THE REFORM OF THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM 669 



with entire equanimity by most schoolboys. Under the present 

 external system — although only a few fail to pass who are 

 thoroughly well trained and deserve to succeed, through bad 

 luck in meeting with unfamiliar questions or nervousness — 

 many get through who have no right to pass, being merely 

 crammed for the occasion. 



The introduction of the internal system is, in my opinion, 

 the one step of importance taken since the reconstitution of 

 the University — and it was forced on the University by the 

 Schools. 



In the course of a speech which he delivered last year, as 

 Chairman, at a dinner of the Graduates Association — which 

 has been printed and widely circulated — the present Vice- 

 Chancellor of the University said that the Association "agreed 

 with Lord Derby in distrusting the teacher as the examiner 

 for degree examinations and does not approve the adoption 

 of degree examinations to fit the teaching of a particular 

 college or Professor." Such a libellous aspersion of the teacher 

 can only be met with the contempt it deserves — but the state- 

 ment embodies popular doctrine and until teachers are held 

 to be above such suspicion there can be little improvement of 

 their position. The members of the Association who are 

 teachers might well consider whether in thus casting doubt on 

 the honesty of their class, the Chairman is rendering them a 

 service — whether after all they are not catspaws in an agitation 

 which has but commercial ends in view. The narrowness of 

 liberal opinion is too well known to require elucidation and 

 the general tendency to jump at conclusions is well known : 

 but before giving vent to such utterance, the Vice-Chancellor 

 might well have paused to consider whether he and his friends. 

 Lord Derby included, have been in the possession of the 

 knowledge necessary to the formation of a valid opinion. 

 Dr. Wade has described the teaching of my early days as 

 " absolutely destructive of the scientific spirit " — as I had the 

 privilege of numbering the Vice-Chancellor among my pupils, 

 it may be that I am in part responsible for his lack of 

 scientific acumen. But I cannot help thinking that the 

 experience he has had since coming into office and the more 

 intimate knowledge he has gained of the University under 

 somewhat modernised conditions— far removed though these 



43 



