The next point on which the writer would remark, is the extremely unsatisfactory nature of many of the arguments. The remarks immediately following the passage above quoted will furnish us with a very remarkable specimen. They are these:"It is, in our opinion, logically impossible to find any resting place between the two following extremes: either it is the duty of a member of the legislature to use all human means for the propagation of his religion— to slay, burn, fine, confiscate property, banish, take children from their parents, proscribe the clergy, and prohibit the worship of all heterodox sects; or a member of the legislature, as such, has no cognizance of the truth of creeds; and he may, in that capacity, without violence to his conscience, extend the favour of the state to the clergy of all persuasions."-pp. 385, 386.

It is really almost impossible to do justice to the absurdity of this statement. In discussing any question with Mr. Lewis, one has usually to argue with a man of the world, who, in professing to deal practically with practical questions, would give us the notion of pushing expediency to its full limits; but here he drives the legislature on the horns of a logical dilemma, which, however useful in the search after abstract speculative truth, is, and necessarily must be, abortive, as applied to practical questions in a complicated state of society. But the dilemma itself is an untruth. Is it absolutely necessary that the politico-religious thermometer must stand at the boiling point or at zero ? Is there no division on its scale marked " temperate," and fitted for the purposes of social life? Can Mr. Lewis see no civil and religious principles which may fairly deter a man from the first of these plans, while they do not carry him to the second? The knowledge of the civil and religious disorders which would arise from the first course might weigh with one who estimates duly the advantages of internal peace from it, and yet neither of these might be able to swallow the second expedient. The man of political views might have just grounds, in his own estimation, for establishing one form of religion, and the religious man might object to being a party in positively furthering what he conscientiously believes to be error, though he does not think himself authorized to punish it. When Mr. Lewis's own principle comes to be discussed, it will be seen whether he himself abides by it, and some reference will be made to the States of America, to shew how far Mr. Lewis, if his principle be fairly carried out, exceeds even the transatlantic republicans of modern days.

But, leaving this idle parade of logic, there is another, and a more glaring absurdity, in other parts of this article from the "London Review." A few years ago, when constitution-mongering was the fashion, Great Britain was to be the model of continental nations; France, Spain, Portugal, &c. were to be constitutionalized; but it seems the tables are now to be turned, and the institutions of the continent, especially those of Germany, are forcibly to be transplanted into our soil. It appears that, in the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, (a Protestant state,) the Roman catholics are to the Protestants as ten to one, and that, in these, (in Cologne, Treves, and Aix,) the principle of concurrent endowment (i. e. payment without civil privileges) has been tried with a happy result. These provinces were formerly under France, when the Roman catholic was the established religion. It may be well to observe, en passant, that the Germanic Confederacy (Articles, signed June 8, 1815,) having been made among nations whose religious creeds were various,-e. g. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, &c.-established the rule of an equality of civil and political rights for all denominations, as one of its fundamental positions.* This was a likely consequence of a confederacy among independent states of different creeds, but it does not entirely apply to the case

The whole of the regulations laid down for this confederacy do not appear to have been yet carried into effect:-e. g. the establishment of a constitutional govern

ment in each of the states.

of Ireland. But the happy results of this system are the ground on which Mr. Lewis advocates it for Ireland; as if he could, with this constitution, transfuse at once the German disposition of mind into the population of Ireland! The writer remembers hearing a gentleman, who once held a distinguished diplomatic station in Prussia, observe, with reference to our colleges, that the system of dining together in a common hall would be utterly impracticable in German universities, for the knives would be turned into weapons of warfare rather more frequently than would be agreeable. Now, this remark is only introduced to illustrate the position that the national habits and the civil and social condition of any people must always be taken into account in applying to it new regulations, however wise these may be in the abstract. The institutions which suit one set of national habits and feelings, may be utterly repugnant to those of another people; and the forcing the code of one nation upon another, is about as wise as attempting to force all mankind to wear a coat of exactly the same size.

As it will not be possible, from want of room in the present number, fully to consider the other objectionable methods of reasoning with which this tract abounds, it may be well, before these remarks are closed, to state a circumstance or two which are of importance. Mr. Lewis sometimes boldly states matters which require some proof. Thus he tells us (p. 341) that "the well-founded dissatisfaction at the manner in which the grant for the education of the Irish poor was administered, has now been in great measure removed." If this refers to the government plan of Irish schools, Mr. Barrow, in his recent "Tour in Ireland," speaks of it as "a very general opinion that this plan has failed;" (Barrow, p. 256;) and Mr. Lewis gives us ground to suppose that the books to be used will always be a subject of dispute between Protestants and Catholics. (See Lewis, p. 366.) Another point is, that one would wish to know distinctly what further changes are to be expected from such an unsettling of everything which has hitherto been settled, and one would also like distinctly to know exactly what good is expected to result from it. Is it expected, that to pay the Roman-catholic clergy will satisfy anybody, and tranquillize Ireland? It is urged, indeed, on the ground of justice, and that ground we must examine by reasoning; but if it is urged as likely to produce peace, we certainly congratulate any man who entertains such a notion, on his happy temperament, and are delighted to find that there are persons on whom the experience of the last seven years has had no painful effect.

