this is by no means equivalent to urging that it be detached or split. The entire detached school is now on trial at Galveston, Indianapolis, New York. It would be well to watch the outcome of those experiments before trying any others. It is already clear that if a university department of medicine is to be genuinely productive, the remote department requires most generous support; for much that is provided at the seat of the university for other departments will have to be duplicated. To create the university spirit in a distant institution is almost like developing a second—though much less expensive—university.
An alternative suggestion looks to the removal to Detroit of part or all of the clinical instruction. If part is removed, clinical teachers must oscillate backward and forward between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Where would the productive clinical teacher have his workshop? Nowhere, in all likelihood. If the entire clinical department is removed, the split school faces the conditions we encounter in Nebraska, California, and Kansas. Once more, let us wait for the successful operation of one of these divided schools before multiplying unpromising experiments. Meanwhile, the state can by increased liberality almost at will develop the medical clinic of the university hospital. Agitation in favor of splitting or removing it may proceed from several considerations,—it is not inspired by sound scientific or educational ideas.
For, Ann Arbor has itself proved what the experience of Germany had previously demonstrated,—that a school of medicine can be developed in a small university town. The ideals are there; the contiguous departments are there; there is an absence of the distractions which have thus far proved so damaging to city clinicians. A faculty of distinction, with a hospital well equipped for the care of the sick, and for teaching and research, can successfully overcome the most serious difficulties of the situation. The problem can be solved by intelligent organization and liberal support. Gaps may indeed remain in the student's experience. But if he has been well drilled in technique and method, his defects will be readily cured by a hospital year. The solution for Michigan may therefore come, as has been proposed, through an effective affiliation of the hospitals of the state with the school of medicine of the state university. The hospitals would profit by a connection of this kind, and they would assist by becoming factors in the education of the future physicians of the state.
Minnesota
Population, 2,162,726. Number of physicians, 2204. Ratio, 1:981. Number of medical schools, 1.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL: Population, 552,211.
(1) University of Minnesota College of Medicine and Surgery. Organized in 1883, it has step by step absorbed all other medical schools in the state, including (1909) the homeopathic department of the university. Elective courses in homeopathic
