a large attendance is necessary; but a large attendance implies a low standard. The situation is thus practically deadlocked.
The outlook is not promising; for there is no indication of such support, financial or academic, as would be required in order to reconstruct the institution on acceptable lines. Elsewhere a strong college or university has been in reach: as, for example, across the Ohio, Indiana University has just now put its hand to the plow and will not turn back. But in Kentucky the state university is totally unequal to the task. It labors under the initial disadvantage of being situated in another town, not the less a disadvantage because capable of being overcome; more serious, however, is its educational ineptitude. It has never been an active educational factor, and having now chosen a politician, without educational qualification or experience, as its president, its immediate future promises little. From the existing so-called academic department of the University of Louisville neither aid nor ideals can come. It is quite without resources. We have indeed progressed too far in our social and educational development to use the word “university" for an enterprise of this kind. Classes in literature, languages, and elementary science may indeed be organized by volunteer teachers, in hours left open by their regular engagements, or by instructors supported from year to year by subscription; they may discharge a highly useful office in any community, but they ought to be called by their right name. An academic department of a university they are not: why should they not be described as a people's institute, or by some other designation calculated to indicate their actual character?[1] The loose use of the words “college” and “university” prolongs educational chaos; it hinders the apprehension of genuine and fundamental educational distinctions. Assuredly, an institute of the type described cannot dominate or transform a hitherto independent group of medical schools.
Louisiana
Population, 1,618,358. Number of physicians, 198. Ratio, 1:900.
Number of medical schools, 2.
NEW ORLEANS: Population, 332,169.
(1) Medical Department of the Tulane University of Louisiana. 1834, the school affiliated with the University of Louisiana in 1845, and with Tulane in 1884, at which date the University of Louisiana became Tulane University. In 1902 it assumed its present status as an organic part of the university.
Entrance requirement: A four-year high school education or its equivalent, administered by the academic authorities. The actual standard is somewhat below the nominal standard, though gradually rising towards it.
- ↑ These comments apply with equal force to Toledo.