MEDICAL EDUCATION.—No. III.

SIR,-Hitherto I have not alluded to the subject of discipline. The very word, when used in reference to a body of London students, will, I know, excite the merriment of some sagacious persons. Do you really fancy, they will ask, that you can transfer a system which has very partially succeeded in two moderately sized market towns to the metropolis? How many proctors, on a moderate calculation, do you think may be necessary to pursue your students from Mile End to Tyburn Turnpike? How many will you station in the avenues leading to Drury-lane and Covent-garden? How many at the doors of the minor theatres? And with what security can you provide your unfortunate officers that they shall not be hardly used by the persons whom they suppose subjected to their controul, perhaps themselves committed, for the interference, to very ignominious guardianship? Only use common sense and look fairly at the facts of the case. The last injunction I am well disposed to obey, and I must contend that it is sadly forgotten in all such lively statements as these. A few moments' consideration will shew to what extent the assertion is true, that the example of the Universities cannot be followed, and how

far the inference is inevitable that no controul can be exercised over a body of London students.

I need not remind your readers that there are two kinds of discipline at Oxford and Cambridge. The first is that which refers to the whole University; the second, that which each particular college exercises over its own members. The purpose of the general discipline is often much misunderstood. The proctors are supposed to be merely dignified constables, and being so considered, they are very naturally and reasonably denounced as inefficient. But they really exist for another, I had almost said for an opposite, purpose. Young men enjoying a moral education, according to the idea of our ancestors, ought to be, as much as possible, under moral influences. While circumstances permit us to give them credit for honour and conscience, by no means, said they, abandon that privilege. It is dangerous to part with it; you crush all better feelings by acting as if they were absent. Accordingly, they would not subject their students to the cognizance of an ordinary police; they would have them amenable to censors of their own body. That their philosophy was noble few will deny; but was it not also wise? Does not experience frown upon that grovelling doctrine which is always boasting of its patronage?

But can this system be imitated in London? Certainly not. Here circumstances do not permit its application. In the streets of the metropolis a disorderly student of medicine, or any other faculty, has no benefit of clergy. No interference can save him from dishonourable coercion; the watch-house, not the imposition or kindly reproof, must be his correction. It is not that by virtue of his position in London he is exempt from any severity to which the university student is liable; it is that the moral substitute for ordinary punishment is not available in one case as it is in the other. So much for one side of our University discipline.

But the other, that of each college over its own members, consists mainly in securities for preventing or punishing the absence of a student from his chambers, or from the walls of the college, after a fixed hour; in preventing, or punishing by temporary or final expulsion, known and habitual irregularities. Now, will the objector tell me what there is in the accident of a school being placed in London to make this discipline unfit for it? How can the circumstance of a town being thirty miles in circumference or one, of its having twenty theatres or not a single theatre, affect the establishment or enforcement of a regulation that each student shall present himself at a certain door by a certain hour? If a young man has been repeatedly engaged in some disorder, why should the proof of his offence be less trusted, or the correction of it be more difficult, because it is attested by the police report of a newspaper than because it is communicated privately to his college by a proctor?

Cæteris paribus, then, the medical schools in London may be subjected to this species of discipline just as easily as if they were situated in any other part of the world. But other things are not equal; in Cambridge and Oxford the students are provided with chambers by their college, and are required to live in them; the medical students are permitted and obliged to get lodgings as they can. Here is the true difference-and while this difference continues, I am willing to confess that I see no possibility of establishing the least authority over a set of young men, who certainly have not reached the age which we are wont to suppose capable of self-government. But the necessity of some reform is so evident, persons of all classes are beginning to feel it so strongly, and discipline is perceived to be so much more needful than even education itself, that I cannot acknowledge the obstacle without endeavouring to shew how it may be removed.

It might, I believe, be urged with much plausibility, that the hospitals of the metropolis would not err in appropriating their funds to any object

directly tending to the improvement of the medical profession, and therefore ultimately to the great advantage of those whom they are designed to benefit. It might be shewn, with still stronger evidence, that the particular measure of building chambers for the students, instead of being a sacrifice of money consecrated to another purpose, would be a safe and profitable investment of it. But I am not desirous to press these arguments. The tendency of the age is certainly not toward too literal and scrupulous an interpretation of the wills of founders and benefactors. Where the feeling exists I would not disturb it, even by what might seem to me sound casuistry, nor for the sake of the most important object. It is better to

"Curve round the corn field and the vine-clad hill,
Honouring the holy bounds of property,"

than to take the shortest and apparently the most convenient route, which may involve, if not a trespass, at least a plausible precedent for a future trespass. In this case I do not think there is any difficulty in finding a perfectly legitimate way to the same end.

