47

had been engaged for years on similar inquiries to thoseof the French writer, that he had quoted the latter wher-ever he had original matter to produce, and that he hadceased to quote him wherever he (Professor Lombroso him-self) had reached the same conclusion independently. Now,such collisions of independent inquirers, and the consequentdisputes as to priority, culminating (as in this case) in actualJitigation, would be avoided by the organisation suggestedby Professor Foster. To be effective, however, such an

organisation should be on a comprehensively internationalscale, involving, no doubt, a large initial expenditure, butexpenditure amply compensated by the great advantagewhich biological and medical science would reap from

economy of energy and harmony of results. Individual

ambition, as in all organisations, might have to give way;but then it would do so in the interests of truth, to whichno genuine student of nature would grudge the personalsacrifice.

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CHRISTMAS AT THE HOSPITALS.

AT most of the institutions where pain and suffering areministered to special efforts are made at Christmastide, onthe part of the medical staff, nurses, and friends, to brightenthe lot of those who are compelled to spend their Christmasfrom home by reason of sickness and disease, and in pre-vious years we have given an account of the entertainmentsprovided for this purpose. By the courtesy of the secretariesof various hospitals we have received accounts of thesefestivities this year, but the enormous pressure on our spaceprevents us, much to our regret, from doing more than men-tioning the names of the institutions where entertainmentswere provided. Amongst others we may mention: St.

George’s Hospital, King’s College Hospital, the London

TIospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Thomas’s Hospital, theSeamen’s Hospital, the German Hospital, the H6pital et

Dispensaire Francais, the Great Northern Hospital, theVictoria Hospital for Children, and the Great Ormond-streetChildren’s Hospital.

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MOULDERS OF MEN.

THE year just closed has been a memorable one for educa-tion and the momentous interests bound up with it. Besidesthe perennial controversy as to the teaching of religion andthe conflicting claims of Board or denominational schools, wehave had quite lately the Congress of Headmasters at Eton.and the commemorations, centenary and bicentenary, oftwo commanding figures in their profession--James Melvinand Richard Busby. Of these, the former, as Rector ofAberdeen Grammar School, was for many years the

"moulder," if not the "maker," of relays of young aspi-rants to the professions-medical even more than legal ortheological. "Grim Pluto," as he used to be called, wasimpatient of anything less than "thorough," therein re-

sembling Dr. Arnold of Rugby, whose insistance on thatcondition was almost a fanaticism. "Accuracy," as Helpshas finely put it, "is the prose of truth," and Melvin’s enforce-ment of it in every detail of the day’s work so impressed theyoung minds committed to him that in after-life, when fameand fortune were their portion, they have loyally declaredthat to Melvin and his teaching they owed whatever successthey had achieved. The long list of names associated withthe celebration of his centenary was in itself the tributeof which he would have been most proud-proving as theydid that, if the Ultima Thule of learning is, as she hasoften been called, an " arida nutrix," she has been, underpreceptors such as he, a " nutrix leonum." " In a yetmore eminent degree, as presiding over a higher and morehistorical school, Richard Busby deserved and obtainedsimilar recognition. There is, indeed, no walk in the publicJife of England to which Westminster has not contributed

men of light and leading, and not a few of the mostbrilliant and commanding of these were 11 moulded," ifnot 11 made," by Busby. Himself a scholar, as was alsoJames Melvin, who realised in himself the accuracy helived to inculcate, he made " loyalty to truth "

a religion with the young minds he manipulated,teaching them that best of all knowledge - " toknow what knowledge of a subject means " - and

making exactitude in detail, in conception, and in state-ment so much of a pleasure that it became a " secondnature " with them, a standard to which, in their respectivecareers, they almost unconsciously strove to conform. As

was beautifully said in the finely conceived and felicitouslyclassical prologue to the last representation of the

"Adelphi "-" Vitam is vixit non sibi

At in qua puer eductust huic vixit Domo."

And again-Utrosque habuit favitores, ut cui digniusImplere visumst munus quam, quod sit sibiMagis in rem, id agere."

Such was Richard Busby’s ideal of life-in itself a preciousexemplar amd bequest to his school. The tradition of his

order, that a headmaster shall be a clergyman, may havehad its special justification in times past ; but, as a pro-fessional critic of the late Congress at Eton reminds us,there are serious disadvantages in making that an indispens-able condition of office. In these days, when sciencehas asserted her claims in our great public schools, whyshould not a headmaster be chosen, ceteris paribus,for his proficiency in other fields of culture besides

: theology ? 7 Why, for instance, should not a Doctoratein Science such as our universities bestow be accepted as a

. qualification, when conjoined with the necessary scholarship,i equally with a Doctorate in Divinity ? 7 The administration ofi a public school on the scale of Westminster, or Eton, ori Harrow, must often bring scientific knowledge into play,i especially in those departments which constitute the basis of

medicine or hygiene. How many a disastrous epidemicmight have been averted, and the fair fame of the schoolpreserved, if its headmaster had possessed, in addition to

. his special qualifications, such a proficiency in science as

; Cambridge, for example, so admirably gives ? Circumstances

L often beset a great public seminary in which a knowledge of the " corpus sanum

" and the conditions of its " sanitas " is

1 of the greatest importance on the part of its head; but con-E suetudinary law postpones the claims of a master so

1 qualified to those of one who has been admitted to holyE orders, and whose initiation into the conditions of health is3 simply nil. There is room for reform in this direction--

reform the practical recognition of which will be a " title ofr honour " to the twentieth century, if not to the nineteenth,s whose course is so nearly run.

ANTIVIVISECTIONISTS AND HOSPITALS.

CANON WILBERFORCE continues to insinuate that hospitalsare fields for experiments upon patients. He saps :1 " I havebeen hoping that some recognised leader of the honourablemedical profession would have authoritatively dissipated thefeeling of uneasiness to which ...... I drew attention." Weare unable to see how this feeling of uneasiness can be dis-sipated for Canon Wilberforce. If we denied that experimentsare performed in hospitals in London he probably would notbelieve us. Can he produce any patient who has beenexperimented on 1 Of course he would say, "No, for theyare all dead." Among whom does this feeling of uneasinessexist ? 7 Apparently not among the poor, for the hospitals arealways full and the out-patient departments are thronged.At St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, for instance, in 1894 there

1 The Times, Dec. 29th, 1895.