20 E. A. Schäfer, On medicai education. 



of any aid to university education in London not a sound. Even the 

 fountains of private munificence run dry in London. Manchester, 

 Sheffield, Birmingham, Dundee, no town or city in the provinces, but 

 bears testimony, by the generous response which immediately replies 

 to the cry for higher education, to the loyalty and liberality of its 

 inhabitants. London alone languishes. No merchant prince opens his 

 coffers to relieve her wants, no wealthy guild comes forward to aid 

 the teaching of that to which its members often owe the health which 

 is to them more precious than all their riches. 



We have the right to demand from the State that aid which we 

 cannot otherwise obtain, and which is essential to the interests of 

 medical education in London. The amount we should require annu- 

 ally would be but as a drop in a bucket in relation to the eighty mil" 

 lions we expend on other objects. And even the initial expenditure 

 at the most extravagant estimate, would not exceed the cost of a 

 single ironclad, which in ten years becomes obsolete, if it is not long 

 previously sent to the bottom by a torpedo. 



But no Government of this country will give .a penny for the 

 purpose of assisting medical education unless we are unanimous and 

 urgent in our demands. We must take example by the woman in 

 the parable, and never cease from our importunity until we have ob- 

 tained the redress of our wrong. It is useless to point to Germany, 

 which spends half a million of money in constructing laboratories, and 

 thirty or forty thousand a year in maintaining them in a single city, 

 not one-tenth the size of London ; or to France, which during a few 

 years lays out more than four millions sterling upon her colleges; 

 unless we are united in our purpose and persistent in its advocacy 

 We must leave no stone unturned which may assist our efforts, we 

 must be satisfied with nothing less than the complete fulfilment of 

 our desires. Only in this way will it be possible for us to obtain such 

 provision for medical education in this metropolis as shall be second to 

 that of no city in the world. 



