950 
The correctness of this statement may be 
easily demonstrated. 
If one examines courses in the same sub- 
ject in a number of schools it is found that 
those which are best presented are under 
the control of men actively engaged in re- 
search work. Such men are alive to the 
advantages of new methods in their own 
subject and of new ways of applying old 
methods. Ever thinking and pondering 
about new methods of acquiring knowledge 
for themselves and their science, they ap- 
preciate better than does the non-investiga- 
tor, that which will aid the student to ac- 
quire knowledge, and in their teaching they 
bring to bear on the problems which the 
student has to face the same methods of 
attack which they use in their own re- 
searches. On the other hand, one finds the 
men who never or only occasionally con- 
tribute to the literature of their science are 
the men who confine their teaching to per- 
functory routine courses, with a profusion 
of lectures, and who never bring the spirit 
or methods of the investigator into their 
teaching. So, likewise, it is with the stu- 
dent taught under these two conditions. 
The student who knows that he is working 
in a department actively emphasizing new 
methods and striving to develop new truths, 
knows that his instruction is presented in 
the spirit of the department, and thus re- 
ceives that stimulus and inspiration which 
insures his approaching clinical medicine 
with a proper appreciation of the scientific 
method. The student under the method of 
the non-investigator, on the contrary, has 
no incentive other than that of acquir- 
ing a knowledge sufficient to allow him to 
pass an examination. 
An allied argument lies in the fact that 
the medical school that fosters research at- 
‘tracts the best-trained men as students. 
We have, as is well known to many of you, 
a medical school in this country which has, 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No, 912. 
for several years, arbitrarily selected from 
a large number of prospective matriculants 
the certain definite number which it de- 
sires; the rest, sometimes nearly fifty per 
cent. of those accepted, go elsewhere. Now 
this school has the highest requirements 
and perhaps the smallest alumni body of 
any prominent school in the country. It is 
not, therefore, a question of easy entrance 
or of the loyal influence of alumni, nor is it 
a question of better laboratory and hospital 
facilities, for other schools have equally 
good equipment in both respects. Likewise 
it is not a question of geographic location 
or center of population. The enviable posi- 
tion of this school is due solely to the policy 
of combining research with teaching and of 
appointing to its staff teachers who, with 
few exceptions, are also investigators. 
As to the duty of the university to the 
community in the matter of research, there 
can be only one opinion. If the purpose of 
the machinery of medical education is to 
“pring healing to the nations,’’ if the busi- 
ness of medicine is to ‘‘get people out of 
difficulties through the application of sci- 
ence and dexterity, manual and physical”’ 
(Cabot), then it is the duty of the univer- 
sity not only to teach known principles and 
methods, but to advance knowledge and 
methods by research. 
It is futile to say that it is sufficient to 
teach and to utilize known methods of 
freeing people from difficulties, for the 
mere statement of such an attitude implies 
that an obligation exists to extend known 
methods, or to invent new ones, in the hope 
of overcoming difficulties acknowledged to 
be at present without remedy. The ethical 
force of this statement can not be denied. 
To teach a subject implies the attempt to 
diffuse the available knowledge of that par- 
ticular subject matter among a number of 
people for their good, as well as for the 
good of the community in which they live 
