Plea for a reform of the university teaching in Scotland : submitted to the Scottish Universities Commission / by James Finlayson.

  • Finlayson, James, 1840-1906.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Plea for a reform of the university teaching in Scotland : submitted to the Scottish Universities Commission / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    scarcely be called excessive. The members of the Senate of Glasgow University, however, were sorry to see their students overtaxed in their time by attending two courses of pathology, winter and summer, systematic and practical; for the students, finding the value of the practical course, and realising its necessity, nearly all took both. The members of the Senate were also grieved to see the students overtaxed in their purse by paying two fees, or £6, 6s. in all, for their pathological instruction. They could not but admit the importance of the subject, nor could they deny the necessity of the practical instruction if the subject were really to be taught. They felt, however, very keenly for the overburdened student; for although the Glasgow University had absolutely nothing to do with the course of pathology at the Glasgow Western Infirmary, except to recognise the lecturer or to refuse to recognise him, the Senate felt constrained to request, and to bring such pressure as virtually to compel, the Lecturer to compress his two courses of 150 lectures into one of 100 lectures, of which 50 were to consist of practical instruction ; he was further to space out the 100 lectures over the winter and summer, and to reduce the fee for this conjoined and compressed course to £4, 4s. in all. The Senate, through the Clerk, then expressed itself as satisfied. To me this plan seems in many respects admirable, although some inconvenience was created by running the class through both winter and summer terms. The practical class, optional so far as the Ordinances are concerned, is thus made compulsory ; the merely systematic lectures are curtailed in number; the period during which the student is kept en ra/pi:>ort with the pathological department and its material is extended; and the fee is reduced to two-thirds of its former amount. It is somewhat curious that this reforming spirit in the Glasgow University was limited to the Pathology Class at the Western Infirmary. There are other medical classes within this University, with their compulsory systematic