534 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 930 



tors those individuals alone who can fit the 

 hoppers and cogs of the machine — to do 

 these things is to take away all proper sig- 

 nificance from education. 



The more I consider it the more I am 

 convinced that our personal duty to the in- 

 dividual student is our fundamental duty. 

 If we can do right by the individual stu- 

 dent, we shall do right to the other colleges 

 and to the state. If we do right by the in- 

 dividual student, we shall see that his obli- 

 gations are met; that his deficiencies are 

 made good; that he is protected from his 

 own misdirected inclinations; that he is 

 kept, if need be, from a profession for 

 which he is not fitted. I propose, therefore, 

 to discuss the subject assigned to me from 

 the standpoint of the individual student. 



I would strongly emphasize that my 

 argument is not to favor lower standards. 

 The poor-boy story and the easy pathways 

 to practise do not appeal to me. Any one who 

 draws from my expressions regarding the 

 role of rules and regulations the conclusion 

 that I favor the removal of the safeguards 

 to medical practise wilfully reads into 

 them what is not there. On the contrary, I 

 believe that the efficient judgment of the 

 individual case, whether by entrance ex- 

 aminer or faculty or state board or all 

 three of these, would constitute the best 

 possible safeguard and one which ought to 

 be added to the regulations and examina- 

 tions, which at present constitute the chief 

 protection against the inefficient and un- 

 prepared. 



Strictly speaking, there is no such thing 

 as equality. Variation holds everywhere 

 in the social world, as it does in the ani- 

 mal and plant world. Every case is an in- 

 dividual case. Education will reach its 

 highest when it becomes individual. 



The individual student is not the student 

 en masse nor the average student. The in- 

 dividual student means individual consid- 



eration. He means the breaking loose from 

 rules and the consideration of pertinent 

 facts. He means the application of prin- 

 ciples rather than formulas. He is a diffi- 

 cult problem not to be solved by engineer- 

 ing handbook nor plotted in two dimen- 

 sions. 



I am provoked just here to the further 

 platitude that we have in our political and 

 social life, as in education, too many rules, 

 too many laws, regulations, prohibitions. 

 (I suppose this is because we are so infer- 

 nally human that we can not be trusted to 

 apply the Golden Rule, which our chair- 

 man rightly considers our standard.) At 

 the same time that we are burdened with 

 laws we have no adequate mechanism for 

 securing justice to the individual. This is 

 true in every relation of life. 



Let us glance for a moment at the legal 

 restrictions placed upon medical education. 

 The law compels every man who desires to 

 enter the medical profession to attend four 

 sessions in a medical school. It takes no 

 cognizance of the fact, recognized, I am 

 sure, by every man here, that some men 

 would be competent in three years, more 

 competent, in fact, than others in thirty 

 years. 



The law provides that the four sessions 

 shall be in four separate calendar years and 

 disregards the fact that some students 

 could work to advantage eleven or twelve 

 instead of eight or nine months in a year. 

 Why should the law permit the doctor to 

 practise twelve months in a year but allow 

 him to study only eight or nine? 



The laws- do not permit that any time 

 credit be given for attendance in a college 

 of arts or science, yet in particular cases 

 the Avork done there is better than that of 

 some medical schools. 



- True of most states. The laws of a few states 

 still permit graduates in arts or science to obtain 

 the M.D. in three years. 



