AEQUANIMITAS

There is one class of student to which all that was said in Monday's editorial in regard to laboratory hours is doubly pertinent. The man who is intending to pursue the study of medicine is confronted with the necessity of passing off a certain number of pre-medical sciences during his course in college, but that is far from being the only purpose of his undergraduate training. Much beside accurate scientific knowledge is to be required of him by his profession. Familiarity with the ways of men and skill in interpreting personalities as well as a certain flexibility of temper are still the marks of a successful physician or surgeon. The oultivation of these qualities is still essential for his preparation.

If the informal activities of college are worth anything it is in the development of just those intangible considerations which are of peculiar importance to the medical man. The easy contact afforded by competitions of one sort and another, and the humanising effects of vigorous athletics give opportunities to the pre-medical student which he can ill afford to miss. But the technical requirements of his education, and the rules of laboratory authorities conspire against him.

The average concentrator in the field of bio-chemistry, must take several courses with laboratory work and in many of these the number of hours per week is nearer twelve than nine. It is not too much to say that more than half of the afternoons in his last two years will find him in the laboratory. Who can blame him for a hollow laugh if one mentions the "other advantages" of College life? To be sure, his evenings may be free, but that is the time when the men he would find most value in associating with are doing their studying. Of all those who desire to see lights burning in the laboratories as long as they do in the reading rooms of Widener the pre-medical student has perhaps first claim.