Oct. lo, 1878] 



NATURE 



613 



but through intrigue these magnificent endowments have 

 been almost entirely filched from the purposes for which 

 they were meant,and the property which was thus consigned 

 to the tender mercies of the Churchy is now estimated to 

 produce yearly in each University over 300,000/, 



" For many years the_ faculties of law and medicine 

 struggled on in Oxford, growing weaker and more 

 neglected in each decade, until now, after 200 years of 

 this usurpation, there is not a single medical student in 

 the place. In Cambridge the story was very much the 

 same, excepting that there the degradation of the medical 

 faculty has never proceeded quite so far as it has at 

 Oxford, and medical studies are now, we have some 

 reason to hope, being resuscitated in that university by 

 the: strenuous efforts of Prof. Humphry and Dr. Michael 

 Foster." "We take a few instances frorn Mr. Lankester's 

 address: — At Oxford, shortly before the destruction of its 

 character as a university, the King, Henry the Eighth, 

 had founded a Regius Professorship of Medicine. The 

 office still exists, and is worth about 500/. a year, but the 

 present tenant of the office gives no lectures and has 

 no pupils. Linacre, the founder of the College of 

 Physicians of London, Mr. Lankester tells us, " left 

 to Merton College in Oxford (in the reign of Henry 

 the Eighth) a piece of land, the rental of which was 

 to pay a lecturer in medicine. Within 100 years the 

 office was abolished, and the money co^nyerted to the 

 private uses of the Fellows of the College. Confiding 

 benefactors came forward last century and put down their 

 money, in the hopes of promoting medical study in 

 Oxford. But they did not know — and at the present day 

 you cannot make people believe — how shameless and 

 unprincipled were the bodies to whom they entrusted their 

 money. Lord Lichfield bequeathed 200/. a year for the 

 reading of clinical lectures in the Radclifife Infirmary to 

 the students in medicine of the University. The office 

 is now held by the Regius Professor of Medicine, but no 

 lectures are given. About the same time, Matthew Lee 

 confided money to the care of the governing body of the 

 cathedral house of Christ Church, for the payment of a 

 teacher of human anatomy^ and, to byy subjects for his 

 demonstrations, but no such teaching is given ; the 

 money is applied to other purposes. Dr. George Aldrich, 

 in 1798, left 9,000/. for [similar purposes, but, at the 

 present day, th& bequest bears no fruitrforfhe benefit of 

 medicine." . u.j.;;...; 



These are only a few_ instances of the scandals con- 

 nected with the history and present condition of our great 

 universities, mainly owing to their complete subjection to 

 clerical influence. The colleges, instead of being lodging- 

 houses for poor students, as they were intended to be, were 

 converted into boarding-schools, into which the Fellows 

 received the sons of the landed gentry and wealthy 

 citizens as pupils, on condition of certain payments. To 

 quote Prof. Lankester : — 



"The fees demanded by the College-Fellows increased 

 at last to such an extent, and the expense of residing in 

 one of these boarding-houses became so great, that the 

 universities entirely ceased to be popular or national 

 institutions in function, though they were so in foundation. 

 They became the exclusive possession of the clergy and 

 the wealthy classes, and so they remain at the present 

 day. Long ago, students ceased to seek the lecture-rooms 

 of Oxford and Cambridge for the purpose of serious study 



or professional training. Whilst the Scotch farmer's lad 

 can earn enough in the fields during summer to keiep him 

 during a winter's session in the University of Glasgow or 

 Edinburgh, whilst all classes of the coriimunity contri- 

 bute to form the student-world of the German Universities, 

 Oxford and Cambridge, under the influence of clerical 

 domination, have become simply 'finishing schools for 

 young gentlemen' (I quote the words of Prof. Max 

 Miiller). Men of moderate means— that is to say, the 

 majority of our fellow-countrymen — now only go to 

 Oxford or to Cambridge with the view of sharing in the 

 scholarships and fellowships, which are annually distri- 

 buted there by competitive examination. Tn their whole 

 tenour, purpose, and being, these places are as different 

 as they possibly can be from their quoiidain sisters ^e 

 universities of Germany." . " - ' 



What Prof. Lankester insists upon is the establish- 

 ment of a fully-developed and amply-endowed Medical 

 Faculty in both Cambridge and in Oxford, and, still 

 further, the establishment of one or two such faculties 

 in London. We are glad to think that there is an imme- 

 diate prospect of a great development of the Medical 

 Faculty at Cambridge, where already experimental physi- 

 ology, human anotomy, and clinical medicine are taught 

 and prosecuted with energy. There is indeed some 

 prospect that in the course of years, when men with a 

 better spirit have sway in both universities, they will 

 be brought to fulfil all the functions for which they, 

 were originally established ; and we trust that Prof. Lan- 

 kester's address may act as the little leaven in the minds 

 of all who heard or may read it, and that gradually not 

 only professional men but the constituencies generally 

 Avill wake up to a realisation of the immense benefits 

 which are the nation's birthright, but from the enjoyment 

 of which it has for so long been barred. ." 



Prof. Lankester then urges that one, or at most two, 

 medical faculties should be established under the Uni- 

 versity of London. 



" In this way," he concludesj "we might have ia 

 London, each provided with ample laboratory, rhuseum, 

 and assistants, two professors of physiology, one oi' 

 surgical anatomy, one of comparative anatomy, one of 

 embryology, one of botany, one of pathological anatomy, 

 one of pharmacology, one of hygiene, one of forensic 

 medicine, two of chemistry,^ one of experimental physics, 

 and others of the history and practice of medicine, of 

 surgery, of midwifery, and of psychiatry. The main- 

 tenance of such a staff, with their laboratories and assistr' 

 ants, would require an endowment of 20,000/. a year, 

 whilst 100,000/. would have to be sunk in providing the 

 necessary buildings. This proposition appears Utopian, 

 but all I have to say further in defence of it is this, that 

 in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, and other continental cities 

 the thing is done, and on a more costly scale than I have 

 here suggested. J 



" When such medical faculties as I ha.ve 'sketched to 

 you exist in Oxford and in London, fingfand will have 

 begun to do her duty by the great profession of med.icine. 

 Until then we are but hangers-on of foreign nations; 

 until then we reap where we did not sow, we gather 

 where we did not straw. Until that time I earnestly beg 

 every man who enters on a medical career to remember 

 that he is joining the cause of a profession deprived of 

 its heritage, and to make it his business to reinstate 

 medicine in her seat, and to secure the restitution of he^ 

 possessions." 



Prof. Lankester is not only Professor of Zoology ^t 

 University College, but a Fellow of Exeter College, 

 Oxford : so that he speaks with full knowledge, and 



