Addresses at the opening of the Medical college

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ADDRESSES AT THE OPENING OF

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE

J. G. SCHURMAN
President of Cornell University

W. M. POI.K, M.D.
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY
1898

The Medical College of Cornell
Univenily oives its exisicnce to the
munificence of Colonel Oliver H.
Payne. It was established by the
Trustees of the University on April
fourteenth, iSqS, and its doors were
opened to students on the fourth of
the following October.

THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDICAL
COLLEGE

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT SCHURMAN

Ladies and Gentlemen :

The origin of the Cornell University Medical
College reminds one of the birth of Minerva. That
goddess, you remember, sprang full-armed from
the brain of Jove. Our Medical College is almost
as miraculous a creation. A year ago no one
dreamt of its existence. To-day it stands before
the world with an actual organization and a potency
of achievement which seem to presage its manifest
destiny as the American acropolis of ^sculapius.

I know no better illustration of Professor
Huxley's saying that "the question of medical ed-
ucation is, in a very large and broad sense, a ques-
tion of finance." Most assuredly this institution
could not have come into existence but for the
unlimited capital which a wise head and generous
hand have furnished for its foundation and sup-
port. That munificent gift is the offering to hu-

manity of one who feels deep sympathy with his
suffering fellow-men, and who believes that their
lot is to be ameliorated by the elevation of medical
education. "I suppose," this generous benefactor
once said to me, "we all want to do some good in
the world, and I should like to do something by
improving the education of that profession which
cares for the lives of men, heals their wounds, and
alleviates their sufferings." Of such a compas-
sionate heart and intelligent understanding was
the Cornell University Medical College born.

By the star of our nativity, therefore, we are
dedicated to noble things. With such a consecra-
tion, which will prove a never-failing inspiration,
let us, in that spirit of fraternal union which gives
irresistible strength, strive by zeal, diligence, and
wisdom for the fulfilment of the high trust com-
mitted to us. Here and now let us resolve that,
so far as in us lies, the humane and lofty purpose
of our Founder shall be accomplished.

I have no doubt whatever that we shall suc-
ceed in our task. If our hopes are sanguine, if
our ambitions are high, if we presume to make our
aim a goal yet unattained, do we not also set out
on our career under circumstances more favorable
than have ever smiled upon any similar institution
since medical education began with the University'
of Salerno ? Much may be expected of this Medi-
cal College, for much has been given to it. I speak
not only of capital, which, however, is forthcoming
for every reasonable object. Nor have I in mind

material structures, thougli our local habitation in
spacioiis proportions will soon rise, like a thing of
splendor and beauty, to crown this section of our
great metropolis. My thought is rather of men.
For it is true now, as always, that, though money
be the indispensable condition, the real and essen-
tial cause of the success of any institution is to be
found in the men who are its active soul. If, there-
fore, my expectations are pitched high for this
Medical College, it is primarily because it is organ-
ized with a remarkably strong, though still incom-
plete, staff of instruction — a body of picked men, a
corps of physicians and surgeons whose practice
puts them in the van of their profession, and whose
gifts as teachers, already exhibited in other schools,
have won for them the united admiration of rival
bodies of students. Personally, I count it a peculiar
privilege that I am to have the honor of association
with these distinguished gentlemen in the eleva-
tion of medical education and the advancement of
medical science in this great city of New York. I
regret that I am not better qualified to aid them.
I am not a physician or the son of a physician.
Perhaps, however, your sympathetic imaginations
will invest me with at least the semblance of initia-
tion, if I tell you that my Alma Mater has on her
rolls, not only the name of Huxley, but those emi-
nent medical practitioners and reformers. Sir Henry
Thompson, Sir William Jenner, Henry Maudsley,
Sir Morrell MacKenzie, and, greatest surgeon of
all, and of the century. Sir Joseph Lister. And

you may be kind enough to think that a college
which turns out such men is not likely to breed in
any of its sons indifference to, or lack of sympathy
with, the science and art of medicine.

