344 STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION XIII 



mind and attention to the subject ; while at the 

 same time the medical schools at the hospitals 

 would remain what they ought to be great 

 institutions in which the largest possible oppor- 

 tunities are laid open for acquiring practical 

 acquaintance with the phenomena of disease. So 

 that the preliminary or earlier half of medical 

 education would take place in the central insti- 

 tutions, and the final half would be devoted 

 altogether to practical studies in the hospitals. 



I happen to know that this conception has been 

 entertained, not only by myself, but by a great 

 many of those persons who are most interested in 

 the improvement of medical study for a consider- 

 able number of years. I do not know whether 

 anything will come of it this half-century or not ; 

 but the thing has to be done. It is not a specula- 

 tive notion; it lies patent to everybody who is 

 accustomed to teaching, and knows what the 

 necessities of teaching are ; and I should very much 

 like to see the first step taken people making up 

 their minds that it has to be done somehow or 

 other. 



The last point to which I may advert is one 

 which concerns the action of the profession itself 

 more than anything else. We have arrangements 

 for teaching, we have arrangements for the testing 

 of qualifications, we have marvellous aids and 

 appliances for the treatment of disease in all sorts 

 of ways ; but I do not find in London at the present 



