WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL. 
693 
Council of the College of Surgeons. The second course, 
beginning in January, might be a repetition of the first, with 
such omissions or additions as the teacher may think advis- 
able, and might be ended on the last day of April, thus 
completing the session of seven months’ teaching, formerly 
ordained by the College of Surgeons ; but which, for no 
good reason that I am aware of, now terminates at six 
months, or the end of March, thus depriving the student 
of one months opportunity for dissecting. The means or 
manner of instruction at present pursued, renders another 
party in many instances absolutely necessaiy to enable stu- 
dents who have been inattentive to undergo their ultimate 
examination with success. This gentleman is called a 
c grinder,’ and it is said that some so employed make from 
£1000 to £3000, a-year. They work hard, and, I believe, 
deserve the money. They beat into the heads of negligent 
students that information which they had failed to acquire 
during the proper period of their studies, and when thus 
ground, polished, or wound up to the proper point, they 
select their day for examination, and very often succeed. 
Information thus acquired is evanescent; it is soon forgotten. 
In a few minutes it is remembered no longer. It cannot be 
otherwise; and the necessity for such instruction is much to 
be deplored. It ought to be superseded in anatomy and 
surgery by the demonstrator in each school. He should be 
the grinder and polisher of the students under the professors 
of each of these branches, and the knowledge which is now 
very evanescent, if thus acquired, would be long, if not per- 
manently remembered. 1 am desirous, in conclusion, to 
relieve your minds from some false impressions which are 
generally promulgated, with regard to the Court of Exami- 
ners of the College of Surgeons. The members divide into 
four parts, or tables, two of which examine in anatomy, two 
in surgery, and each table reports that the student is good, 
bad, or indifferent. If on the aggregate of the four there is 
one indifferent, it is considered as nothing. Two indifferents 
causes the person to undergo a written examination on the 
subsequent week; one bad does the same; but it requires 
the four tables to report against a man to cause his immedi- 
ate rejection. The president, at the written examination, 
gives the questions, and three hours are allowed for answer- 
ing them, more if desired ; they are then read, and the deci- 
sion is that of the whole court. It is obvious that no one 
examiner can, then, reject an individual, as students are very 
apt to suppose ; and they may be assured a rejection is 
always a matter of regret to the examiners, which they would 