It is obvious that chambers for the students ought to be as near as possible to the hospital with which they are connected. Some, at least, of these institutions have vacant ground which would be amply sufficient for the purpose. Were it certain that this ground would be granted rent free to persons of respectability who would engage to build chambers after a certain plan, approved by the governors of the hospitals; such chambers to be let to medical students exclusively, at a certain yearly sum, being a reasonable return for the capital expended, and not, on any account, to be exceeded, I apprehend there would be numbers ready to engage in such a speculation. Nay, I am satisfied that so many, for benevolent or commercial reasons, would be anxious to take part in it, that the governors of the hospitals would be able, in the first place, to select the persons whom they would permit to build on their land; and secondly, to stipulate, as the condition of granting that land, for entire controul over everything connected with the chambers, subject of course to certain provisions for securing to the builders the income arising from them. The last condition would be no concession at all on the part of the individual or company advancing the funds; the conductors of the hospitals would be the persons most interested in the good order and keeping of the chambers; and it would be an additional inducement with many to assist such an object, that they would not involve themselves in any unpleasant responsibilities.

What would be saved to the students in a pecuniary point of view by this arrangement I cannot ascertain accurately; but if the difference between the price of lodgings and of chambers was only the same in London as in Cambridge, it would be considerable, and I think it would be greater. That the proprietors of chambers, for the ground of which they paid nothing, and which are certain to be constantly occupied, could afford to let them at a very moderate rate, is obvious. The health and general comfort of the students would be still more promoted by the plan. Some of the largest hospitals are situated in parts of London where it is not likely that lodgings will be particularly airy and commodious. The tenants of these must often wish that they could have residences built, not on the same scale indeed, but in as modern and comfortable a style, as clean and well-ventilated, as the wards which they visit. Such, I maintain, should be provided for them.

These chambers being once built and inhabited, the medical school to which they were attached would insensibly assume the character of a college. To provide a general table for the students would add much to the comfort, and probably to the cheapness of their living. Happily there is no occasion to talk of providing that last thing which, in this day, would be thought necessary-a chapel, for one is already attached to each of the principal hospitals, where the students might at least have the privilege of hearing prayers read every, or nearly every, day in the week. That some officers would be neces

sary for such an establishment, distinct from those connected with the hospitals, who have ample occupation for their time, I do not deny. For a school as large as Christ Church, or Trinity College, Cambridge, (and there is no medical school in London containing so many students as either of these colleges,) five or six (exclusive of men servants) would, I apprehend, be quite sufficient. One as a general superintendent; one to perform the office of dean at our English colleges, (that is, to watch over the discipline of the society ;) one to superintend the economy of the household; two or three to be lecturers of the kind proposed in my last letter. All, I need not say, should be good men and gentlemen, anxious to busy themselves for the welfare of the students, and capable of sympathizing with their feelings and pursuits. And I may add, as an evidence that I am not at all anxious to copy the details of our University system, that I should think if they were married men they would be so much the more respected and useful. The expense of such an establishment, divided among the parents of the youths would be very trifling; not, perhaps, equalling what they would gain by the difference between the rent of lodgings and of chambers-nothing, I should hope, to compensate, in their minds, for the positive advantage to the feelings and character of their sons.

Still I am inclined to think, that the staff of the Medical College might receive, though not immediately, most valuable addition. It seems to me, that a class of men is greatly wanted in the medical profession who shall be to the ordinary practitioner what the Fellows of Colleges are to our parochial clergy. How imperfect and one-sided our church would be without such a body; how these, the formal theologians, uphold the evangelists; the first being lifeless unless they have intercourse with the second; the second being liable to become the creatures of popular impulse, unless their views are strengthened and deepened by the teaching of the first,―all, I hope, are beginning to acknowledge. On the other hand, in the legal profession, we see what evil effects have resulted from there being no class who, apart from the noise of the courts, are meditating upon the principles of law, and endeavouring to avail themselves, for scientific purposes, of the unparalleled variety of facts which the records of English jurisprudence supply. To this want it seems that we may trace the worldly temper and sordid views which too sadly characterize the members of this profession;-at any rate, to this cause it must be owing, that our lawyers are obliged to encounter the crude sophisms of the Benthamites with mere objections of detail; or, if they want theories, to fetch them from Germany.

Now certainly it would strike one that the hospital surgeons and physicians are well fitted to occupy that high scientific position among medical men. That they have not hitherto assumed it is owing, I think, chiefly to the want of some institution like that of which I have been sketching a feeble outline. The temptations of private practice must needs be strong where there is nothing to set against them. But yet there are some persons in this profession, (perhaps most of my readers will recollect one or two among their own acquaintance,) men of talent and accomplishment, fond of the study of medicine, both as a study and for the blessings it confers, yet evidently unfitted to compete with rivals, or to acquire popularity with patients; morbidly conscious of their own deficiencies, too often becoming, through disappointment, censorious and contemptuous towards men as honest as themselves, who possess the qualities and arts which have been denied to them. Were an opportunity held out to such men of retiring from the bustle of competition, of gratifying all their benevolent feelings, and, at the same time, advancing their knowledge by the extensive practice of an hospital-of taking part in the education of the younger members of their body, and, lastly, of pursuing the science of their profession in quietness and with vast advantages, and in concert with others similarly disposed, who can doubt that they would eagerly embrace it? And if they would also co-operate with the other officers of the establishment in advancing, by their society and example, the moral education of the students,