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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. lOiO 



PRINCIPLE OF RESEARCH 



The principle of research is very impor- 

 tant in curriculum building. I do not ad- 

 vocate research with the idea that we 

 should announce a great discovery every 

 few minutes. I advocate it as supplying 

 the proper atmosphere for teaching. The 

 fixed curriculum segregates a certain por- 

 tion of knowledge and teaches it as law and 

 gospel. The student is like a red corpuscle 

 confined by the vessel walls to a definite 

 circuit. If the teacher has research inter- 

 ests, he carries them alone. His students 

 can not follow him. The elastic curriculum 

 permits the capable student to put out an 

 occasional pseudopod and make little ex- 

 cursions with his teacher into the unknown. 

 This can not help but react upon both stu- 

 dent and teacher; and most important of 

 all, on the spirit of the school. If time and 

 opportunity for research are to be offered 

 even to the exceptional student, it means 

 that the electives can not be confined to the 

 last year, as at Harvard, nor to one semester, 

 as in some other schools. The free time 

 should be scattered through the course, at 

 least beginning with the sophomore year. I 

 sometimes hear that the sophomore does not 

 know enough to select any of his work. I 

 can not agree. The sophomore in most of 

 our medical schools is a junior or senior in 

 the college of arts. He is a university man. 

 He should be responsible. He should be 

 thinking about what he is doing. The nur- 

 sing bottle should be taken away, and he 

 should choose and masticate his own food. 

 Not many will nibble at research, but the 

 aroma of it may well permeate the whole 

 pantry. It will improve the taste of all 

 the other food. 



PRINCIPLE OF SPECIALIZATION 



The principle of specialization may be 

 ■given some attention. While every medi- 

 cal student should have the fundamental 



training of a general practitioner and while 

 most of the elective courses will naturally 

 be adapted to strengthen the student's gen- 

 eral grasp, there is no objection, in my 

 opinion, to a moderate extension of special- 

 istic instruction. There are very few stu- 

 dents who would care to move far along a 

 specialty in their undergraduate course, 

 and the dean or students' work committee 

 should have power to prevent an abuse of 

 this principle by limiting election in the 

 specialties when such election would be 

 likely to prejudice a student's general 

 training. 



PRINCIPLE OF UNEQUAL PROGRESS 



Finally, regard for the differences and 

 inequalities among students should make 

 us consider their inequality of progress: 

 the principle of unequal velocity, if you 

 will. Some students by physical constitution 

 and mental make-up are calculated to go 

 forward more rapidly than others, who, be- 

 ing built on the "slow and careful" plan, 

 may in the end be just as good doctors. 

 Our arrangement of students into definite 

 classes and a four years' required attend- 

 ance is the worst possible condition for the 

 extra bright man, whom it tempts to lazi- 

 ness, and for the slow man, whom it pushes 

 beyond his powers. In my opinion stu- 

 dents should be received at any time when 

 a workable program can be arranged for 

 them, and graduated at the end of any sem- 

 ester or summer term when they may have 

 completed the requirements. Our extra 

 intern year at Minnesota, as part of the re- 

 quirement for the degree and consequently 

 of attendance, will, I think, allow us to 

 work this plan without running counter to 

 the four-year rule of the state laws. The 

 class system is a pernicious artificiality in 

 education and should be done away with in 

 professional education, if not more widely. 

 So should the four-months' required vaca- 



