NOVEMBEB 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



623 



school, and actions which might be con- 

 doned on a college campus become, if trans- 

 ferred to a medical school, merely disorder- 

 ly acts, the perpetrators of which render 

 themselves not only nuisances but liable to 

 arrest for breach of the peace. I can not 

 put this matter too strongly, and yet I do 

 not wish to lay down any particular rules 

 to govern your future conduct here. The 

 whole matter lies in a nutshell. You are 

 men, and have come here to associate your- 

 selves with men engaged in the pursuit of 

 knowledge whose desire it is to assist you 

 in your work. They assume that your 

 habits are fairly well formed, and that you 

 are competent to enter upon the work 

 which you have undertaken. They are 

 willing to counsel and aid you, as friend 

 may aid friend, but they do not desire to 

 take the place of parent or guardian, and 

 do not think that they should be held in 

 any way responsible for your deportment. 

 They stand upon no exalted pedestals and 

 are neither omniscient nor oracular in their 

 deliverances, and they expect from you 

 only the courtesy which they are ready to 

 render to you. That you are medical stu- 

 dents then imposes new responsibilities and 

 confers new dignities, but gives no license 

 to disregard the ordinary rules of behavior 

 which need no formal statement among 

 gentlemen. Should there be any one here 

 who has not appreciated this fact before 

 and who is beginning his course under a 

 misapprehension I beg him to revise his 

 thinking that he may see things in their 

 right relations to-day. The medical school 

 is no place for boys and boyishness, and 

 the medical student of to-day should no 

 more conform to the Bob Sawyer type than 

 our trained nurses do to those of the Sarah 

 Gamp pattern. 



Now this does not mean that there should 

 be no relaxation at proper times, nor that 

 all manifestations of class feeling and col- 



lege spirit are necessarily out of place. 

 Men who are closely associated for consid- 

 erable periods of time naturally form at- 

 tachments and such association engenders 

 a kind of esprit de corps, but among men 

 this should not find expression in boyish 

 acts, and when it is manifested in buffoon- 

 ery, lawlessness and physical conflicts the 

 perpetrators of such acts become trouble- 

 some and disturbing elements. Our col- 

 leges are responsible for much of this law- 

 lessness, for they too f reqiiently condone 

 where they should condemn, and they have 

 been slow to reprove much which they 

 might well have repressed, but from the 

 man who has entered the professional 

 school better things are expected, and if he 

 falls short in his behavior he will find no 

 indulgent apologists to hold him blameless. 

 Now, it may not seem very gracious in 

 me to take advantage of the opportunity 

 which this occasion presents to utter either 

 warnings or complaints in seeming advance 

 of any need of them, but the sincerity of 

 the interest which I feel in your welfare 

 prompts me to this frank speaking. Too 

 many men who began their course with us 

 last year made utter failure and find them- 

 selves again at the starting point, and for 

 this reason, I believe, that they entirely 

 misunderstood their position here. If I 

 can save any one man from such lamentable 

 failure I shall feel well satisfied to have put 

 plain speaking in place of pleasant phrases 

 and meaningless generalities. I can hardly 

 suppose any one of you to be so short- 

 sighted, but if any one is here to please 

 parents or friends, to pass the time, or to 

 secure an ornamental degree, he will find 

 himself out of his element in such a school 

 as this. Assuming, however, that you are 

 here with good reason and honest purpose, 

 what can be more evident than that you 

 should cooperate with your teachers in all 

 ways that you may secure to yourselves the 



