Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/777

 SHORTENING THE COLLEGE COURSE 757

to be an enemy of, rather than a friend to, his kind. Still once more, a physician has leisure time that must be spent in some manner, and how shall he dispose of it? In riotous living, as many do, in the saloon and gambling den? Or shall he turn rather to the music hall and the art gallery and the library? This is a very real and vital problem, as it relates to the welfare of society, though I know it is not commonly so regarded ; and it is affected by the demand for shortening the period of educa- tion. Through music, art, and literature man has sought to express his ideals and make them permanent ; and whatever has lived for long ages must have been found valuable. It must have developed a higher, a better, a more social kind of life ; in brief, it must have been a means of adjusting men more happily to one another.

And the physician as a servant of society needs to be exposed to the inspiring and elevating influences of all the highest ideals the race has developed. If his interests center around the saloon and the gambling table, he really becomes a barrier to social progress. But anyone who has been brought much in contact with those who are supposed to be masters of the healing art knows that a goodly proportion of them feel more at home in the bar-room than in the library ; they love to look upon the flowing bowl rather than upon some great paint- ing. It is this condition of affairs which leads one to declare emphatically that physicians as a body need to get a training somewhere that will give them familiarity with, and strong interests in, the aspirations and ideals of the race as expressed in its literature and art and music.

And what has thus been said in mere outline of the education of the physician applies in principle to the training of every professional man. It is commonly heard in these times that the development of society is impeded because of the army of half- baked lawyers that prey upon it. Conditions were not much better in Shakespeare's time, probably, for he says in Henry VIII.: "The first thing we do let's kill all the lawyers." Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy says he thinks lawyers will "plead their