The work and fame of this Medical College,
then, are in the hands of its Faculty. You will
agree with me that they are in safe keeping there.
But I should not have done justice to my own feel-
ings, or fully described the support of this institu-
tion, if I did not mention another feature of its
existence, a feature which I may be pardoned for
thinking of cardinal importance, as it explains and
justifies — especially as nothing I have to say would
else justify — the prominence which has been given
to my unworthy self in these proceedings. This
Medical College is a department of Cornell Univer-
sity. And by that description I mean to say that
it is a real, integral, and vital part of the University.
In other words the legal corporation, known as
Cornell University, has exactly the same rights,
powers, responsibilities, and jurisdiction in regard
to this new department as it has hitherto exercised
in regard to every other department of the Univer-
sity. The only difference is that a wealthy phil-
anthropist gives us an endowment for the conduct
of the department of medicine, while many of our
other departments are unendowed, and must take
their chances of support out of the general funds
of the University. This difference is momentous
indeed from the point of view of permanent and
assured vitality and efficiency. But, considering

the mere fact of organization, I repeat that the
Medical College stands on precisely the same foot-
ing as the Academic Department, the College of
Law, or the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineer-
ing. The Faculty, in every case, is charged with
the educational administration of its respective Col-
lege ; but all business is conducted, and all appoint-
ments are made, by the Board of Trustees of Cornell
University. The members of the Faculty of Med-
icine receive fixed stipends, like the professors in
other departments ; and as they have nothing to
do with the business affairs of the College, so they
have no interest in the fees received for tuition,
which are turned into the treasury of Cornell Uni-
versity. The Faculty, in a word, is an educational
body.

You may ask if it is possible for the Board of
Trustees of Cornell University, meeting in Ithaca,
to manage wisely the affairs of their Medical Col-
lege in New York ? Let me remind you, by way
of answer, that this is an age of telegraphs, tele-
phones, and rapid travel. But not only this. Fol-
lowing a precedent already established in connec-
tion with some of the other Colleges of the Uni-
versity, the Board of Trustees have established for
the Medical College an advisory council, consisting
of the Dean and two members of the Faculty of
Medicine, three Trustees (who are residents of New
York), and the President of the University, as
Chairman, whose duty it is to digest all business
affecting the Medical College and make recom-

mendations thereupon to the Board for formal
action. This system, which insures a thorough
consideration of every question from every point of
view, promises the happiest results. The Council
meets once a month, on the day following the
monthly meeting of the Faculty.

So much for the anatomy and physiology of
the Medical College as one of the organs of Cornell
University. Let me now turn to the inner and
ideal side of this relationship.

Though the physical distance between the
Medical College and the other departments of our
University is greater than it is in the case of Har-
vard or Columbia, I believe I am not mistaken in
the belief that the connection is really closer. For
the men of the first or second years are free to
study either here or in the Academic Department at
Ithaca, while in the case of the women they are even
required to go to Ithaca. It is a characteristic of
Cornell University, whose charter consecrates it to
both "liberal and practical education," not to draw
sharp lines of demarcation between the Academic
Department and the professional schools. It has
always been recognized that when the curriculum
of the classical colleges was enlarged so as to pro-
vide for the sciences of nature and the modern
humanities — as from the beginning it was enlarged
at Cornell — then the Academic Department, instead
of withdrawing to the seclusion of an imaginary
superiority, in fact became the foundation and the
fruitful ally of every technical, scientific, or learned

profession. Nearly lialf the work of our engineer-
ing courses is given in the Academic Department.
And we were glad to make a similar arrangement
for the medical student. While on this subject of
inter-relationship I may add that the graduates of
every one of our professional colleges enjoy, equally
with the Bachelors of Arts, the privilege of voting
for Alumni Trustees. I suppose we may soon ex-
pect to see an influx of medical members into our
Board !

