Only they must not be
disappointed if they find many subjects treated in our courses as a
medical class requires, rather than as a scientific class would expect,
that is, with special limitations and constant reference to practical
ends. Fortunately they are within easy reach of the highest scientific
instruction. The business of a school like this is to make useful
working physicians, and to succeed in this it is almost as important not
to overcrowd the mind of the pupil with merely curious knowledge as it is
to store it with useful information.
In this direction I have written my lecture, not to undervalue any form
of scientific labor in its place, an unworthy thought from which I hope I
need not defend myself,--but to discourage any undue inflation of the
scholastic programme, which even now asks more of the student than the
teacher is able to obtain from the great majority of those who present
themselves for examination. I wish to take a hint in education from the
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, who regards the
cultivation of too much land as a great defect in our New England
farming. I hope that our Medical Institutions may never lay themselves
open to the kind of accusation Mr. Lowe brings against the English
Universities, when he says that their education is made up "of words that
few understand and most will shortly forget; of arts that can never be
used, if indeed they can even be learnt; of histories inapplicable to our
times; of languages dead and even mouldy; of grammatical rules that never
had living use and are only post mortem examinations; and of statements
fagoted with utter disregard of their comparative value.
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