IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 249 



masters of their craft, men who can truly do that 

 which they profess to be able to do, and which they 

 are credited with being able to do by the public. 

 And there is no position so ignoble as that of 

 the so-called " liberally-educated practitioner," 

 who may be able to read Galen in the original; 

 who knows all the plants, from the cedar of 

 Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall ; but who 

 finds himself, with the issues of life and death 

 in his hands, ignorant, blundering, and be- 

 wildered, because of his ignorance of the essential 

 and fundamental truths upon which practice 

 must be based. Moreover, I venture to say, that 

 any man who has seriously studied all the 

 essential branches of medical knowledge; who 

 has the needful acquaintance with the elements 

 of physical science ; who has been brought by 

 medical jurisprudence into contact with law; 

 whose study of insanity has taken him into the 

 fields of psychology ; has ipso facto received a 

 liberal education. 



Having lightened the medical curriculum by 

 culling out of it everything which is unessential, 

 we may next consider whether something may not 

 be done to aid the medical student toward the 

 acquirement of real knowledge by modifying the 

 system of examination. In England, within my 

 recollection, it was the practice to require of the 

 medical student attendance on lectures upon the 

 most diverse topics during three years ; so that it 



