Page:The Harveian oration 1905.djvu/59

 conditions and indications are decidedly favourable and promising. In the first place the trend of modern medical education and training is distinctly of a progressively more and more scientific character, and aims at preparing the student so that he may be able in his subsequent career to carry on research with real advantage to himself and others. The more venerable English Universities have also been roused into activity and revivified, being now in the van of progress in this direction. As a promising feature in this connection, it is gratifying to call attention to the cordial reception recently given by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford to a deputation from the medical graduates, headed by our late President, Sir William Church, with reference to the advancement of pathology in the University, and the encouraging prospects indicated on the occasion as to the ultimate adequate endowment of the Chair of Pathology.

The London University has recently changed its character and aims, and it is to be hoped that in the future it will add materially to the laurels which it has fairly earned in the past by its efforts to promote higher training. The ancient Universities of Scotland and Ireland, to which medical science has been much indebted in the past, are also keeping thoroughly up with the times. At all our newer provincial Universities, and in the Medical Schools everywhere, laboratories for scientific observations