May 4, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



683 



ladder, there is small hope of the adoption 

 of rational methods of education. More- 

 over this intimate alliance between educa- 

 tion and politics greatly aids the efforts of 

 persons more zealous than discreet to direct 

 the instruction of children in accordance 

 with their own special views. Thus nearly 

 all the states of the union have upon their 

 statute books laws requiring the physiolog- 

 ical action of alcohol to be taught to chil- 

 dren in all grades of the public schools. 

 These laws violate the first principles of 

 pedagogy inasmuch as the physiological 

 action of a drug cannot possibly be under- 

 stood without a familiarity with anatomy, 

 physiology and chemistry which school 

 children cannot be supposed to possess. 

 They have been passed at the bidding of 

 total abstinence associations, sometimes in 

 opposition to the earnest protests of the 

 teachers entrusted with their execution. 

 How these excrescences upon our educa- 

 tional system may be best removed and the 

 work of instruction placed under the control 

 of those best qualified to direct it are ques- 

 tions demanding serious consideration. 



I have mentioned these instances in which 

 great educational systems have been found 

 wanting merely for the sake of pointing out 

 that the critics of our methods of medical 

 education, who, as Professor Exner* has 

 shown, are now raising their voices in every 

 land, do but give a special expression to a 

 wide spread feeling that our educational 

 systems are not accomplishing all the objects 

 for which they have been devised, and that 

 the discontent which they imply is but a 

 healthy dissatisfaction with the results thus 

 far accomplished. May the time be far dis- 

 tant when those in charge of our educational 

 interests shall rest content with what they 

 have achieved, for this will indicate that a 

 state of stagnation has been reached similar 

 to that which characterizes the institutions 

 of the Celestial Empire, and that no further 



* Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 1900, No. 3. 



attempt is to be made to adapt our methods 

 of instruction to the constantly widening do- 

 main of human knowledge and experience. 



It may, perhaps, be well for me at this 

 point to offer a few words in explanation of 

 the selection of such a well-worn theme as 

 medical education as the subject of my re- 

 marks this evening. It is true that in re- 

 cent years the subject has been a favorite 

 one with those who have been called upon 

 to address medical associations or classes of 

 graduating students, and if, in spite of this 

 fact, I venture to add another address to 

 the fast growing literature of the subject, 

 my justification may be found in the follow- 

 ing reasons : In the first place it must be 

 borne in mind that such addresses are very 

 quickly forgotten " Were it not so, " as Dr. 

 Billings has remarked, "it would be a hard 

 world for address-givers." In the second 

 place, the progress of medicine at the pres- 

 ent time is so rapid that new points of view 

 are constantly being secured, and it is, 

 therefore, not at all impossible that, even 

 at comparatively short intervals, new and 

 valuable suggestions may be made both 

 with regard to subjects to be taught and to 

 methods to be employed in giving the in- 

 struction. 



Lastly, it so happens that during the aca- 

 demic year, now nearly completed, the fac- 

 ulty of the Harvard Medical School has in- 

 augurated an entirely new plan of instruc- 

 tion in the sciences of anatomy, physiology 

 and pathology. This scheme, though still 

 in the experimental stage, embodies ideas 

 of such fundamental importance in medical 

 education that its presentation to a repre- 

 sentative body of the medical profession 

 seems to me to be peculiarly appropriate. 



I shall, therefore, ask you to consider 

 with me this evening what lessons the fac- 

 ulty of a modern medical school may draw 

 from recent advances in medical science 

 and recent experience in medical education 

 or, in other words, on what lines the in- 



