The article continues:  “The remarks which follow do not apply to the medical department of Harvard College or to one or two other schools” (the italics are mine); and farther on it continues:  “In other words, Harvard has copied the European plan of medical teaching in some of its essential features, and as a consequence its medical diploma is the only one issued by any prominent medical American college which is a guarantee that its possessor has been well educated in the science and practice of medicine.”  Where can we find meekness and modesty like this?—­modesty as becoming as it is unexpected and surprising, seeing that the writer fills two professorships in the University of Pennsylvania, Does he hang his head so low in his—­I was about to say singular—­self-abasement (but, considering, the two professorships, I suppose I should say doubled self-abasement) that he cannot see? or are his eyes so blinded by the effulgence of “Harvard” and “European” plans that he fails to recognize and appreciate the immense advantages offered by his own home institutions?  I do not propose to make any invidious remarks concerning Harvard, but I maintain that an honest and just comparison of the schools, of their requirements, of the character of their teachings and the facilities they furnish their students, must show that modesty alone prevented Professor “H.C.  Wood, Jr., M.D.,” also excepting from his sweeping denunciations the two great schools of Philadelphia, though I only speak for and defend the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania from an attack unjust, uncalled-for and untrue.

R.A.F.  PENROSE.

The party opposed to any reforms in medical education has, of course, a right to be heard, and Dr. Penrose is well entitled to represent it both by his position and by the evident heartiness with which he is prepared to defend the existing system at every point.  In impugning the motives of those who have attacked it he lays himself open to an obvious retort; but it is sufficient to remark that the contest is not of a nature to call for or justify the use of personalities, which could serve only to divert attention from the real issues.

The arguments put forward by Dr. Penrose may be summarized as follows:  1st, that the proposed changes are not demanded either by the public or by the profession; 2d, that the present system is the best possible in a nation constituted like ours; 3d, that the preparatory education of our medical students is equal to that of law or divinity students, or of young men entering upon mercantile or manufacturing pursuits; 4th, that in certain cases obstacles in the way of a regular and thorough training have been overcome and success achieved in spite of them; and 5th, that it is unavoidable and proper that medical men, as well as members of other professions, should educate themselves after graduation.