Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/77

Rh are the ones not already discussed which were formerly required for the bachelor's degree, and which are now considered by some to be an essential part of a good education. Three full years of college work which have included such courses as have been recommended, and which have led to the bachelor's degree, will be accepted as a good preparation by any medical school in the United States.

The Value of the Bachelor's Degree.—The value of the bachelor's degree for students of medicine is now generally recognized. A few medical schools require it and many recommend it. Students should, however, be warned against believing that the degree may be earned by two years of college work. This low standard, thinly disguised by the fact that the degree is not given the student until he has spent two years in the medical school, has been adopted by many colleges and is sometimes announced with considerable satisfaction, as follows:

The incalculable advantages of such a combination course must commend themselves at a glance, alike to would-be medical students who realize the value of an academic degree to the physician, and to candidates for an academic degree who contemplate a medical career and hesitate before the length of time demanded by its preparatory work.

Not only should protest be made against reducing the college work to two years, but much might be said in favor of four years, leading to the master's degree. In the Harvard Faculty of Medicine there are fifteen men who graduated from college since 1890. Two of these are doctors of philosophy; of the remaining thirteen doctors of medicine, six are masters of arts. The positions held by the six masters of arts and the seven bachelors of arts, respectively, are as follows:

Since this list happens to include few practitioners, it may be noted that the college classes of '88-'90 supplied the faculty with six members, all practitioners; five of the six are masters of arts.

Not long ago, American medical schools received freely students with no college training. Scattered through the classes there were some who, without being required to do so, had obtained a college degree. The success of these men has been so notable that the requirements for admission are rapidly becoming more stringent. At Columbia University the effect of demanding one year of college work has been to eliminate that stratum of medical students described by Professor Wood as the submerged tenth. Most of the good schools now require two