has no right, natural, indefeasible, or acquired, to enter upon the practice of medicine unless it is best for society that he should.
As a matter of fact, the attainments required by our entire argument are not, as a rule, beyond the reach of the earnest poor boy. He need only take thought in good season, lay his plans, be prudent, and stick to his purpose. Without these qualities, medicine is no calling for him; with them, poverty will rarely block his way. Besides, if poverty is to be a factor in determining entrance standards, just where does poverty cease to excuse ignorance? Apparently the inexcusable degree of ignorance begins just where the ability to pay fees leaves off. Far the schools that maintain "equivalents" for the sake of the "poor boy" are not cheap, and the student who can pay his expenses in them can also pay for something better, and pay his fees the student must; for it is precisely the proprietary and independent schools, avowedly solicitous for the "poor boy," that do the least for him by way of scholarship or other exemption.[1] They exact a complete settlement in cash or notes. Thus a four-year medical education in Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Chicago schools, on the "equivalent" basis, costs a boy in tuition fees and board about $1420. The same student can go to Ann Arbor, get there two years of college work in the pre-medical sciences and modern languages, and four years in medicine, besides, for an expenditure of $1466, covering the same items. Thus six years at Ann Arbor are not appreciably more expensive than four years in Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Chicago. Or, if a large city be preferred, he can get his two years in the admirable pre-medical laboratories of the University of Minnesota, at Minneapolis, followed by his four-year medical work there, for very little more. Low entrance requirements flourish, then, for the benefit of the poor school, not of the poor boy. Meanwhile, opportunities exist, in a measure during the school year, still more during vacation, to earn part, perhaps all, of the required sum.[2] Doubtless in the near future, the problem will be still further simplified in the interest of the better training by increased scholarship and other endowments, as in Germany. Meanwhile, it is dubious educational philanthropy to interrupt a poor boy's struggle upwards by inviting him into a medical school where there are excessively large chances of failure, escaping which he is at once exposed to a disadvantageous competition with men better trained by far.
So much from the standpoint of the individual. The proper method of calculating cost is, however, social. Society defrays the expense of training and maintaining the medical corps. In the long run which imposes the greater burden on the community,—
- ↑ Three scholarships, amounting to tuition fees for one year, are, however, annually awarded at the University of Maryland.
- ↑ It is stated that at the University of Chicago "the opportunities for taking work are more numerous than the number of students desiring to take advantage of them. … There is ample opportunity for the energetic student to earn his way, either in whole or in part, and opportunities usually out-number those seeking them. School Review, January, 1910 (Notes and News). It must, of course, be remembered that only the vigorous and talented can afford to undertake the study of medicine under such conditions. The others are barred just as effectively from the low-grade as from the high-grade school. Students are found "working their way through" at the medical departments of Harvard, Michigan, Toronto, McGill, etc.
