Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/16

 tion and learning of the country, when, with spelling and reading, with writing and arithmetic, the classics and philosophy constituted the daily round of teaching imposed on one professor. From such humble beginnings have proceeded the most successful and elaborately-organized educational establishments, which having acquired a world-wide reputation, and in the full tide of usefulness, are evidences of the intelligence and refinement of the nation.

Besides the necessity of systematic instruction for the prosecution of the increasing business of the people, and for the extension of their relations at home and abroad, there was soon felt that of providing for the future successful performance of professional duties. As population multiplied, this need was thoroughly appreciated. The educated men had become, from the earliest period of the settlements, the leading characters, whether occupied in administering the laws, and governing the State, in expounding the doctrines of religious belief, or in administering to the sick; and hence a respect for the higher orders of learning which were regarded as conducive to efficiency and usefulness became fixed in the minds of the community. The first practitioners of the healing art had been educated in the parent country; when following the fortunes of their less gifted countrymen they had become participants of their struggles and trials. Such were the few medical men who first landed on our shores, and who encountered all the difficulties of administering to the ailments incident to a new climate, aggravated by deficient facilities of protection from the elements and exposure. They were, in many instances, possessed of a thorough education and of classical accomplishments, and nobly sustained their part in the untried scenes through which they passed.

In some cases the theological and medical professions were united in the same individual, medicine being studied as an accessory science, with the especial view—as is now frequently done by our missionaries—to meet the exigencies of administering, if required, not only in spiritual concerns, but in bodily derangements. This union of the clerical and medical professions has been adverted to by Dr. Thatcher,