An Introductory Lecture Delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard University

An Introductory Lecture Delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard University

White, James C. (James Clarke), 1833-1916

Boston Medical and Surgical Journal

Speeches

Harvard Medical School

Introductory lectures to new medical students were customary at the opening of each academic year and often printed in pamphlet form or, as here, in the pages of a medical journal. James C. White cautions the students against specializing too early and stresses greater preparation, a longer course of study, and rigorous examinations. He concedes, however, that true reform, even at Harvard, would come only slowly and at some cost: “An analysis of the list of those who attended lectures last year shows that of 276 students but 62 had received a previous collegiate education… We may conclude then that such a reform would inevitably be followed by the immediate loss of two thirds of its present number of students, by an equivalent crippling of its material resources, and the sacrifice of the prestige of a large school.”

Introductory lecture by James C. White to the Harvard Medical School in 1870 as printed in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, v. 83 (1870)

White, James C. (James Clarke), 1833-1916

1870 November 02

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Harvard Medical Library Rare Books Collection (1.Mh.1870.W)

text

excerpt (1 page)

English

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DigID0002417

Purchased for the Harvard Medical Library, 1949