Apbil 1, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



483 



figurement, the restoration of comeliness, 

 the prevention of disease, the correction of 

 deformities and of defective speech and, 

 above all, the boon of surgical anesthesia 

 given to humanity by dentistry, surely no 

 one can doubt its importance and utility 

 as a department of the great science and 

 art of healing. 



In its technical procedures and its artis- 

 tic craftsmanship dentistry has acquitted 

 itself so creditably that the flexibility of 

 its technical resourcefulness has become 

 proverbial, yet to such an extent has the 

 attention of the dental profession been 

 focused upon the material side of its 

 progress that we have failed, I fear, in no 

 small degree, to grasp its larger possibili- 

 ties and to appreciate the importance of 

 those factors of professional life upon 

 which a higher attainment, a greater useful- 

 ness to humanity and a wholesome self- 

 respect depend. 



As a counter influence to this concentra- 

 tion of attention upon the material fea- 

 tures of dental practise with its commer- 

 cializing tendencies there is needed above 

 all things an aggTessive propaganda of 

 education the objective purpose of which 

 shall be the development of that type of 

 culture which is expressed as professional 

 character. In making this statement I 

 fully realize that I am simply rephrasing 

 a belief which has been frequently ex- 

 pressed before, but because of that very 

 fact it is all the more evident that it repre- 

 sents a condition broadly recognized both 

 within and without the limits of the dental 

 profession. 



A tendency to indifference toward those 

 things which make for professional char- 

 acter has subjected us of the dental pro- 

 fession to not infrequent criticism, and 

 some who recognize the condition without 

 investigation of the cause are inclined to 

 place the responsibility directly upon our 



dental educational institutions. That our 

 dental colleges should become the target 

 for criticism of that character is not un- 

 natural, nor do I think that it is altogether 

 unmerited. 



As the seed ground for the development 

 of professional skill and qualification 

 through training and technical education, 

 so also the colleges of dentistry should be 

 the nurseries of professional character and 

 culture. I take it for granted that there 

 can be no dissension as to the general truth 

 of that question, nor do I think that there 

 can be any real doubt as to the fact that 

 while we have given much attention to his 

 technical education at all points, there has 

 not been given proportionate attention to 

 the cultural features of our educational 

 system in the preparation of the student 

 for his professional life. 



It is in his college course and because of 

 his college course that the student acquires 

 and later manifests as a practitioner that 

 tendency to concentrate his attention upon 

 the material features of his work which I 

 have before referred to as a professional 

 attribute which gives rise to adverse criti- 

 cism and creates the demand for a broader 

 training for the dentist, less narrowing 

 and commercializing in its tendency. 



The general answer of our dental educa- 

 tional institutions to this kind of criticism 

 is that they are purely technical schools, 

 that they are compelled to deal with the ma- 

 terial delivered to them by the preparatory 

 schools, that defects in intellectual culture 

 are chargeable to faulty preparation, that 

 the business of the dental college is to teach 

 dentistry, not to develop culture. This 

 defensive attitude is only partially true, for 

 while we may concede that the preliminary 

 education of the dental student should have 

 done much to broaden his mind and to 

 have aroused to activity in him those intel- 

 lectual attributes which later become fixed 



