TKESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 921 



chief occupation of after-life, it should not occupy more than part of a well- 

 ordered course of school-study. The chemist or physiologist often requires to 

 express his own meaning by speech or writing ; it will be highly advantageous 

 that he should express it clearly and vigorously. He must get effective command 

 of at least one foreign language. He ought to know enough mathematics and 

 drawing to make his own calculations and sketches. He ought to have learned 

 how to use books. Spencer does not exclude literature and the fine arts from 

 education, but in his scheme they are not to claim very much. 'As they occupy 

 the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education.' 



I do not suppose for a moment that this passage was written with the inten- 

 tion of pouring contempt upon literature, and it is really appropriate to the 

 current fiction which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, but what 

 insensibility to the claims of the higher literature it betrays! ' On traite volon- 

 tiers d'inutile,' says Fontenelle, 'ce qu'on ne salt point"^; c'est une espece de 

 vengeance.' ' 



These considerations move me to reject Spencer's verdict. There is not, and 

 cannot be, a scale of usefulness by which everybody's choice can be at once deter- 

 mined. Before deciding what the schoolboy is to study we must inquire what are 

 his aptitudes, inclinations, and opportunities. And the importance of science, 

 which I do not think Spencer has exaggerated, will be fully recognised when 

 every nation and city, every profession and trade, every person and interest, can 

 be guided as often as need arises, not by their own scientific judgment but by the 

 judgment of scientific experts. 



Preliminary Scientific Medical Studies. 



Everyone agrees, in the abstract, that scientific information, the heap of 

 scientific facts, is a small matter in comparison with scientific method and the 

 scientific spirit. We do not, it is true, give effect to our convictions in practice. 

 The teacher of .science still loads the memory with facts; the examiner in 

 science still passes or ploughs according to the quantity of facts that the candi- 

 dates have got up. It requires an effort to keep hopeful, but we must go on 

 steadily pointing out what we take to be the right way. The reformers of science- 

 teaching are now bent upon such improvements as these: they wish to see a 

 greatly improved synthesis of the student's knowledge, so that the things that he 

 learns in one place and from one teacher should be intimately combined with what 

 he learns in another place and from another teacher. Further, they wish to see a 

 large extension of personal inquiry and personal verification of the fundamental 

 scientific facts. It is thus, we think, that the future man of science will become 

 ])ossessed of a compact and harmonious body of useful knowledge, which may in 

 favourable cases incorporate with itself the experience of after-life, and exhibit 

 the incomparable virtue of healthy natural growth. 



I will continue the discussion a little further with reference to the great 

 problem of the scientific education of the medical practitioner, which has occupied 

 the attention of the scientific world during the whole time of my long professor- 

 .ship, and still seems far from permanent settlement. Medicine is at present our 

 one great scientific profession. It brings science into the daily life of every one of 

 us, and employs it for the protection of some of our dearest interests. Tlie scien- 

 tific basis of medical knowledge should be sound, compact, well-mastered, and, if 

 possible, productive. I will go on to consider what it actually is, forming my 

 opinion upon thirty years of experience in teaching elementary science to medical 

 students. 



Let me begin by making a concession to those who think that things are pretty 

 well as they are. Remembering distinctly what the medical student was thirty 

 years ago and more, I find that the first-year's university student of medicine at 

 the present day is in all respects a better man, more serious, more enlightened, 

 more capable. I find too that his preliminary scientific course seems to do him 

 real good. It is far from perfect, but it is a great improvement upon anything 



' Dr. Diincan'.<j Lift- furnishes proof of tjie sljghtness of Spenccj's obligations to 

 Utemtwre. 



