August 19, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



231 



and clinical teaching — a mass of material 

 brought forth from the viewpoint of the 

 educator, or looking to the welfare of the 

 medical profession. We do not minimize 

 the value of such lines of discussion. It 

 has brought us to the position we have at- 

 tained. But what of the medical student 1 

 Should we not look at education from his 

 point of view? Is he quite able to decide 

 whether he should take up the profession 

 of medicine? We hold that a great duty 

 is due the aspirant for medical honors from 

 teacher, and practitioner. It is a kindness 

 due him to point out the best methods of 

 securing such education as will yield him 

 results commensurate with the ■ time and 

 expense required. It would be a greater 

 kindness to be enabled to show him that 

 by reason of intellectual temperament or 

 of physical or moral qualities he is not 

 likely to reap the rewards he is anticipating. 

 The large majority of medical students 

 do not have a good reason for studying 

 medicine. They are ignorant of the mental 

 and physical demands made on them. 

 They are attracted by an uncertain glamor 

 and a specious glory, and heedlessly they 

 go in. The failure of a large percentage 

 of graduates in medicine to acquire more 

 than a bare existence, and too often not 

 even that, proves that they were not edu- 

 cated properly, not fitted temperamentally 

 nor physically, to pursue its duties. Should 

 they not have opportunity for learning of 

 the responsibilities and difficulties, rather 

 than to have the brighter phases glorified? 

 Would it not be well to have in our college 

 curriculum a course of lectures for the 

 student who contemplates entering a pro- 

 fession, pointing out the rocks and shoals 

 in his prospective career? An eminent 

 practitioner, not connected with medical 

 schools, would light up and darken the 

 pathway in due proportions. Then, too, 

 should not, as in the army and navy, some 

 physical tests be required? The trophy is 



to the robust, and sad will be the career of 

 the man who is physically handicapped. 



If there were any doubt about the value 

 of a college degree to a man entering the 

 medical profession it could be set at naught 

 since the report of the Mosely Education 

 Commission. Quotations like the follow- 

 ing, while not pertaining to medicine alone, 

 the result of extensive inquiry and mature 

 deliberation, supported by the statistics 

 they give, uphold the contention of a large 

 employer, that 'for 99 per cent, of the non- 

 university men, it is hopeless to expect to 

 get to the top.' One opinion they express 

 is that "there is still room for the boy of 

 marked ability 'to come through,' but that 

 his difficulties are greatly increasing, and 

 that, useful as he is, his usefulness would 

 have been greatly enhanced had he had the 

 benefit of a college training." Still an- 

 other commissioner reports that while only 

 ' 1 per cent, of the entire population of 

 America has received a higher education 

 in her colleges and universities, this 1 per 

 cent, holds more than 40 per cent, of all 

 positions of confidence, of trust and of 

 profit' It is well knoMm that the 'geist' 

 of the individual brings success, for which 

 they say " it is recognized that the educated 

 man takes in a wide horizon and puts more 

 'soul' into his work." 



The essential of success in any depart- 

 ment is diagnosis, which requires powers 

 of intellectual penetration and discrimina- 

 tion. President Thwing has again force- 

 fully urged that 'reasoning of the mathe- 

 matics — and mathematics is only reasoning 

 — tends to promote clearness and accuracy 

 in perception, inevitaileness in inference, 

 a sense of logical orderliness. The study 

 of the languages represents the element of 

 interpretation. The study of history 

 means the interpretation of life.' Are 

 these not the main studies of a college edu- 

 cation? While they may promote scholar- 

 ship, they surely cultivate thought. It 



