Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/17

17 to exclude fools and clowns, is to expect an institution to be perfect, and this expectation is itself synonymous with folly. Such lusus naturæ will find their way into every profession, but they will also find their level, and will mope away their time in that obscurity and practical solitude, to which their indolence or incapacity has justly condemned them; and even some pert, prattling, prancing, parsing, precocious graduate of the new system may be found wofully at fault, when, in actual practice, and in contrast with less scholastic and assuming rivals, the awful responsibility of a human life comes to devolve on the promptitude and sagacity of his diagnostics and decision.

On the abstract question of the different excellencies and defects of any particular system of education, much of course may be said on both sides, and the dispute, as happens in most theoretical controversies, may terminate further from the goal of agreement than when it commenced; but, so long as these discussions are matters of mere abstract opinion, it is of little consequence how they are conducted or ended. When plans, however, are attempted to be executed, which would altogether subvert the genius and constitution of a College of the first respectability and eminence, some very serious practical evil and inherent vice in it to be removed, or some obvious and important good to be obtained, ought of necessity to be demonstrated. The question might be brought,