230 ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CHEMICAL 



years' instruction in the various branches of knowledge 

 bearing on their important calling. I would point out 

 that this function of a University is professedly a technical 

 one : the training of medical men. True, many researches 

 have been made by the eminent men who have held 

 chairs in this Faculty ; but that is not the primary duty 

 of such men ; their duty is to train others to exercise a 

 profession. If they advance their subject in doing so, so 

 much the better ; it increases the fame of the school, it 

 imparts enthusiasm to their students, and in many cases 

 their discoveries have been of unspeakable benefit to the 

 human race. In a certain sense, every medical man is an 

 investigator ; the first essential is that he shall be able to 

 make a correct diagnosis ; the next, that he shall prescribe 

 correct treatment. But novelty is not essential ; few men 

 evolve new surgical operations or introduce new remedies; 

 and though we have in the past had not a few such, they 

 are not essential for a successful medical school, the object 

 of which is to train good practical working physicians and 

 surgeons. The teaching staff of the Medical Faculty must 

 of necessity be almost all engaged in practice, and, indeed, 

 it would be unfortunate for their students if they were 

 merely theoretical teachers. Let me recapitulate my 

 point: the Medical Faculty is essentially a technical 

 Faculty ; the hospital is its workshop. 



In England, of recent years, schools of engineering 

 have been attached to the Universities. Abroad and in 

 America they are separate establishments, and are some- 

 times attached to large engineering works, where the 

 pupils pursue their theoretical and practical studies 

 together, taking the former in the morning, the latter in 

 the afternoon. Here again the subject is a professional 

 one. The object of the student is to become a practical 

 engineer, and all his work is necessarily directed to that 

 end. Like other workers in different fields, his aim is the 



