Manchester the foundations of another have just been laid, which is to cost not less than £20,000. Still we cannot help thinking, that by properly urging the claims of such institutions upon our denominations, far more may yet be effected. Indeed, when we reflect that upon these institutions the character of the rising ministry depends, that from these a supply at once permanent and effective must be secured that it is the object of every church not only to support its own minister, but to perpetuate the ministry, we scarcely think that our congregations have as yet been roused to a due sense of what is required of them. We think that in every congregation of any considerable magnitude or wealth, there should be an annual collection for this object. Surely these institutions have as strong a claim upon our contributions, as very many others which are far more frequently put forward. Now there are many congregations that never have any collection for this object, and very few indeed that make it annual.-But besides these occasional collections for the purpose of gathering up the smaller fragments of public beneficence, we think that every man of competence should subscribe his guinea a year to one or other of these institutions, as regularly as he subscribes to the Bible or Missionary Societies. Men of large wealth should either subscribe a much larger sum to one, or what would perhaps be still better, divide their benevolence amongst them all. For about four or five guineas a year, an opulent Congregationalist or Baptist might have the satisfaction of feeling that he was doing something to support all the principal theological colleges of his own denomination. We would also call attention to another mode by which the efficiency of these Institutions might be greatly promoted, and which we feel convinced it is only necessary to urge upon our wealthy members and wealthy churches, to induce some of them to act upon it. It is that of founding scholarships in connexion. with these Institutions, for the support of a student for the ministry during the term of his academical studies. In the case of wealthy individuals this might be effected by either giving or bequeathing a sum, the annual interest of which should pay for the board and lodging of one student; and in the case of churches, by either collecting such a sum at once, and investing it in some suitable manner, or, which in the majority of cases would be easier, by raising five-and-twenty pounds a year for this specific object. These scholarships might of course be called by the name of the individuals or the churches founding them. In a new College in the midland counties, two or three such scholarships have already been founded, and it is in contemplation to found more. For ourselves, we cannot conceive a more delightful subject of reflection than that of having provided for the preparation of a perpetual succession of useful and efficient ministers; nor would it be the least advantage of such a plan that it would bring more strongly before the churches who might adopt it, the claims of such institutions; it would surely stimulate their zeal, and animate their prayers. It may not be uninteresting to give a statistical account of the number of the students which the Colleges of the Evangelical Dissenters are capable of accomodating, as at present constituted. It is about 350. Homerton can accommodate 20; Highbury 40; Stepney 26; Coward College 20; Spring Hill College 34; Bristol 30; Hackney 12; Airedale 20; Rotherham 20; Bradford 25; Western Academy 10; Lancashire Independent College 15; Newport Pagnell 8; Brecon 10; Pontypool 10; Glasgow Theological Academy 28; Dublin Theological Institution 6; Cheshunt (the Countess of Huntingdon's), 20. Before we close this article we must make a few observations on a method by which it has been sometimes supposed (we are convinced erroneously) that the funds of these Institutions might be made to go much further than they do. It is sometimes said that wherever there is an extensive apparatus of education set up, and tutors, libraries, &c., provided, we might just as well educate one hundred students as thirty or forty. Tutors, it is said, might just as well lecture to many as to few. Certainly, just as well, and it would be much more pleasant. But, in the first place, these many must be fed and lodged, and this in a large establishment, is the principal source of expense. One hundred cannot live upon the food of twenty, unless the fasts be very frequent, and they take it into their heads to dine by turns. Nor can one hundred dwell in the same space with twenty, unless they agree to sleep five in a bed. In the next place, the task of mere lecturing is the least difficult and the least responsible part of the duties which the tutor has to perform. It is not in these Institutions as in some Universities, where the lecturer merely goes into his lecture-room and reads a course of lectures, leaving his instructions to be enforced and rendered available by private tuition; or, if there be no private tutors, leaving the student to derive benefit from the lectures or not, just as it may happen. Where the sole duty of the lecturer is to impart an hour's instruction in the lecture-room, to a class perhaps of some hundreds, he soon finds out the few who are likely to prove diligent and conscientious students, and these he takes by the hand and pushes forward. If students prove indolent, and upon being called upon once or twice, show by their ignorance and slovenliness that they are not disposed to learn, neither the limited nature of his duties, nor justice to those students who would make a better use of his instructions, will permit him to trouble himself any more about them, and they are left to be idle or not, to read or not, to listen or not, just as suits them. He is simply paid for lecturing, and if they refuse to be there, or while there, trifle away their time, it is no concern of his. But it is very different in our theological colleges. There the young men are supported at the public expense, with money collected for the most sacred of all purposes; and duty to the public, duty to the church of Christ, requires that the utmost should be made of every farthing of it. Moreover, the tutors are expected not only to lecture, but to teach; not only to deliver instructions, but to see that those instructions have been apprehended and retained by the student. The consequence is, that a great part of his time must be spent in catechetical examinations, in repeating his statements where he finds they have been forgotten, or in explaining them where they have been misunderstood; in framing exercises, and in correcting and revising the students' answers. He must stimulate the tardy, help on the feeble, reprove the indolent; the distinction so universal elsewhere, of the reading and non-reading men-of the idle and diligent, must be unknown here. It is our firm conviction that no tutor can efficiently discharge such duties as these in more than his own department, to more than forty or at most fifty students. In University College, London, where, much to the credit of the professors, the duties of professor and teacher are to a great extent combined (a circumstance which perhaps more than any other has contributed