There is another feature'of Cornell University
which is of no little importance in the considera-
tion of medical studies. From the beginning we
have given prominence to the natural sciences. Of
course the physico-chemical sciences were indis-
pensable to the success of our engineering depart-
ments. But though we had no medical school,
which imperatively called for the biological sci-
ences, these were nourished with equal care and
assiduity. I need only mention the name of Pro-
fessor Wilder as a guarantee of the quality of the
work done. But not only were physiology, anat-
omy, and the kindred sciences cultivated by the
University ; their indispensable importance to the
physician and surgeon was recognized at a time
when students at medical schools were accustomed
to hear "lectures upon surgery without any knowl-
edge of anatomy, and upon therapeutics while
ignorant of physiology." (Dr. Wilder in Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal, June 24th, 1875.)
Indeed, within two years after its opening in 1868,

Cornell University had arranged a four-year course
in Natural History leading to tie degree of Bach-
elor of Science, whicli was well adapted to the
needs of students who contemplated the study of
medicine ; and, in 1878, for such students as could
not take this full course, a shorter two-year course
was provided, in which a large amount of time was
devoted to practical work in anatomy, physiology,
histology, and chemistry. Anyone who knows how
these sciences were in those da3'-s neglected in the
medical schools will perhaps feel that there is a
certain propriety or poetic justice in the endow-
ment which Cornell has at last received for the
establishment of a great medical department.

This is the attitude of Cornell University to
the sciences of nature ; this is what she has done
for the scientific preparation of students for work
in the medical schools. Is not her spirit and aim
wonderfully congenial with the spirit and aim of
your profession ? What is needed for the training
of physicians and surgeons to-day ? I answer, first,
science ; secondly, science ; thirdly, science. If, two
or three generations ago, medicine was, on the
side of theory, pretty much where Harvey had
left it in the 17th century, and, on the side of
practice, scarcely in advance of that of Celsus or
Galen, the last half century has wrought an en-
tire change. As Sir Joseph Lister recently said,
in his presidential address before the British Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science, "the prac-
tice of medicine, in every department, is becoming

more and more based on science, as distinguished
from empiricism." Recall only the discovery of
the functions of the spinal cord, of reflex action, of
anaesthetics, of the antiseptic method, of the germ
theory of disease ; think only how the prolonga-
tion of life and the lowering of the death-rate (in
the City of New York, from 32.2 to 19.5 in forty
years) has been effected by scientific hygiene ;
enumerate only such instruments as the stetho-
scope, the ophthalmoscope, the laryngoscope, the
pleximeter, the cardiograph, the spirometer, and the
sphygmograph ; — consider the significance of these
essential facts of the healing art of to-day, and you
will agree with me that modern medicine has been
"scientificized." Now I do not claim that Cornell
University has, in any special way, contributed to
this transformation of empirical into scientific med-
icine. But I do assert that from the day of her
origin she has observed the change, welcomed it,
and endeavored to give her students the training
necessary for the understanding of, and participa-
tion in it. And so, to-day, she says to every one of
these students : Master your sciences, or you can
never be a physician or a surgeon worthy the name.
As Huxley once put it in an address to the students
of my Alma Mater : "I do not believe that all the
talking about, and thinking of, medical education
will do the slightest good until the fact is clearly
recognized, that men must be thoroughly grounded
in the theoretical branches of their profession."
And these theoretical branches Huxley reduces to

tlie minimum of physics applied to physiology,
chemistry applied to physiology, physiology and

anatomy.

Some of you will say that it is impossible to
master the scientific bases of medicine in the one
or two years — at most two years — which the med-
ical schools assign to those subjects. This is my
belief, too. And so I say, take more time. But
not only for mastery of your sciences. A man
educated merely in the sciences of nature, a man
whose mind has not been opened, elevated, and
enlarged by art, letters, and philosophy, is a good
deal of a Philistine. Liberal culture, like virtue
or religion, has its own intrinsic value. I shall
not, however, stop to argue a thesis so manifest, and
so universally accepted. But I do desire to ask
you if it is not true that a liberally educated man
— a man whose powers and faculties have been dis-
ciplined, chastened, strengthened, and enlarged by
letters, philosophy, and science — will not have a
great advantage over the man of mere professional
education, even in the practice of his profession ?
He will have deeper insight, a greater comprehen-
siveness and versatility of intellect, a surer faculty
of seeing things as they are and disentangling what
is irrelevant and sophistical. This is what gives
such profound truth to the saying of Jowett — the
greatest educator of his generation — that to be a
good engineer a man must be more than an en-
gineer. And I find this same sentiment among
the most distinguished physicians. You will see

