DISCUSSION. 117
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aniversity question. Knowledge must be kept together ; our professional
schools must be university schools. Our faculties must make knowledge
yhole. The liberal education that our professional men get must not only
se antecedent to their technical training ; it must also be concurrent
with 1t.
No more serious mistake was ever made than the divorce of technical
or practical education from theoretical, as if principles could be made use
of and applied without being understood. It is, indeed, true that a loco-
motive driver may handle his engine with dexterity and safety without
oeing either a machinist or an engineer, but the body of knowledge of which
‘he physician or the lawyer or the preacher makes practical application is
a0 machine. It is a body of thought; it does not stand alone; it is not
aven true except in its proper relations to other thought. To handle it
requires not only skill, but insight also—a trained perception of relative
values, a quick capacity for sifting and assessing evidence. As liberal an
sducation as possible is needed for such functions, if only to open the
ayes and accustom the faculties to a nice manipulation of thought. The
smpiric is the natural enemy of society, and it is imperative that everything
should be done—everything risked—to get rid of him. Nothing sobers
and reforms him like a (genuine) liberal education.
DISCUSSION.
PRESIDENT GILMAN said : I want to speak of one phase in this matter, that of medical
sducation. because my attention has been particularly called to it. ITverybody knows
‘hat a medical man ought to be well grounded in everything that pertains to biology, let
assay. Now there is a school of medicine to be started in Baltimore. We have started
on the principle that nobody shall be admitted to it except those who are liberally edu-
cated. That seems very simple ; but how are we going to find out who are liberally edu-
cated ? You say the holders of the Bachelor of Arts degree. But on coming to scrutinize a
little more closely, we find a great many young men graduate from colleges, and, although
they have diplomas, they come from institutions which have not the elements of good
sducation in them. Then, again, we find this difficulty, that many of these institutions
which give bachelorate degrees already provide some instruction in physics, in chemistry,
in botany, in zoblogy, and physiology, each of which ought to have its own place in a
inished medical course. How shall this difficulty be adjusted ? Let us say, then, it
shall be those who have taken a bachelorate degree, provided their bachelorate degree
‘ncludes those items. I expect the result will be that a smaller number of scholars will
come, and the question is whether we shall be strong enough to stand it. That is the
difficulty in this whole problem. Generally speaking, the more that is done to require
an education equivalent to that given byan ordinarily good college giving the bachelor’s
legree, as antecedent to the study of law, medicine, and theology, the better it will be
for the countrv.
Mr. DEwEY thought it would be unwise to forbid men by legislation to practice law
or medicine without an antecedent college education, but that a public feeling against
srofessional men devoid of a liberal education could be created by proper stimulation.
A help against the admission of really uneducated students to professional schools would
be found when the too common system by which the pay of the professor is fixed and
iis salary regulated by the fee, is done away with, The taking of fees is a constant
semptation to admit incompetent students. Take the fees away and it becomes the
interest of the professor to shut out incompetent students. Furthermore, the degree-
oiving power should not be lodged in detached professional schools.
