60 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in, 



praise would come too close to this locality. What has 

 struck me, then, in this long experience of the men best 

 instructed in physiology from the medical schools of 

 London, is (with the many and brilliant exceptions to 

 which I have referred), taking it as a whole, and broadly, 

 the singular unreality of their knowledge of physiology. 

 Now, I use that word " unreality " advisedly : I do not 

 say " scanty ; " on the contrary, there is plenty of it a 

 great deal too much of it but it is the quality, the 

 nature of the knowledge, which I quarrel with. I know 

 I used to have I. don't know whether I have now, but 

 I had once upon a time a bad reputation among 

 students for setting up a very high standard of acquire- 

 ment, and I dare say you may think that the standard 

 of this old examiner, who happily is now very nearly an 

 extinct examiner, has been pitched too high. Nothing 

 of the kind, I assure you. The defects I have noticed, 

 and the faults I have to find, arise entirely from the 

 circumstance that my standard is pitched too low. This 

 is no paradox, gentlemen, but quite simply the fact. 

 The knowledge I have looked for was a real, precise, 

 thorough, and practical knowledge of fundamentals ; 

 whereas that which the best of the candidates, in a large 

 proportion of cases, have had to give me was a large, 

 extensive, and inaccurate knowledge of superstructure ; 

 and that is what I mean by saying that my demands 

 went too low, and not too high. What I have had to 

 complain of is, that a large proportion of the gentlemen 

 who come up for physiology to the University of London 

 do not know it as they know their anatomy, and have 

 not been taught it as they have been taught their 

 anatomy. Now, I should not wonder at all if I heard 

 a great many " No, noes " here ; but I am not talking 

 about University College ; as I have told you before, 1 

 am talking about the average education of medical 



