474 
M EDICA L E X A M I NATIONS. 
ledge. They are, especially at first, too far removed from the 
more serious cares of life to feel much anxiety respecting their 
future career, and, like the epicureans of old, are ever inclined to 
make the most of the present. Thence it is that various devices 
are resorted to in our medical schools in order to give the neces- 
sary impulse. Attendance on lectures is rendered compulsory ; 
weekly examinations are resorted to by the lecturers, and medals 
are given. 
“ But all these measures fail in obliging the really idle and 
apathetic to labour. A pupil who attends negligently — who passes 
the weekly examinations disgracefully, and is never a candidate 
for honours, acquires a bad name ; but at the termination of his 
curriculum there is nothing to prevent his presenting himself for 
the final examination, or to prevent his obtaining the diploma, if 
he has employed the last few months in “ grinding,” and is 
tolerably fortunate. Is he, however, entirely to blame for having 
sacrificed the greater part of his time in frivolity, and thus neg- 
lected the opportunities he has enjoyed of acquiring a thorough 
knowledge of his profession 1 A portion of the blame certainly lies 
with those who have only once or twice taxed his energies by that 
which he the most dreads, and which always proves the strongest 
possible incentive to study, — namely, a severe examination, on the 
success of which his entire career depends. Instead of one or two 
examinations, we think that a pupil ought to undergo five or six, 
at stated periods, in the course of his studies, as is the case in 
Bavaria and in France, and each examination ought also to be made 
an indispensable stepping-stone to the next. Were this system 
adopted, a much greater amount of information would most certainly 
be acquired by medical students than under the present system. 
As a limited number of subjects only would form the matter of 
each examination, the examiner would be able to investigate in a 
much more searching manner the knowledge possessed by the 
candidate. On the other hand, the candidate, having only two or 
three subjects to study, would be able to prepare himself much 
more successfully than when his attention and mental powers are 
overwhelmed by the mass of knowledge which he has to acquire. 
“ Grinding” would still take place, it is true ; but it would be 
altogether a different thing from what it now is. Were a student 
to “ grind,” as the term is, during five or six months, for each of 
his five or six examinations, the “grinding,” instead of doing 
harm, would do good. It would, indeed, amount to three years’ 
hard study. 
“It is sometimes said, that repeated examinations, each on a 
limited number of subjects, are objectionable ; because students are 
apt to abandon entirely the study of the branches of science on 
which they have been examined, thus passing through a desultory 