to the success of their students), the labors of a professor in proportion to the numbers of the students are far more onerous than those of one at any other college; and in the event, by no means, we trust, improbable, of a very large accession to the students there, it will not be possible for the professor to give so much time to each individual of his class. As to whether a larger number of students might be brought together to the same spot by consolidating some of our Institutions and multiplying our tutors, giving to each a more restricted sphere of duties,-a question which has sometimes been discussed,-we shall refrain from saying a syllable, if only for the reason that for the present there is no possibility of practically entertaining it; in all probability there never will be. Our Institutions are already established-occupy widely different localities, and have special interests in those localities. We cannot refrain also from saying that we have many doubts as to the wisdom of such a project even were it thought practicable. By being scattered over the country, they exercise a far more extensive influence, than they could possibly exert if confined to one spot: and while we should like to see each of our principal colleges favoured with the instructions of three or four efficient tutors, we do think that these would be able to teach, and to teach well, those portions of science and literature essential to the most thorough training of the Christian minister. Here we close our remarks, and if they should lead to reflection and discussion on the part of those who are most interested in them, our efforts will be amply rewarded, let our suggestions appear ever so crude, our projects ever so visionary. 32 Art. II. Physic and Physicians: a Medical Sketch-Book exhibiting the Public and Private Life of the most celebrated Medical Men of former days; with Memoirs of Eminent living London Physicians and Surgeons. 2 Vols. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, and Co. 1839. THE HE only commendation we can bestow upon these volumes is that of being a curious mélange of anecdotes respecting the art of medicine and its professors. In this point of view they may afford some entertainment, but whoever looks into them for more will be grievously disappointed. They are, indeed, a very creditable specimen of the modern art of book-making, in which authors seem determined to prove the fallacy of the old axiom, 'Ex nihilo nihil fit.' There is little judgment in the selection or distribution of the matter, no nice discrimination of character, no enlightened estimate of the professional reputation of the various eminent physicians who come under review, no historical account of medical discoveries. In fact the greater part of the details with which the volumes abound, rather respect the individuals to whom they relate as men, than as physicians. Their profession is a mere accident, and if the wit, and humour, and eccentricities of certain eminent lawyers or divines were put together and the books called Law and Lawyers,' or 'Divinity and Divines,' there would be just as much propriety in the title as in that of the work now before us. We must also enter our protest against the methods by which these volumes are stuffed out to their present bulk. The reflections and disquisitions, if such they may be called, are of a very meagre and superficial character, and yet, meagre and superficial as they are, are expressed with much formality and occasional magniloquence. Videlicit, speaking of the manners of eccentric medical men, our author thus pompously enlarges on a very common-place thought; It is said, that there are excesses of the suaviter in modo, even 'more designing and censurable than the overacting of the fortiter in re. Dr. Gregory marks, and forcibly condemns the double'faced and fee-seeking satyr, who blows south in the mansions of 'wealth, and north in the hovels of poverty; the cur who having 'grown rich by compliance with good manners, conceives himself 'indispensable to his employers, and becomes rapacious and brutal upon the strength of his reputation; and the servile and fawning sycophant, who in exceeding the established rules of good breeding towards characters, despicable in other respects, than external splendour and magnificence, forgets that his philo'sophy is but a name." Those portions of the work which relate to the history of medicine, more especially its ancient history, are very superficial, and those which respect eminent living men are equally so. There is only one point of view in which these latter portions deserve any praise, and that is that they deal in no slander or calumny. On the contrary, our author manifests a laudable desire to conciliate the regard of this influential class of readers by bestowing upon them all the praise he can, and by withholding every particle of censure. But as to discrimination of character, or estimate of professional ability, these portraits (if we may apply to these sketchy things such a term) are utterly worthless. They are for the most part made up of a few unmeaning sentences of vague and undistinguishing eulogy, with here and there some incidents of personal history; while, as if our author were conscious of the meagreness of such memoirs of eminent living physicians and surgeons,' the most trifling and unimportant peculiarities connected with the individual are frequently pressed into the service. Thus of Dr. Granville we are told that in personal appearance he resembles a foreigner, that he is 'passionately fond of music, and hardly ever omits to be present at her Majesty's Theatre during the season.' Of the few paragraphs which are devoted to Dr. Conquest, two of them are occupied with the important and novel information that he offered £100 for the best essay on the sin of covetousness; that the adjudicators were the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith and the Rev. Baptist Noel; that a vast number of competitors came forward; that the prize was awarded to the Rev. John Harris, who published his essay under the title of Mammon;' that this work has had a most extensive sale, and reached six editions. The memoir' of Dr. Billing is contained in the words that he is of the London 'Hospital, and is well known by his valuable book on the Princi'ples of Medicine.' Not less than seven physicians are all disposed of in rather less than one page, and about as many surgeons in another. It can hardly be said that our author had not room when we find him occupying valuable space with such grandiloquent reflections and irrelevant poetical scraps as the following on Dr. Thomas Davies. 6 'Dr. Davies's mind is not formed in a strongly imaginative mould. He has ambition, but not to an unreasonable degree. How true it is that one great source of the misery we often see in the medical profession, arises from our indulging too sanguine hopes of enjoyment from the blessings we expect, and too much indifference for those within our grasp. Young says, The present moment, like a wife, we shun; This cannot be laid to the charge of the physician who forms the subject of this sketch. His ambition is gratified if he has it in his power to relieve the sufferings of his fellow men; to him, the recollection of VOL. VII. D |