Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/14

 in these remodelled universities, must be closed against the great bulk of the population; and a heavy purse and early age must be the prerequisite possessions of every aspirant to medical honours. What must be the effect of this? Either medicine must be deprived of a large proportion of the talent which otherwise would be attracted to it, or a great number of our youth destined to its profession will migrate to foreign schools, not for the sake of adding letters to their names, but skill to their practice: they will temporarily expatriate themselves for the sake of enjoying the advantages which these Universities possess in economy,—in their anatomical and surgical facilities,—in their greater opportunities of access to libraries, to museums, to hospitals, and to practice. These are the real causes of the celebrity of these schools, and not their appendages of A.M., S.B., &c. &c., and these are the points in which, as far as we can, we should do well to imitate them. Then must our worthy and injured Professors expect to look with unavailing regret at empty benches, and learned graduates be assured to meet with energetic and triumphant, though untitled, rivals in practice; and let them reflect whether the power of wailing out their lamentations in pure Attic, and with the rigor of the higher geometry, will tend to administer consolation.

Another consequence is, that a number of unchartered