In this way you provide against the
danger, patent elsewhere, of finding attempts at improvement obstructed
by vested interests; and, in the department of medical education
especially, you are free of the temptation to set loose upon the world
men utterly incompetent to perform the serious and responsible duties of
their profession.
It is a delicate matter for a stranger to the practical working of your
institutions, like myself, to pretend to give an opinion as to the
organisation of your governing power. I can conceive nothing better than
that it should remain as it is, if you can secure a succession of wise,
liberal, honest, and conscientious men to fill the vacancies that occur
among you. I do not greatly believe in the efficacy of any kind of
machinery for securing such a result; but I would venture to suggest
that the exclusive adoption of the method of co-optation for filling the
vacancies which must occur in your body, appears to me to be somewhat
like a tempting of Providence. Doubtless there are grave practical
objections to the appointment of persons outside of your body and not
directly interested in the welfare of the university; but might it not
be well if there were an understanding that your academic staff should
be officially represented on the board, perhaps even the heads of one or
two independent learned bodies, so that academic opinion and the views
of the outside world might have a certain influence in that most
important matter, the appointment of your professors? I throw out these
suggestions, as I have said, in ignorance of the practical difficulties
that may lie in the way of carrying them into effect, on the general
ground that personal and local influences are very subtle, and often
unconscious, while the future greatness and efficiency of the noble
institution which now commences its work must largely depend upon its
freedom from them.
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