better he does it, the higher the wages he deserves or must receive, and those who assert to the contrary are uninformed and in sincere." Dr. Daniel Drake says: "I believe a low price to be calculated, in the estimation of the profession, to disgrace a school. It creates the impression that the trustees believe the professors cannot attract students, but by saving them money." M. Guizot says: "That cheap professional education multiplies in the profession men of the second order, and the obscure and idle multitudes." Adam Smith, in his letter to Dr. Cullen, " declared that the reduction of the cost of professional education, whether by means of low fees or public endowment, below the standard of its real value, would so increase the number of professional men, that their necessities would oblige them in general to content themselves with a very miserable recompense, to the entire degradation of the now respectable professions of law and physic. That the effect would be to abandon the professions to an inferior class of practitioners, with whom no community could safely trust its health. We trust" he says, 66 our health to the physician, our fortune, and sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney. Such confidence could not be safely reposed in people of very low or mean condition. Their reward, therefore, must be such as may give them that rank in society which so important a trust requires." My last quotatation will be from a living man whom you all know. I mean Dr. Cochran, of Mobile. says, in a speech delivered at Montgomery, only one year ago, upon the subject of medical education: "the law of compensation is universal. If you want any thing in this world, or indeed in any other, pay for it and take it. But remember it must be paid for. It cannot be had on other terms. The fates are never cheated. Who bears the cross shall wear the crown." Our learned and most efficient secretary also thinks that he has a plan by which all trouble will be obviated, and the flag of reform be boldly flung to the breeze. It is to have a Board of Censors appointed in each county of the State. Now, in my opinion, if this were practicable, it would not meet the difficulty. We have not, and probably never will have, societies in half the counties of the State, and if we had, I have no idea that the authority of such Boards would be respected unless we have legislative enactments conferring power upon them. This is impossible now, and for all time, until we educate the people up to the point of protecting themselves against quacks and imposters, instead of encouraging them.

He

The only practicable Board of Censors would be that recommended by the American Medical Association, and which I had the honor to lay before you at our last meeting. Since then I have written to Dr. Davis, the chairman of the committee appointed by the National Association, and will read you his letter. It is not very encouraging as to the speedy adoption of the plan recommended, still some good may come from it after awhile. I also, looking

to the probable adoption of the resolutions by this Association, drew up a bill which I had introduced for the purpose of testing the temper of the Legislature, and also in case it passed to make the Board effective. I read you a copy of the bill. I left out everything which was thought calculated to defeat it; thinking that it would be better to trust to future legislation than to ask too much at first. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, who did not think it of sufficient importance to make any report upon it. I feel satisfied that no action of ours, unless we have the power to have offenders punished by law, will be of any avail. Still I think it would be well to pass these resolutions and make the trial. Admit that we can get an effective Board of Censors in every county in this State, would it be right for us to flood other States with the material which this system of free or cheap medical education is certain to bring into the profession?

It is all sophistry to say that we must have cheap medical education for the purpose of allowing worthy young men an opportunity of entering the profession, who are too poor to pay their way through a medical college.

No one who has the mind, education and energy to make a successful practitioner, will ever be kept back for the want of means to defray his expenses. He will get them in some way, and if he has to make great sacrifices for the purpose, it will inure to his benefit in the end. How many rich men did any of you ever know to study medicine with the intenion of following it as a profession? Our ranks are made up of poor men, who had to struggle hard to get a diploma, and these men appreciate it for that very fact. It is dear to them as the apple of their eye; and the honor and dignity of their calling is more than a mere sentiment with them. You will find of these old soldiers of the profession who will advocate cheap medical education. I believe it to be the duty of this Association to assume high ground upon this question.

The tone and character of the profession in this State is supposed (and it ought) to be regulated by this body. No partisan feeling, for a moment, should be tolerated; for in the discussion of great principles, self or personal inclinations should be entirely lost sight of. And as I have now come to a point in which I shall have to allude to the late action of the Faculty of the Medical College of the State of Alabama, I wish to say in all candor, that so far as I am concerned, if I know myself, personal feeling or ambition has nothing to do in prompting any action in which I have taken a part. I claim now to be as good a friend as the College has, and for its Faculty I have the highest esteem and respect; and I am sorry that my honest convictions force me to differ from them upon this question. This may be, and probably is, a matter of indifference with them, still I must say I think the Faculty has committed a great error in abolishing its fees, especially without insisting upon a more

thorough preliminary training previous to matriculation, and a higher standard of proficiency for graduation, so as to counteract in some measure the evil of offering inducements and facilities for entering the profession to great numbers of illy prepared men.

It also has the bad odor of under bidding other colleges, without showing to the world that the college is upon an equality with the best in the land, and that its diploma must be respected, wherever its recipient chooses to go; whether it be in Massachusetts or California. I say again that personal ambition (for I know that it has been said that it did) has not prompted the opposition to the action of the Faculty.

On the contrary, personal feeling and inclination would have moved me to adopt a different course; for it is always unpleasant to differ from our friends.

