December 3, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



779 



logic specimens, plates, drawings, charts 

 and other illustrative materials. In idle 

 moments one can accumulate a large 

 amount of information by this means. It 

 is the height of stupidity to lock up mate- 

 rial of this sort in dark inaccessible cases, 

 to be brought forth only on special occa- 

 sions. 



There is need, in most schools, of a bet- 

 ter correlation between the department of 

 pathology and the clinical departments. 

 The clinical teachers are, for the most part, 

 busy practitioners having little time, even 

 when they have the inclination, to keep in 

 touch with what is going on in the patho- 

 logical department so as to command the 

 resources of its museum in their clinical 

 teaching. The instructors in pathology can 

 accomplish a great deal to secure more 

 thorough and accurate presentation of the 

 pathologic side of the clinical subjects if 

 they are constantly calling the attention of 

 the clinicians to the materials in their mu- 

 seums and laboratories, and are themselves 

 available at convenient hours to respond 

 to a summons to the medical, surgical or 

 other clinic to demonstrate pathologic 

 specimens, illustrative of the topic being 

 presented, or the clinical patient who is 

 being shown, and to explain the newer, more 

 refined laboratory methods of diagnosis. 



No colleague of mine would think it pos- 

 sible for me to get through a discussion on 

 an educational topic without allusion to the 

 elective system. I should be sorry to dis- 

 appoint any one, or to lose such an oppor- 

 tunity. May I say then first, that after 

 fifteen years of experience and observation 

 I am more confirmed in my belief than ever 

 before, of its applicability to, and its ad- 

 vantage, with suitable restrictions, in med- 

 ical education. The elective principle has 

 been adopted, and is in operation, in one 

 form or another, in every college and uni- 

 versity of any importance in this country. 



It has been an integral part of the educa- 

 tional system in the German, and most other 

 foreign universities, in the medical as well 

 as in other departments, for over fifty 

 years. I have elsewhere described the plan 

 and discussed its advantages in the med- 

 ical curriculum at length, and do not here 

 purpose to review that discussion. How- 

 ever, to correct certain erroneous impres- 

 sions, which seem to be quite prevalent, 

 may I say that the elective system, properly 

 administered, does not mean the unre- 

 stricted freedom of the student to do just 

 as he pleases — to choose any course of 

 study which strikes his fancy. Its chief ad- 

 vantages do not lie in the choice of branches 

 or even of topics, but much more in the 

 choice of methods of study — by lecture, 

 recitation, laboratory, clinic, research — and 

 of the instructor under whom each course 

 is to be pursued. Its purpose in the med- 

 ical school is not, or should not be, to en- 

 courage or even to permit, the undergrad- 

 uate student to follow a restricted course of 

 study in preparation for a special line of 

 practise, although in this form it is in 

 operation, mistakenly, as I believe, in two 

 or three of our leading medical schools. It 

 does not mean, for example, that any stu- 

 dent should be permitted to neglect pathol- 

 ogy, or medicine or any special clinical sub- 

 ject. It does make for his opportunity to 

 get the minimum amount to be required of 

 that subject by the method and under the 

 instructor that will insure for him the best 

 training, that is the maximum educational 

 gain in that branch of study, and it should 

 permit and encourage him to pursue that 

 subject much beyond the minimum amount 

 required for graduation, if he finds therein, 

 as very many students do, the best medium 

 for developing his powers of observation 

 and reasoning. 



As surely as individuals differ, as they do 

 differ widely, in mental equipment and 



