470 
F. 8. BILLINGS. 
before that period. In future the army and navy should attend 
their own business, or form a separate branch. These offices should 
be eminently civil, and the point of ambition to stimulate our best 
young men. We have said above that the State Board of Health 
should constitute the Examining Medical Board in each State, and 
that the standard medical examination must be the same in each 
State, and we intended also to have said that the period of com¬ 
plete study must extend over four years in the schools. All 
schools in any State, not able to compete with these terms, should 
be closed bv law within a certain time, and the State Legislatures 
of each State having more than one school should take measures 
for centralizing the education in one, letting the positions for 
teachers he competitive before a committee of medical men for the 
time named by the Governor, or before the Board of Health, 
■where such exists, or before a committee, named by the State 
Medical Association at the request of the Governor. When this 
is done, the State should step in and take means to pay each 
teacher at least $5,000 per year, and each tirst assistant $3,000, 
and the tuition should be free to each student having a fixed pre¬ 
paratory education, which should also be as near the same as pos¬ 
sible in each State; but we would not have the education 
absolutely free; we would rather see it fixed at a certain price per 
year, say $100, and the amount paid in for the four years re¬ 
turned to those students coming out successivelv at the end of 
the same. Witli reference to the present funds, they could still 
be used as designated bv the donors, but one use at least should 
be, offering study in Europe for at least two years, as a prize to 
a certain number of students from each graduating class, the same 
to be elected by vote of the Teach-collegium, with especial ref¬ 
erence to minds capable of original scientific work. In each State 
the certificate of examination should be given by the State Board 
of Health, and a record kept of the name, age, etc., of each 
graduate. On removal to another State, each practitioner should 
receive from the Secretary of his respective State Board an ap¬ 
propriate certificate of date of graduation, duration of practice, 
and the same should be filed with the Secretary of the State 
Board of the State into which said person had moved, before being 
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