13

it expressed in Sir Morrell MacKenzie's essay on
"The Relation of General Culture to Professional
Success." And the celebrated Dr. Stokes, a gen-
eration ago, laid it down as a maxim that "We
must trust far less to the special than to the gen-
eral training of the mind." My own observations
and reflections as an educator and a stiident of the
human mind have led me to the same conclusion.
Generally stated, my view is that the mind, in
order to know anything well, must know far more
than that thing — and the more extensive and inten-
sive that "more" is, the better will the narrower
specialty be understood, and the readier will be
the power of applying it. I have had striking
confirmations of this principle in my intercourse
with professional men. The leader of the Ameri-
can bar once told me that he owed his success in
his profession to his college work in philosophy
and the languages. The Nestor of American jour-
nalism assured me that whatever reputation he had
achieved was due to his college training in classics
and mathematics. And as I scan the biographies
of the men who were eminent in the medical pro-
fession, I find that Harvey devoted five years to
academical studies at Cambridge before he went to
Padua to study anatomy ; that Richard Bright
studied philosophy under Dugald Stewart ; that
Sir James Y. Simpson was a student both of math-
ematics and of ethics ; and that Sir Joseph Lister
took his A.B. at the University of London five
years before he came up for his medical degree.

14

To every prospective medical student I should like
to say : Go thou and do likewise.

Undoubtedly this will make large demands
upon the time of the student. Now it is not neces-
sary that any young man should be a physician or
surgeon ; but if he decides to become one, he should
aim at nothing less than the first rank. Here, too,
as at other points, Cornell University will give him
aid and encouragement. In our Academic Depart-
ment the student has absolute liberty in the choice
of studies. So that if our future medical stu-
dent enters that course he may, without neglecting
letters or philosophy, master thoroughly his anat-
omy, physiology, histology, chemistry, physics, and
botany, and at the end of four years receive his
A.B. degree. There then would remain of the
medical curriculum only the professional branches,
which he could compass in the next two years, in
New York City. Thus, thanks to our elective sys-
tem, he would win both the A.B. and the M.D.
degree in six years — though each separately
requires four years.

It will, then, be to the advantage, not only of
the University and its Medical College, but of the
student and the general public, if the relationship
between our Academic and Medical Departments
become closer and more constant. I hope to see it
the rule for our students of medicine to spend four
years at Ithaca in the study of letters, philosophy,
and science — the latter covering in a thorough way
the theoretical parts of the medical curriculum —

15

and tlien two years here for instruction in the prac-
tical part of the curriculum, for which this great
city offers unsurpassed opportunities. The Fac-
ulty of Medicine would, I am sure, rejoice if this
arrangement were the general and normal one.
Our Founder would rejoice, for his aim is, not to
attract numbers, but to offer superior training for
those, be they few or many, capable of receiving it.
And if, along with this ideal of high intellectual
standards, we entertain a just conception of the
inherent nobility of the medical profession — whose
aim now and always is to discover and use the laws
of nature for the relief, healing, and protection of
mankind — we shall in this new Medical College,
which we now open, erect a temple whose founda-
tions are truth, and whose superstructure is charity
and philanthropy. And upon it and all its mem-
bers I reverently invoke the blessing of God, who
is at once both Truth and Mercy.

