 carry on their work unhampered by the necessities of a commercial 

 venture. Medical schools now exist in great numbers, many 

 of them cannot keep up with modern requirements, and necessa- 

 rily their salvation lies in antagonizing everything in the nature 

 of more ample and more expensive training." 



Another correspondent writes, emphasizing the value of biologic 

 studies: "The final comprehension of bodily activity in health and 

 disease depends on knowledge of living things from ovum to birth, 

 from birth to maturity, and from maturity to old age and death. 

 Anything less than such fundamental knowledge requires constant 

 guessing to fill up the gaps, and guesses are nearly always wrong." 



In many regards, even our best schools of medicine seem to show 

 serious deficiencies. The teaching of anatomy is still one of the 

 most costly, as well as least satisfactory, of our lines of work. A 

 correspondent calls attention to the fact that in making anatomy 

 "practical" in our medical schools, " we expended last year $750,000 

 in the United States, twice the amount expended in Germany, 

 with as a result neither practical anatomy nor scientific achieve- 

 ment." "Anatomy," he continues, "should be made distinctly a 

 university department, on a basis similar to that of physics and 

 chemistry. Unfortunately, university presidents still stand much in 

 the way of the development of anatomy, for many of them seem to 

 think that almost any one who wears the gown is good enough 

 to become a professor of anatomy. Repeatedly have I witnessed 

 the appointment of a know-nothing when a recognized young man 

 might have been had for half the money." Our forces are dissipated, 



