May 4, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



685 



must be regarded as one of the strongest 

 influences in maintaining a high standard 

 of educational efficiency. On the whole, 

 therefore, even with this possibility of 

 error, the judgment of a faculty would 

 seem to be the safer guide, and there are 

 probably few boards of trustees who would 

 feel themselves justified in disregarding it 

 altogether. 



The above-mentioned advantages of a 

 union between a medical school and a uni- 

 versity will naturally become more obvious 

 as the problems of medical education be- 

 come more complex, and the methods of 

 instruction more costly. Hence we may 

 expect in the near future to find all of the 

 better class of medical schools under the 

 aegis of a university, and we may reason- 

 ably hope that this change will be as- 

 sociated with a diminution of the total 

 number of medical schools now so greatly 

 in excess of the needs of the country. 



The union of a medical school with a uni- 

 versity at once compels the consideration of 

 the proper relation between the academic 

 department and the professional school. To 

 say that the former should be the feeder of 

 the latter and that the holding of an A.B. de- 

 gree should be the condition of admission to 

 professional studies, is to adopt the position 

 taken by two of our leading medical schools. 

 The A.B. degree, however, since the intro- 

 duction of the elective system, no longer 

 stands for a definite amount and kind of 

 training. Hence the Johns Hopkins Med- 

 ical School demands not only the diploma, 

 but also evidence of ability to read French 

 and German and of laboratory training, in 

 physics, chemistry and biology. The Har- 

 vard Medical School is content to accept the 

 A.B. diploma as evidence of fitness to pur- 

 sue professional studies, stipulating only 

 that the holder shall possess an adequate 

 knowledge of inorganic chemistry. Whether 

 the example set by these schools will be gen- 

 erally followed is quite doubtful. Without 



undervaluing the importance of collegiate 

 training as a preparation for a professional 

 career it may perhaps be contended that a 

 properly conducted admission examination 

 is a better test of fitness to pursue the 

 study of medicine than the possession of a 

 diploma the value of which varies so much 

 with the character of the college bestowing 

 it. Moreover, the possibility that a young 

 man, unable to afford the expense of a col- 

 lege course, may yet by private study pre- 

 pare himself for a professional career is not 

 to be lost sight of. Hence the Harvard 

 school provides for the admission by special 

 vote of the faculty of young men, not holders 

 of an A.B. degree, who may furnish satis- 

 factory evidence that they have obtained 

 an equivalent education and that they are 

 consequently able to profit by the instruc- 

 tion which the school has to offer. 



The recent lengthening of the course of 

 study, from three years to four, in all the 

 best medical schools of the country, has 

 drawn renewed attention to the importance 

 of enabling the student who takes the A.B. 

 degree as a preparation for medicine, to so 

 far shorten the sum total of the time de- 

 voted to his education, that he may be able 

 to enter upon the work of his profession at 

 an age not in excess of that at which his 

 European confreres begin their career as 

 practitioners. A few years ago an exam- 

 ination of the best accessible evidence on 

 the subject led to the conclusion that for- 

 eign systems of university education en- 

 abled students of medicine to enter upon 

 their life-work at least two years earlier 

 than was possible for the alumni of Harvard 

 College, a condition dependent upon the 

 fact that the changes in the academic de- 

 partment, which had raised the age of 

 graduation, had been made with little re- 

 gard to the interests of the professional 

 schools, and chiefly for the purpose of mak- 

 ing the undergraduate department as com- 

 plete as possible in itself. In other univer- 