But when great and vital principles are to be discussed, and measures are to be adopted, that not only affect us of to-day, but also future generations, it is our duty to take a decided stand, and to adopt rules that will redound to the honor and lasting reputation of this Association. I am willing, myself, to go on the record, as opposed to cheap medical education in this country, without the corresponding requisites which are deemed indispensable in Europe. I believe it will be alike detrimental to the good of the profession and to the welfare of the people. I am convinced also, that it is the bounden duty, as well as the right of this Association, whose business it is to guard with a zealous care the honor and dignity of the profession in this State, to speak out in unmistakeable language upon all questions relating to the action of its different members; especially when that action is of a public character. It has been said by the Mobile Medical Society, acting in behalf of the Faculty, that the profession at large had nothing to do with colleges, and should not meddle with them, but attend to its own business. Professor Cochran, however, for whom we all have the highest esteem, says that the profession at large is more to blame (referring to the low standard of medical education) than the colleges. His words are: "They have had the power to control the evil of which they complain and they have failed to exercise it." I agree with the Professor that it has the right, for power carries right with it, generally. I believe, moreover, that this Association as the representative of the profession at large in this State, when assembled in solemn council, has the power, and that it ought to say what is proper and ethical for any of its members, be they professors or not. I think that as we once endorsed the college fully, and promised to sustain it, individually and collectively, we now should say whether we still endorse it or not after the complete revolution that has come over its management. Of course we cannot (and I presume no one entertains such an idea,) control the action of the Faculty, as I believe the College is a private institution. They have the right to act for

themselves but they cannot expect to be sustained by this Association against its own judgment.

I will say here, that I am not opposed to professors teaching for nothing if it be their fancy. I can't say that any one ought to object on their account.

That is not the point that I desire to make. I am also inclined to the opinion that it would be better, where teachers work for money, to have their salaries independent of the fees paid by the students. At the same time I think the student should pay well both in time and money for his medical education.

I have tried to show elsewhere, that it would not do to compare cheap, common or popular education with professional education. The one is actually necessary not only for the common good and the good of the individual, but for the protection of society itself. I presume, however, that no one will argue that it would be better to convert the world into a great doctor's office, and to set everyone to giving his neighbor physic in the most scientific manner.

The correct plan, it seems to me, is for the student, not only to spend plenty of time, but also money, for that is the real touchstone to the value of everything in this world: and then he will be in a condition to appreciate what has cost him so dearly. Not only that, the people will be taught as they are in Europe, to respect a profession whose honors have to be won at so much cost and labor. I believe also that it is the plan by which we are to have good teachers. They must be paid so well 'that the most learned in the profession will be willing to devote their time and knowledge to teaching.

In Europe, notwithstanding it has been said that the salaries of the professors was a mere nothing, I have shown that they were well paid by the government. They also are remunerated in another way for the honor of being a professor in a European school brings money with it, by the increase of practice; for the people know that no man can occupy a professorial chair in a foreign University without great learning and proficiency in his particular branch.

In closing I must ask pardon for trespassing so long upon your time. I feel that it is, probably, the most important subject that we will have for consideration, and I hope there will be no hasty or immature action in the matter. It is a subject worthy of your calmest and wisest deliberations, and I most sincerely wish for the Faculty and the Association to work together in harmony for a common good. And I am anxious for some plan to be devised that will be agreeable and beneficial to all parties; and I am willing to support any measure looking to this end.

After Dr. Weatherly had finished reading his address, Dr. J. M. Williams, of Montgomery, presented a resolution of the Montgom

ery Medical and Surgical Society in the words following, to-wit: HALL MEDICAL AND SURGICAL SOCIETY, Į

Montgomery, Ala., August 1st, 1870.)

Resolved, That the delegates from this society to the next meeting of the State Medical Association, be instructed to enter their solemn protest against the action of the Medical College of Alabama, whereby fees for lectures have been abolished.

In accordance with the terms of this resolution, Dr. Williams moved that the protest of the delegates of his society against the action of the Faculty of the College in the matter complained of, be spread upon the minutes of the State Association.

This motion gave rise to a very animated discussion. The more prominent speeches made in the discussion are here given from memoranda furnished the Secretary by the gentlemen who delivered them:

ADDRESS OF DR. WM. H. ANDERSON.

Dr. Anderson commenced his remarks by stating that he had listened attentively to the paper of Dr. Weatherly, and was compelled to say that, like many other documents on the same subject, it found fault with the present system of Medical Education, but suggested no remedy. The drift of the argument, if indeed there was any argument in Dr. W.'s remarks, was that he objected to the system of Free Lectures. Let us analyze this objection for a moment, said Dr. Anderson. Does it not redound to the glory of Prussia and France that for many years their educational system has been free? Has it not called into their great cities thousands of students annually, who never would have sought their colleges if such had not been the case? and is an institution in the South, the down-trodden South, reft of her wealth, and almost of her nationality, to be reviled and abused because its Professors chose to open to her poverty-stricken inhabitants the halls of their College free of charge? Consider for a moment, gentlemen of the Association, the position that the Medical College of Alabama occupied when she reöpened her lecture rooms after the war. Her geographical position was such that she drew her classes from the same district of country that the Colleges of Nashville and Louisville drew theirs. These Colleges had thought proper to reduce the fees for attending lectures to a mere nominal sum-fifty dollars in one case, forty in the other; but while charging these small fees, they never turned any student off from their doors, so that really they taught many for no compensation at all. They had tried to get a uniform. system of fees. They, like ourselves, had sent representatives to the Teachers' Convention at Washington City. No uniformity could be obtained. The subject was then referred to the American