laid out an elective four-year course, embracing in the first year only arts and science subjects with the addition of torts and in the remaining three years the regular course in law, with the addition of arts and science subjects in the second year equivalent to torts. In the first year English history and elementary economics are required, the remaining courses being elective but subject to approval by the Dean. Further consideration may suggest the wisdom of adding the English language and literature to the required studies. But the plan, as it stands, has manifest advantages. The student gets a year of college work before entering upon bis three year professional course. At the same time he is under the Faculty of Law which will endeavor to hold him to the hard work expected in the professional courses. The studies too are of the sort to appeal to the interest of the professional student. He himself will recognize that a student of the common law needs to know the history of England where that law has had a development of a thousand years, and also to understand the economic principles governing the production and distribution of wealth with which so large a portion of the lawyer's practice is concerned. At the same time the student gets just a taste of professional work in the prescribed subject of torts. Altogether the programme illustrates an earlier suggestion of this Report. It shows how, at a time when the notion of liberal culture is under eclipse, a course of humanistic education may be laid out with reference to the prospective vocation of the student.

The President believes that in the near future this four year course should be required of all students entering the College of Law who have not previously had at least one year of satisfactory work in a college of arts and sciences. Beyond that requirement he does not believe that a due regard to the interests of the public, which the College

of Law has served for twenty years, would suffer the restriction to extend-certainly not for any date that need be considered at the present time.

It is different with the College of Medicine in the City of New York. That institution is located in the midst of a dense population of many millions, among whom there are great numbers of college graduates. Its students have been drawn mainly from that locality. And although Boston and Baltimore each has a medical school open only to college graduates, in the vastly larger city of New York all the medical schools alike are open to high school graduates. Surely in this city, if anywhere else in America, the work of the medical colleges should be differentiated. There should be at least one medical college devoted to research in the medical sciences and to the training of graduates of colleges of arts and sciences who propose to devote themselves to the study of medicine, and from whom are most likely to come that small body of learned investigators or skilful practitioners who constitute the crown of the medical profession.

Shall the Cornell University Medical College endeavor to fill this now unoccupied position? This is a question to be most carefully considered by the Faculty, the Trustees, and the generous Founder and constant Patron of the College. At the time of the foundation of the College, nine years ago, the question was mooted but dismissed as premature. Since then, however, the College has established an excellent reputation alike in the work of teaching and in the field of investigation. Its graduates testify to the high character of the education which the College furnishes. And the researches conducted by the College, especially in the province of pathology, have attracted the attention and commendation of both scientists and physicians. Dean Polk says:

"It is the idea in the future that the University should maintain a body of men devoted entirely to the advancement of medicine as a true science, and contribute its full share of the benefits mankind has reason to expect from an institution of this kind. Eleven persons are actually engaged in this work solely in the department of pathology, and the value of it is attested in the serum recently introduced for the cure of a certain specific infection known as gonorrhoeal rheumatism, and another serum which has attracted world-wide attention for the cure of a disorder known as Graves' disease or exophthalmic goitre, in which the nomenclature, owing to the teaching of this laboratory, is now being changed to thyroidism."

Without answering the question raised just before this quotation as to the future of the College, the President would point out that either that change or some other in that direction is now practically unavoidable. It is not merely that the harvest is ripe in New York City and that no institution is reaping it. It is not merely that the College in nine years has won for itself high standing by the quality of its instruction and by the importance and fruitfulness of its experimental research and inquiry. There are practical considerations which reinforce these scholastic features in dominating the situation at the present time. First, the Cornell University Medical College cannot afford to remain behind the medical colleges mentioned in an earlier part of this section which, either independently or in reponse to the action of the American Medical Association, have now prescribed one or two years of work in a college of arts and sciences as a requirement for admission to the professional course. And, secondly, the congestion of the medical curriculum has created a situation intolerable both for students and teachers. To quote again from the report of the Dean :

"In conclusion permit me to add that it is our hope to have the fundamental subjects of chemistry and biology more widely introduced into our preparatory courses. For each year the growth of knowledge imposes burdens upon the present curriculum which are becoming almost physically impossible for both the student and the instructor. Before the lapse of many years it will be absolutely

necessary either to lengthen the medical course or to compel our students to come to us prepared in the fundamental natural sciences. There are growing signs of the recognition of these facts by the public educators in the primary branches, but it is the duty of those interested in the teaching of medicine to constantly urge a better preparation upon those who intend to make this great humanitarian calling their life work.”

Similarly the Secretary of the Ithaca Division of the Medical College, which duplicates the work of the first two years, writes in his report:

"The curriculum is greatly overcrowded and nearly every department is asking for more time for its work. It seems imperative that physics and elementary chemistry should soon be made required subjects for entrance. If we could obtain our students with better preparation than graduation from a high school implies, it would be possible to materially strengthen our medical course."

The educational embarrassment resulting from the crowded curriculum of the four-year course could be relieved by adding a preparatory year to the present course, as the College of Law has done in the course it recommends for its students. But, even if that were done, the Cornell University Medical College would still be outranked in that respect by Yale University, the University of Minnesota, Western Reserve University, Rush Medical College and other western medical schools which require for admission a previous course of at least two years in arts and sciences. And, if the College were ready to follow their example and also prescribe two years of liberal education for entrance, the question would then arise whether it might not be better to demand a degree in arts and sciences, as Harvard and Johns Hopkins already do, especially in view of the need of such an institution for superior instruction and research in the great city of New York.

THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS

The training of teachers for work in the secondary schools of the State is one of the imperative duties of the

University. The President has always been deeply impressed with this obligation of the University, and as far back as 1894-1895 he outlined a scheme for a broad-based school or college dedicated to that function, which it was hoped the State might deem it expedient to support at Cornell University. But the newly inaugurated policy of State support for the Colleges of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine was then fighting its way against great opposition and the time was thought inopportune to urge the State to establish a college of education, especially as sister institutions opposed it on the ground that it would give Cornell a monopoly of the function of training teachers for the high schools, academies, and normal schools of the State. On no account would the University imperil the successful development of the policy of securing generous State co-operation to expand and strengthen the work in agricultural and veterinary science. These interests, in the years that have since elapsed, have been safeguarded and consolidated beyond the possibility of reaction. And the University is now free to consider once more the programme of a professional School of Education, which shall supersede the existing department of pedagogy. Happily at this juncture also funds became available for the training of teachers, so that the University is relieved of the necessity of soliciting the financial co-operation of the State in this great enterprise.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees in June, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:

"Whereas, It is desirable that Cornell University should train teachers for the schools of New York and other states not only in the Liberal Arts and Sciences but also in Agriculture and the Industrial and Fine Arts; and

"Whereas, Courses adapted to the needs of teachers in these subjects are now provided in the different Colleges of the University and others will hereafter be added; and

"Whereas, It is expedient, if these courses are to be effective