ADDRESS BY DEAN POLK

"There is a divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may"

Herein lies the explanation of tlie success whicli
has attended the conception and creation of this
medical school ; and we who are the instruments
employed have but one feeling, an all-pervading
feeling, especially on this the opening occasion of
our educational work ; and this is a deep sense of
our responsibilities to our benefactor, our Univer-
sity, and to you. It might be supposed that the
distinction which these factors in our existence
have bestowed upon us would create an elation
which would warrant a desire for the triumphal
car and its attendant glories, but I know that, so
far from this being the state of our minds, a spirit
of seriousness possesses us, in keeping with re-
newed effort rather than effort accomplished. It is
evident that this argues well for the execution of
the trust placed in our hands.

In this wonderful country of ours a consider-
able number of men have been produced who,
through the exercise of natural powers upon the
opportunities before them, have acquired the means
wherewith to bestow munificent gifts. With the
thousands of impecunious enterprises continuously

17

projected, it is evident that these men are never
free from solicitation to contribute to this, patron-
ize that, or endow the other. Hence it is scarcely
to be wondered at, that more than the ordinary dis-
crimination is needed to avoid bestowal in wrong
direction and apply it in the right. When, there-
fore, after proper inquiry and deliberation, such a
bestowal is made, it carries with it more than the
usual obligation that the recipient shall in all
things live up to the expectation of the benefactor.
In the construction of any undertaking, ideals
may be priceless, and they are priceless, if they
personify the highest, installed upon a basis of
common sense. Such ideals contribute working for-
mulae, and can, therefore, be readily used in pro-
moting an undertaking ; and the greatest good
fortune attends upon the enterprise which possesses
such an ideal and has at hand the means with
which to reach toward it. It is doubly fortunate if,
with the means, comes hand in hand the ideal. You
know we have the means, and infer we have the
ideal, but you do not know that the same hand
which bestowed the means unconsciously brought
with it the ideal. For this gift was in reality a
protest against intrigue and deception, and a proof
that faithfulness is as essential to lasting success
in the great things of life as in the smallest. And
yet this was not all. It was not enough to give us
this ideal, but a place in which to exercise and de-
velop it in all its bearings was also given, in put-
ting us within the folds of a great University.

If you will go with me to the town of Ithaca,
you will there see grouped upon the hills over-
looking the head of one of the most extensive and
beautiful of the many lakes peculiar to the interior
of this State, a wonderful sight : — a great Univer-
sity, the result of thirty years of growth. And,
questioning as to the source of such a develop-
ment, we find the answer in the words of its distin-
guished President : "It lies in its constitutive
idea." "Every college and university is an organ
of the highest knowledge. Its function is the con-
secration of liberal culture. This was the accepted
view held a generation ago, and it was deemed
sufficient. Cornell University went further : it
associated practical education with liberal. It
ranked professional training among its functions ;
and it enlarged the notion of learned or scientific
professions so as to include, along with the tradi-
tional trio of law, medicine, and theology, whatever
calling rests on science or scholarship." In the
words of its Founder, it is "an institution where any
person can find instruction in any study." "Hos-
pitable to all the learned and scientific vocations of
modern times, it yet, at the same time, enlarges
the conception of liberal culture itself so as to give
the sciences of nature and the modern humanities
a place beside the ancient disciplines of Greek,
Latin, and mathematics."'

The eminently American character of the Uni-
versity is clearly defined in its democracy of liberal

"'A Generation of Cornell."

19

and scientific schools, and the vigor whicli charac-
terizes its administration is perpetuated in the love
and loyalty of its large classes, and the marvelous
esprit de corps of its numerous and influential
alumni. This is the inheritance we have been bid-
den to share, and in taking our place do so with a
deep determination to lend our minds and bodies
to the fulfilment of its ideals.

As has been said, an essential part of this ideal
is the practical, and herein lies the core of what we
deem our duty to j'ou, the students.

