616 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 671 



than to one of the eastern colleges." If 

 the cost of attending our private and en- 

 dowed institutions is to go on increasing 

 the result inevitably will be that the larger 

 and richer these become the more inaccess- 

 ible will they be to the poor student who 

 has greatest need of such advantages as 

 they offer. I return to and emphasize this 

 point because it is not a theoretical criti- 

 cism, but an obvious fact. Our smaller 

 colleges deserve and should receive fuller 

 recognition and better support. Unless this 

 is accorded them they are sure to suffer 

 and the people to be the losers, but the ills 

 resulting from the increasing cost of higher 

 education may doubtless best be relieved by 

 the state and in the manner indicated. The 

 old objection to all this that we have doc- 

 tors and lawyers enough but need more 

 working people and servants, has been an- 

 swered too often to need notice now. The 

 law of supply and demand will take care 

 of all that and, in any event, no social 

 order can be lasting which seeks to per- 

 petuate itself by keeping a part of the 

 people down. 



But another reason aside from general 

 expediency why the state should undertake 

 the duty of providing technical and higher 

 education for the people may conveniently 

 be stated now. During recent years the 

 state has assumed "the right to regulate 

 many industries and most of the profes- 

 sions in the public interest. In so doing it 

 has incurred consequent responsibilities. 

 Industrjal independence is now held in 

 check by state control, and at no time has 

 the disposition to regulate trades and con- 

 trol corporations been so marked as at the 

 present. And so with the professions also. 

 The regulation of the practise of medicine 

 amounts in most states to absolute control. 

 The state sets the educational standard for 

 the student entering the medical school, 

 and it fixes the length and character of the 



course which he must pursue, and after his 

 graduation requires him to give evidence 

 of his competency by passing an examina- 

 tion before it confers upon him by license 

 the right to practise medicine. Infractions 

 or evasions of the medical laws are punish- 

 able by severe penalties and the control 

 exercised by the state over the practitioner 

 of medicine from the day of his entering 

 into the ranks as a student is supreme. 

 But, in raising the standard and regulating 

 the practise of medicine the state has as- 

 sumed new responsibilities and the time is 

 not far distant when it will be recognized 

 as its obvious duty to make adequate pro- 

 vision for the education of its people, not 

 in medicine alone, but in all the profes- 

 sions and many other occupations which it 

 regulates, or in which it has established 

 standards. This need in no way interfere 

 with private institutions any more than our 

 public schools interfere with private 

 academies at present. If the result of the 

 establishment by the state of high stand- 

 ards in medicine, for instance, is to increase 

 the cost of medical education so that the 

 doors of the schools must be closed to 

 many, then the duty of the state to make 

 provision for the education of such is ap- 

 parent. And this condition is approach- 

 ing. That many schools of good standing 

 and entire respectability continue to carry 

 on their work, as in the past, through the 

 income derived chiefly from tuition fees is 

 true, but it will be found upon investiga- 

 tion that these schools are possessed of cer- 

 tain advantages, as of position, established 

 reputation, or exemption from certaia 

 present restrictions, which account for 

 their continued existence. We are told by 

 some educational experts that it should cost 

 the medical school three or four times as 

 much to educate a student as it can reason- 

 ably demand from him in fees. In other 

 words it amounts to this— that no body of 



