It is a fair
subject for consideration whether they do not overrate the relative
importance of that particular mode of instruction which forms the larger
part of these courses.
As this School could only lengthen its lecture term at the expense of its
"Summer Session," in which more direct, personal, and familiar teaching
takes the place of our academic discourses, and in which more time can be
given to hospitals, infirmaries, and practical instruction in various
important specialties, whatever might be gained, a good deal would
certainly be lost in our case by the exchange.
The most essential part of a student's instruction is obtained, as I
believe, not in the lecture-room, but at the bedside. Nothing seen there
is lost; the rhythms of disease are learned by frequent repetition; its
unforeseen occurrences stamp themselves indelibly in the memory. Before
the student is aware of what he has acquired, he has learned the aspects
and course and probable issue of the diseases he has seen with his
teacher, and the proper mode of dealing with them, so far as his master
knows it. On the other hand, our ex cathedra prelections have a strong
tendency to run into details which, however interesting they may be to
ourselves and a few of our more curious listeners, have nothing in them
which will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. It is a
perfectly fair question whether I and some other American Professors do
not teach quite enough that is useless already.
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