Page:An Examination of Certain Charges - Alfred Stillé.djvu/22

 but he daily compares the lectures of one chair with those of another, and readily discovering where the breach exists in that perfect unity which should belong to one science, he thither directs his dissatisfaction and complaint. Again, we have testimony, that "during the winters of 1826–27–28 and 29, the Professor of Materia Medica, was compelled to ask from the attending students, that they would not interrupt him, that he was addressing medical philosophers, &c."; this we think may be fairly construed, as an admission by Dr. Coxe, that his pupils were competent judges, for assuredly if they were not so, his lectures could not have been intended to instruct them. But of this enough.

The committee have now concluded their whole statement in regard to the facts of the case, as well as of the causes which led to them, and consider that the following inferences may with propriety be drawn:

1st. That the class acted independently of all external influence whatever.

2nd. That the Faculty endeavored to prevent their action, and failing in that, gave it no countenance or encouragement.

3rd. That the statements of 'a Physician,' are, with scarcely a single exception, unfounded in truth.

4th. That there was every reason to believe Dr. Coxe incompetent, and the class capable of estimating his competency.

The committee cannot however take leave of this subject, without a general surmise as to the motive of the article signed 'a Physician.' It has pleased the Almighty to deny the humble creatures of his beneficence, the capacity of prying into the hearts of their fellow-mortals, in order to display their faults, their follies, or their crimes to the sneering gaze of a pitiless world. But whilst thus listening to the pleadings of mercy, he has not forgotten the claims of Justice. At the same time that he has exposed the recesses of the human heart to no eye but his own, he has gifted man with faculties sufficiently enlarged and powerful, to serve as a defence against the attacks of malice and envy. With a species of retributive justice he has ordained that the clue should not unfrequently be furnished by the offender himself. The motives of the author in this instance, can only be gathered from the contents of his publication, and if the light in which we view them be the correct one, they are such as should most carefully shun investigation. Upon examination of the article alluded to, it will be found that a portion of it presents the following suggestions: "We have heard it plead as an excuse for Dr. Coxe's colleagues, that the reputation of the University, is rapidly sinking in the estimation of the public. That the Jefferson Medical college, a young, and till lately a despised rival, has so increased her students (we believe in two years from sixty to two hundred and forty) and so extended her reputation by the zeal and energy of her professors, that she begins now to be had in higher repute than her elder sister, and that something must be done to save the University from ruin." The assertion contained in this passage concerning the number of students, is, we regret to say, unsupported by any published documents of the Jefferson Medical College. The community, well aware of the practice in all respectable institutions of publishing an annual catalogue of the names and residences of its pupils, would be much better satisfied with such a voucher in the present instance, than with the bare declaration of an irresponsible paper. Until such appear, we are compelled to withhold our assent from the above and similar