Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/614

594 laboratory and hospital work, and upon the diplomas of only first-class colleges, which latter should be raised to a uniform high standard of merit. Applicants for licenses should be examined, not as to what theories they hold, to what "pathy" they conform, or what text-books and lectures they have crammed, but as to what evidence they can give of personal examination of the human body and personal observation of its ailments and witness of the influence of remedies. Laymen can render great assistance in these matters (and the gain is ultimately their own) by furthering appropriate legislation, frowning upon quackery and cheap diplomas, as well as by co-operating with the medical colleges in offering freely the use for clinical instruction of all the hospitals and dispensaries which the public support and control. Most valuable opportunities for clinical observation are at present needlessly wasted through lack of this system. To-day the value of income-bearing funds of the eighty-seven medical colleges does not exceed $350,000, which yield an annual income of only about $20,000. It is instructive to contrast with this statement the fact that the one hundred and forty-five theological schools and colleges of the United States have a productive property of $9,500,000, and an annual income therefrom of nearly $600,000!

Of our eighty-seven medical schools, forty-two are associated with general colleges or "universities," but the connection is usually merely nominal, and no means of support are derived from the parent college. The precarious footing upon which many of these institutions stand is to be inferred from the fact that no fewer than fifty-one other medical colleges founded in the United States within a century have collapsed and vanished.

It is a grave misfortune to have so many medical colleges as now exist, for it is a farce to attempt to educate medical students away from the hospitals and dispensaries which only the largest cities furnish in abundance. The tendency to-day in all branches of education—from the Fröbel Kindergarten system to the study of engineering—is more and more toward placing practical work and personal observation before tradition and theoretical instruction. Surely medical education must not be left behind in facilities.

There are many encouraging signs of speedy improvement in this matter. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the old system. The percentage of medical students who are graduates in letters or science is constantly increasing. At present they number nine per cent, and they have frequently had the advantage of a year or two of biological, physiological, and chemical practice before entering the professional school. The number of such students at the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania has doubled in the past six years. The