A letter to the provost of Oriel, on a scheme for making Oxford more accessible to medical students generally / from C.H. Pearson.

  • Pearson, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1830-1894.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the provost of Oriel, on a scheme for making Oxford more accessible to medical students generally / from C.H. Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    themselves and to the world. They will hardly be worse chemists for having a little logic, or worse prac- titioners for having studied the languages of Celsus and Hippocrates. Our boast is that we try to educate men rather than scholars. No profession is more distinctly human in its interests and sympathies than the medical. The charity, self-devotion, and courage, displayed by medical men, daily and unreflectingly, can hardly be increased. But the “ more polished manners,” for which the most unfavourable view of our education gives us credit, mean, I suppose, the expression or imitation of delicacy and refinement of feeling. These qualities are surely of the last im- portance to men who live by bedsides and in families, handling the quickest sensibilities, and sounding the most awful mysteries of our nature and our social life. I have tried to meet at starting the objection which seemed most formidable, as it came from medical men, and I have dwelt upon it at some length, because it partly explains why so few students comparatively make an effort to go to Oxford. Oxford residents will easily perceive what amount of injustice is inad- vertently mixed up with truth in the views here referred to; and they will also, I think, agree with me in believing that, with the attention at present paid to physical science, the reproach will soon be a matter of the past. As however, I believe, some think that few except our classmen are really fitted for any profession by the university, I will first point out (though I do not share their views) one or two consi- derations which seem to me of importance. The be- nefit derived from a place in the class list consists, not in the knowledge acquired, but in the faculties