Page:The Hunterian Oration for 1850.djvu/39

 greater wrong is inflicted on the cause of education, than that indiscriminate, and almost exclusive devotion to classical reading which prevails in our public schools. No man is competent to the task of education, whose mind is not well stored with general, as well as with particular knowledge, philosophy, history, and elementary science.

The application of the knowledge acquired by classical study, is in an inverse relation to the benefit conferred on the retentive powers of the mind; for by its early cultivation, of all the faculties, the memory is its greatest benefactor. The actual knowledge acquired by classical study will therefore greatly depend on the age of the student.

A no less important branch of study, rather than of knowledge, most pertinent to our profession, is that of the exact sciences; and here again, we are largely indebted to antiquity. By mathematical study, we acquire the principles of inductive, and other forms of reasoning; we learn to compare and analyse. We acquire habits of close thought, the power of detecting the sources of error, and of “exposing the fallacies under which false reasoning is disposed to lurk.” Logic also, is an important source of mental discipline, which invigorates the faculties by its application either to the precise interpretation of words, or to the higher purposes of abstract reasoning on things.

I conceive that the almost universal neglect of these pursuits in early life, and the want of cultivation both of philosophy and general science, are among the chief causes by which medicine is degraded at the present day; and that unless by a general Act of the Colleges which preside over