Introductory lecture delivered at the opening of the Argyle Square Medical School, session 1836-37 / by John Mackintosh.

  • Mackintosh, John, -1837.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture delivered at the opening of the Argyle Square Medical School, session 1836-37 / by John Mackintosh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/20 (page 7)
    collecting the statement made to you of our success, it may appear that the members of this Medical School have no reason to complain of the monopoly enjoyed by the teachers in the University,—but it is of the principle we complain ; we have succeeded in spite of a bad system, not in conse¬ quence of it. However great may be the sacrifice, either of public feeling or private interests, means ought to be re¬ sorted to, to insure the best education, more especially in so important a profession as that of Medicine. It appears to me, that there cannot be a more simple and effectual manner, than admitting a certain degree of competition, such as exists amongst those who are termed private or extra-collegiate Teachers. If a Lecturer appear among us who is either incapa¬ ble of adequately discharging the duties of his office, or if he re¬ lax in his endeavours, he at once receives the strongest possible hint to retire, by the desertion of his pupils. Hence we find, that while the classes of all good teachers are well attended by diligent and attentive students, the rooms of the inefficient are either nearly empty, or filled by compulsory means, with a yawning, listless, or turbulent set of young men, who never¬ theless behave with propriety in every other place. The period has now arrived when such things can no longer be suffered to continue; and I may congratulate you that monopolies in the teaching of Medicine now no longer exist. The alterations of the laws made by the Senatus Academicus of St Andrews, corresponding to those of Ox¬ ford and Cambridge, and the determination of His Majesty to establish a Metropolitan University in London, to confer degrees in Medicine on all who have received the requisite instruction, whether within or without the walls of Universi¬ ties, and have undergone a proper examination by gentlemen of distinguished merit and undoubted honour, who have no pecuniary interest in the result of the trial, or bias in favour of this or that School, at once destroy all injurious monopo¬ lies, and force upon the Professors of Edinburgh and Glas¬ gow that wholesome competition for which we have for a number of years been anxiously contending. That such is the case, is readily perceived by a reference to the draft of the