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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1021 



Eiver based on the 1866 yield as 100 per cent. 

 The comparative yields of each crop, consid- 

 ering the 1866 crop as 100 per cent., were 

 calculated. These percentages were weighted 

 according to the area planted to the crop in 

 order to secure a percentage representing the 

 yield of that year. G. F. Wakren 



Cornell University 



STANFOBD UNIVEBSITT MEDICAL SCHOOL 

 Dr. Victor 0. Vaughan, dean of the de- 

 partment of medicine and surgery of the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, has made, under date of 

 June 9, 1914, the following report to Dr. J. 0. 

 Branner, president of Leland Stanford Junior 

 UniTersity : 



In compliance with your telegraphic request I 

 have visited Palo Alto and San Francisco and in- 

 spected the libraries, laboratories and hospitals of 

 Stanford University. The laboratories of chem- 

 istry (general, physical, inorganic, organic and 

 physiological), biology, histology, neurology and 

 physiology are well housed, adequately equipped 

 and exceptionally well manned. In all these, high 

 grade work is being done. The laboratories of 

 bacteriology and anatomy need better housing and 

 I understand that this is to be provided in the near 

 future. But in the buildings now occupied, most 

 excellent work is being done. In fact each of the 

 scientific departments at Stanford is under the di- 

 rection of an eminent man supplied with able and 

 enthusiastic assistants and with necessary equip- 

 ment. There is abundant evidence even in a hasty 

 inspection that the appropriations have been eco- 

 nomically and wisely expended and that good 

 work is being done both in instruction and in re- 

 search. I wish to compliment the trustees and 

 president upon the evident wisdom which they have 

 displayed in the development of these departments 

 of the university. What I have said of the scien- 

 tific branches is equally true of the other depart- 

 ments of Stanford University. Although one of the 

 youngest of the higher institutions of learning in 

 this country Stanford ranks as one of the best in 

 all departments, both scientific and humanistic. 

 In all branches it represents the highest aims and 

 ideals. While I am not fitted to express anything 

 more than a general opinion as to other than scien- 

 tific education I wish to emphasize the fact that 

 all learning is one and the same spirit should per- 

 vade the whole. This I believe to be true at Stan- 



ford. It furnishes a wholesome atmosphere in 

 which the student can grow whatever special Hne 

 of training he may follow later. The greatest need 

 of our country is the man whose fundamental 

 knowledge is broad and comprehensive and whose 

 special training is exact. No man can have useful 

 knowledge of a part unless he has general knowl- 

 edge of the whole. The working of the part must 

 be in harmony with the movements of the whole; 

 otherwise disaster is the result. While I am espe- 

 cially interested in medical education, I recognize 

 the fact that it is futile to try to develop a good 

 medical man out of one whose fundamental train- 

 ing has not been sound. The young man who has 

 learned to work with the right spirit, whether it be 

 in Greek or biology, in philosophy or chemistry, 

 will enter medicine, law or any profession in the 

 right frame of mind and will be likely to prove an 

 honor in his chosen profession. In his preliminary 

 college trainiog the prospective medical student 

 should not be confined to the physical or biological 

 sciences. It is desirable that he know the classics, 

 history and philosophy and it is most desirable 

 that the training that he gets along these lines 

 should be of the highest grade. I believe that 

 Stanford University furnishes suitable conditions 

 for the development of the young man who is going 

 into medicine. Therefore I hope that the medical 

 work done at Palo Alto may continue. If the med- 

 ical school should be closed, this would relieve 

 Stanford of only one of the laboratories at Palo 

 Alto. Physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, 

 histology, embryology, neurology and bacteriology 

 must be taught and research work in these branches 

 must be done in a university of the high rank Stan- 

 ford holds. Closing the medical school would give 

 only trifling financial relief to the university. I 

 therefore recommend that the premedical and med- 

 ical work now done at Palo Alto be not only con- 

 tinued but be developed as fast as the finances of 

 the university permit. I make this recommenda- 

 tion not only for the good of the medical school, 

 but, £is I believe, in the interest of the university aa 

 a whole. If the medical department should be dis- 

 continued, anatomy is the only subject which could 

 be dropped at Palo Alto and even then this should 

 not be done. Anatomy is one of the great and 

 fundamental biological sciences and even human 

 anatomy should be taught in a great scientific uni- 

 versity. Anatomy is no longer taught as a mere 

 foundation for medicine and surgery. It includes 

 the development of structure from the lowest to the 

 highest forms of life. 



