The remarkable advance in medical education in the last quarter century has concerned both the kind and the amount of the training demanded of the medical student. Laboratory and practical courses, in which the students, in small groups, are brought into immediate contact withthe materials to be studied, and thus obtain knowledge at first hand, have largely supplanted the didactic lecture and recitation, especially in the fundamental branches. Unfortunately the introduction of similar methods—of objective teaching—in the clinical subjects has made little progress, excepting in a few schools, and the lamentable deficiency of our medical students in practical experience at the bedside, is keenly realized. How serious and deplorable is this deficiency has been graphically set forth by Mr. Flexner, of the Carnegie Foundation, in his Report on Medical Education.
The amount of education demanded has been increased at two points—the extent of preparation exacted for admission to the medical