Page:Biographical Notice Of The Late George McClellan.djvu/7

 unfavourably received by the physicians of Philadelphia, than this. It had a direct tendency to isolate its author, and certainly influenced his destiny throughout life. It was assumed and asserted that there was not patronage for the support of two schools, and that the new one could only succeed at the expense of its elder rival. And inasmuch as the whole scheme was regarded as a professional heresy, it need not be added that its partisans met with no favour.

Dr. McClellan reasoned differently. He maintained that students would flock to this city in numbers proportioned to the increased facilities for education; and that each institution might be amply supported without any conflict of interest. What has been the result? In place of five hundred students, which was the maximum number before this competition was organized, Philadelphia now annually enrols a thousand; embracing a portion of the genius and talent of every state of the Union.

It is important, however, to observe, that owing to the general disapproval of the plan of a new College, Dr. McClellan met with great difficulty in organizing a medical faculty; and his colleagues were unavoidably chosen from among men greatly inferior in talent to himself. Incongruous elements were thus associated together; dissensions arose, and disunion followed. Yet notwithstanding all these adverse circumstances, Dr. McClellan had the satisfaction, in the year 1836, to welcome no less than 360 pupils into the school he had founded.

Dr. McClellan's lectureship was Surgery; and he continued his instructions in this branch until the year 1838, when for reasons unknown to the writer of these pages, the professorships of JefsonJefferson [sic] College were all vacated by a decision of the Board of Trustees, and a new organization took place, from which Dr. McClellan's name was excluded. This new faculty was composed of men of distinguished attainments. The medical public acquiesced in the change; Jefferson College was received into favour, and collegiate competition was thereby legitimised. So true is the