Statement : a statement of the facts connected with the late re-organization of the faculty of the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College : together with a documentary history of said department, from its origin to the present time.

  • Wiltbank, John, 1806-1860.
Date:
[1856?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statement : a statement of the facts connected with the late re-organization of the faculty of the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College : together with a documentary history of said department, from its origin to the present time. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of this institution. Unable to sympathize with such purposes, we were not congenial with these mercenary gentlemen, and a desire to fill our places with others of their own way of think- ing and feeling, was the next step in their progress. To supplant those who had founded and who cherished with an earnest love, a system of medical instruction which had for its only and its noble aim a total forgetfulness of self, in the thorough, careful and conscientious training of students for the high and responsible duties of the good physician;—who sought their reward not so much here as hereafter, and whose higher path of duty faithfully pursued was a constant and ever present rebuke to men of mean and sordid motives; this would appear to be after all little else than the natural instinct of those whose best appreciation of a Professor's hopes and duties were measured by the profits of his Chair; whose lofty mark for a student's aim, was the capacity when duly crammed and quizzed to pass examination,—and when passed to find his best and only proof of fitness for important duties in some well adorned sheep-skin, appropriately inscribed with the names and titles of those who thus prepared him, and thought him well prepared for the duties—the trials, and beyond all the responsibilities of the medical man. We shall not be surprised, as we proceed to find in such gentlemen a line of policy, which will not seem to us consistent with a high-toned and noble standard of manly honour, nor will it seem strange that they should be forgetful of the just rights of others, and in the eager pursuit of an end be unmindful of the claims of honour and of conscience in their choice of means. We confess the disappointment of our long cherished respect and esteem for three of these gentlemen— the antecedents of the other two leave us no room for surprise or wonder at the course they now pursued. The system of quizzing classes, conducted by a separate com- bination of three of the Professors for their own private benefit, was productive as might have been foreseen, of the evil effects which an institution so undignified and unbecoming must neces- sarily produce. It induced a close and dependent relation of those Professors to their pupils which impaired the freedom of