864 
ceive the diplomas of some of the most 
renowned medical colleges of the United 
States whose entire medical tutelage was 
comprised within a period of less than one 
year’s extent. 
At the present time many require four 
years of college work, or shortly will, and 
these college years are often eight or nine 
months in length and are never less than 
six. Furthermore, they are not mere repe- 
titions, but are graded from entrance to 
graduation with constant laboratory prac- 
tice and frequent examinations. When the 
course was of but two years’ duration more 
students relatively sought preparation in a 
more liberal education in the college of 
arts, for the same reason that seems to 
actuate many law students. Many of the 
law schools now require but two years’ at- 
tendance upon college work and practically 
only nominal preparation for admission, 
and the majority of the practicing lawyers 
of our country have had no college profes- 
sional training at all. The better colleges 
are now extending their course to three 
years, and it is only a question of a short 
time when the period of college study 
necessary for the reception of the legal 
diploma will be equivalent to that of the 
medical profession. 
The modern educational requirements of 
the medical profession have, I believe, 
raised it toa distinctly higher plane than 
that ofthelaw. Touse the words of Justice 
Brewer: “A growing multitude is crowd- 
ing in who are not fit to be lawyers; who 
disgrace the profession after they are in it; 
who in the scramble after a livelihood are 
debasing the noblest of professions into the 
meanest of ayvocations; who, instead of 
being leaders and being looked up to for 
advice, are despised as the hangers-on of 
police courts and the nibblers after crumbs 
which a dog ought to be ashamed to 
touch.’’ : 
But this condition will not last long. 
SCIENCE. 
LN. S. Von. VI. No. 154. 
The time will soon come when everyone 
who appears before the bar of justice as. 
an ‘advocate will be a thoroughly edu- 
cated man or woman. And does this mean 
that he will be required to have a four 
years’ education in the college of liberal 
arts? Most certainly not. A four years’ 
course in the law school will be required,. 
whose certificate will carry with it the edu- 
cational right to admission to the bar, and 
little or no attention will be paid to the so- 
called branches of liberal culture. 
Conditions have changed much. The 
greatly increased competition and the 
greater struggle for existence now render it 
imperative that the professional man should 
be better grounded in the principles of his. 
profession than he once was. The great 
accumulation of scientific knowledge has 
left the teas, the simples and the boluses. 
for the quack in medicine. The lawyer 
can not be a politician, a real estate or in- 
surance agent, and, in the intervals of his. 
avocations, do justice to his client. The 
professional man can not spend much time 
in purely cultural and esthetic studies,. 
while his competitors are spending theirs 
in acquiring a knowledge of how to treat. 
their patients or how to execute a legal 
document. 
The average course in the college of lib- 
eral arts does not prepate for the studies of 
the medical profession, and not many phy- 
siclans now urge young men to pursue the: 
course in arts as a preliminary to pro- 
fessional training. A part of that time- 
certainly is better spent in the more thor- 
ough mastery of the professional education. 
The average age of graduation from the 
college or university at the present time is. 
nearly twenty-three. The ambitious grad- 
uate in medicine will desire to give at least 
one year to hospital practice, or to travel 
before beginning his more active duties. 
He is then twenty-eight years ofage, and two 
or three years more will certainly be needed. 
