November 29, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



731 



regarded as the expression of a personal 

 opinion rather than an official statement 

 from his school. The deans of two other 

 medical schools, Cornell and the Univer- 

 sity of Toronto, failed to respond to the 

 first letter, and in these two cases a second 

 letter was sent to selected professors, Dr. 

 James Ewing in the one case, and Dr. J. B. 

 Leathes in the other. 



Philadelphia, Pa., April 22, 1912 

 Dean of the Medical Department, 



Dear Sir: It is the contention of some of the 

 undergraduates of this school that certain care- 

 fully selected men should be given permission and 

 special privileges in the working out of research 

 problems. At the present, while post-graduate 

 research is favored in every way, undergraduates 

 are allowed no deviation from the regular cur- 

 riculum and little opportunity for original investi- 

 gation. Before any changes are made in the pres- 

 ent system it has been suggested that inquiry be 

 made into the status of undergraduate research 

 work in other schools. With this in view I have 

 prepared the accompanying list of questions, to 

 which I request the favor of a reply, together with 

 any further suggestions or comments which you 

 may care to make. 

 Thanking you, I am. 



Very truly yours, 



Cecil K. Deinkee, Chairman, 

 Mesearch Committee of the 

 Undergraduate Medical As- 

 sociation of the University 

 of Pennsylvania 



QUESTIONS 



1. Do you allow undergraduates to undertake 

 research in conjunction with their regular medical 

 work? 



2. Do you give such men any immunity from 

 work in their regular courses? 



3. How do you select men for such work — is it 

 done entirely by the department to which they 

 apply or do you have a faculty committee to deal 

 with such applications? 



4. Do you believe that the original work turned 

 out by these men justifies the time they have 

 taken from their course? 



5. Do you believe that the care your faculty has 

 taken to produce and further such work has re- 



sulted in your school turning out effective labora- 

 tory men in larger proportion than it would have 

 without such a policy? 



DISCUSSION OF THE FIVE QUESTIONS 

 First Question 

 Do you allow undergraduates to undertake orig- 

 inal research in conjunction with their regular 

 medical work? 



Seventeen colleges out of the twenty-five 

 give an affirmative answer to the first ques- 

 tion. They are: 



1. Albany Medical College. 



2. University and Bellevue Hospital and 



Medical College. 



3. University of California. 



4. University of Cincinnati. 



5. Cornell University. 



6. College of Physicians and Surgeons of 



Columbia University. 



7. Harvard University. 



8. Johns Hopkins University. 



9. University of Michigan. 



10. University of Minnesota. 



11. Northwestern University. 



12. Eush Medical College. 



13. Tulane University. 



14. University of Virginia. 



15. Washington University. 



16. Western Eeserve University. 



17. Tale University. 



Eight colleges answer in the negative. 

 They are: 



1. Atlanta College of Physicians and Sur- 



2. Jefferson Medical College (permits in the 



summer). 



3. McGill University. 



4. University of North Carolina. 



5. University of Pittsburgh. 



6. University of Tennessee. 



7. University of Texas (permits in the sum- 



mer). 



8. University of Toronto. 



Therefore, in all, seventeen schools per- 

 mit undergraduates to undertake research 

 and eight do not. If we classify all these 

 schools upon the basis selected by Mr. 

 Flexner in the first report of the Carnegie 



