And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the collective sagacity of this Congress could occupy itself with no more important question than with this: How is medical education to be arranged, so that, without entangling the student in those details of the systematist which are valueless to him, he may be enabled to obtain a firm grasp of the great truths respecting animal and vegetable life, without which, notwithstanding all the progress of scientific medicine, he will still find himself an empiric?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Joseph Priestley, [p. 94], infra.
[2] The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into general education by George Combe and others commenced a good deal earlier; but the movement had acquired hardly any practical force before the time to which I refer.
[3] Essays in Criticism, p. 37.
[4] “Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, prius tamen est nosse quam facere.”—“Karoli Magni Regis Constitutio de Scholis per singula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis,” addressed to the Abbot of Fulda. Baluzius, “Capitularia Regum Francorum,” T. i., p. 202.
[5] Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrew February 1, 1867, by J. S. Mill, Rector of the University (pp. 32, 33).
[6] “Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Reference to Oxford.” By the Rector of Lincoln.
[7] Goethe, Zahme Xenien, Vierte Abtheilung. I should be glad to take credit for the close and vigorous English version; but it is my wife’s, and not mine.