LATIN MEDICAL STUDENT'S EDUCATION. 37 



of learning, especially in science, they should be 

 through with elementary studies at the age of fifteen. 

 That they may correctly estimate the worth of scien- 

 tific pursuits, they must cease to worship the Latin 

 fetish they must put a just value upon practical tal- 

 ents, and not hold the classics in superstitious rever- 

 ence. Fortunate is the man who possesses a jewel 

 a diamond but not unfortunate is he who does not 

 have the bauble." 



President Eliot, of Harvard University, has thrown 

 the weight of his great influence against a prolonged 

 classical course, reaching as it has in times past through 

 the four years curriculum. He would demand as much 

 Latin and Greek for entrance, but would reduce the 

 college career to three years, as in English universities, 

 and he would have undergraduates give more atten- 

 tion to science and modern languages. This is not 

 retrogressive nor revolutionary, but a concession to 

 the demands of the age. At present the utilitarian 

 idea is predominant the world wants practical me- 

 chanics, engineers, architects, and inventors. :f A prac- 

 tical electrician commands a higher salary to-day than 

 the professor of Latin and Greek in a renowned uni- 

 versity. The demand of the times is for successful 

 managers of great enterprises, and not for scholastic 

 pundits who can discuss profoundly the Metamor- 

 phoses of Ovid, declaring why, or why not, in should 

 be placed before media tutissimus ibis. A classical de- 

 cision in the case would be of little importance to the 

 projector of a transcontinental railway, or a line of 

 swift steamers to cross and recross the Pacific. Peo- 

 ple are not satisfied with old rates of speed they want 

 more efficient locomotives and faster running steam- 

 ships, and he is the lauded hero who, through invent- 