At the risk of wearying you with repetition of
what you have already learned from our circular of
information, I must say something of the manner
in which we propose to meet the demand for the
practical in your instruction. After a good many
years devoted to medical education, we have arrived
at the conviction that clinical demonstration, upon
a broad basis of laboratory instruction, is the only
way in which to prepare students for the degree of
Doctor of Medicine. This has been forcibly borne
in upon all undergraduate teachers by the univer-
sal demand for post-graduate instruction in details,
without which a graduate is in reality unfitted for
the practice of this profession. The first question
that had to be answered related to the disposition
of the didactic teaching, that part of the course
which offered the preliminary knowledge of the
theory of medicine as an introduction to the prac-
tical. After no small amount of labor and experi-
mentation, we reached the conclusion that recitation

from text-books, conducted, under the direction of
the Faculty, by a trained corps of instructors, af-
forded a better basis of theory than the didactic
lecture. This arrangement had also another advan-
tage of even greater merit, in that it freed the
older and more experienced teacher, so that he
could give his time to the practical or clinical
demonstration of the theory. To do this properly,
it was evident that he must have more time and
opportunity than the so-called clinic of the amphi-
theatre afforded. This could only be found in
closer and more frequent contact between the stu-
dent and patient than was possible at such clinics ;
hence the plan finally adopted, namely, to break
up the classes into small sections, and scatter such
sections through the wards of hospitals and dis-
pensaries, each under the guidance of a trained clin-
ician, whose object would be less the display of his
own learning than the eliciting of the student's
knowledge, with a view to its correction and enlarge-
ment. Given then this broad basis of laboratory
instruction, text-book drilling, with clinical demon-
stration superimposed, and presented to such small
subdivisions of the class as to insure the direct im-
press of the teacher upon each student, we feel we
have advanced a long way toward presenting the best
instruction that can possibly be given to the medi-
cal undergraduate of to-day. To meet fully the
demands of such a system, it is evident that pa-
tients are a necessity. The hospitals to which we
have access, though many and commodious, by no

means meet tlie requirements. This can come only
from the control of a large outdoor or walking
clinic.

For many years those of us who believed
in this method of conducting medical education
dreamed of a college building which would be a
dispensary, surrounding and enveloping a medical
school ; a dispensary in which, beside space for con-
sultation with patients with every conceivable dis-
order, there should be at hand space for the accom-
modation of students, who could thus have ready
access to every opportunity for demonstration.
With room for each department to conduct its own
clinical microscopy ; one or more large lecture-halls
for such lines of teaching as might still require
didactics ; museums filled with every required
model or specimen needed for demonstration ; work-
rooms for every kind of teaching for which the
cadaver may be required ; space where all that per-
tains to physiology may be unfolded ; and rooms for
chemistry, to show not only what pertains to the
inorganic of medicine, but all that is known or can
be known upon the subject of animal or physiolog-
ical chemistry.

This was our dream, and now when we awake
and find this dream practically a reality — when we
see rising before us all that our imagination so
long pictured, and look back upon the years so
vexatiously spent in making brick without the
straw — we enter, as few have entered, into the feel-
ing of the people of Israel, as they turned their

eyes to the land which Joshua and Caleb had told
them of. And in a spirit of deep appreciation
we begin here our part in the completion of the
edifice which typifies the spirit and the body of our
University.

With imposing presence it lifts itself upon its
bed of rock, suggestive of some great cathedral.
We see its minarets, its spires and towers reaching
heavenward, each marking the position of some
component part or school, and telling in degree
the sum of effort and perfection put forth and at-
tained by each. Moving among its massive pillars
and beneath its solemn arches, student and teacher
alike approach its altar, and there find the visible
presence of that sacred spirit of amity, unity, loy-
alty, and friendship which touches every soul that
enters within its portals. Upon and within this
stately edifice, our place as yet is scarcely more
than indicated. But, filled with the spirit of that
loyal faith given us in the example of our benefac-
tor, imbued with the power of that high-souled ag-
gression characterizing our University, and strong
in the force of our own purpose, we engage to
build for you as fair, as firm, as grand a spire as
ever reared its head toward heaven. Faithful, ag-
gressive, strong, we one and all pledge you our best
and ever-increasing effort.

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