The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-17

of lectures for ten dollars, and graduate
on lust about ten dollars worth of know
ledge. The depreciation of instruction
keeps pace with declining fees, ''poor pay,
poor preach" applying to teachers of medi-
cine as well as to ministers of the gospel
For more than twenty years the Ameri-
can Medical Association has struggled to
prevent the progressive decline in the stand
ard of education required for graduation in
many medical colleges, and has at length re-
signed the effort in despair. competition
between these institutions as to which shall
have the greater number of students has re-
suited in lowering at once the fees and the
scholarship required. This brings in class
of students who have scarcely acquired be-
forehand more than the rudiments of an or
dinary education; they attend the lectures
not to acquire knowledge, but to obtain a
diploma; they ultimately 'practice" not so
much the healing art for others as the money
making art for themselves.
Some day these evils will work their own
cure. The public, warned by shocking cases
of malpractice, will inform itself respecting
the character of the education conferred by
different colleges, and be guided accordingly
in extending its patronage to practitioners.
1t may be that diplomas ard collegiate honors
will altogether fall into disrepute, the best
being dragged down with the worst, so that
the family physician viii hereafter be selected
not like a servant girl upon a ''recommenda-
ton, but like q business agent upon what
can be ascertained of his merit and capacity.
Or it may happen that the extended facilities
for manufacturing doctors will increase their
number and diminish the cost of their SER
vices. Then fathers may begin to doubt the
value of the profession as a means of ad-
vancement for their sons, and the budding
sawbones may be sent to the farm or the
workshop In the last case there could be but
little question of the benefit to the commu-
nifty, both by the increase of productive work
men and the decrease of youthful expert
menters on vital processes.
THE F'RELIGIOUS" PRESS ON THE WAR.
From the Baltimore Sun.
We find collated in some of the New York
papers extracts showing the light in which
some of the denominational journals of the
country look upon the terrible tragedy now
enacting in Europe It is surprising and de-
plorable to see such events treated from Sec
tartan standpoint. 1t is to be hoped that
even among men who do not profess to be
governed by religious principle few would
fail to look at the suffering millions of Ger
many and France through the medium of
humanity and to exemplify practically the
true spirit of Christianity by remembering
that the masses on both sides who are fighting,
suffering and dying are alike our fellow men,
and entitled as such to our benevolent SYM
pathies without reference to their nationality
or religion. Yet some of the class of
Journals referred 10 seem to treat this as
religious war, in which Roman Catholics are
arrayed on one side and Protestants on the
other, and shout Justify for whichever party
they assume to uphold their own Church, and
exult almost insanely in it's triumph. Some
of them even 60 80 far as to justify wars, and
to rejoice in them, as necessary to human
progress. However consistent this might be in
the iourn ais of Europe, where Church and State
are united, and politics and religion are mixed
up in mems minds everywhere, it is altogether
contrary to the American sense of propriety.
1t would be reasonable to suppose that enough
had been lately seen of war in this country
to disgust every one with it, though it is un-
fortunately true that many so-called reli-
gious newspapers never threw oil at any time
upon the waters of our internal discord, nor
have seemed to appreciate aught but the
poetry of battle, which, however, may have
arisen, like most ignorance of the true char
acter of war, from a persistent failure to
ascertain its character by personal observa-
ton. 1t is surprising to see any of the So
called religious press taking sides with the
European combatants on party grounds, as if
either party represented anything truly re-
ligious. ''From whence come wars and
fghtings among you" says the volume
which they profess to be the rule of their
actions. ''Oome they not hence even of
your lusts that war in your members? Ye
lust, and have not; We kill, and desire to
have" That is the true source of most wars,
and of none more than the present, which
some of the religious newspapers persist in
looking at through UNCONVENTIONAL spectscles,
being unable to see the great wrong which
our common humanity is suffering, as it has
always suffered, from the ambition and greed
of rival aspirants for supremacy, most of
whom, from the earliest ages of the world,
would be perfectly willing to swop off their
religion, if they had it, for the consolidation
of their power or perpetuation of their dy-
nasty. These denominational zealots have
no eyes for the tens of thousands of poor
artisans and peasants torn from the benei-
| cent pursuits of creative industry, and
having no personal quarrel, yet forced
to rend and tear each other, for the
behoof of ambitious men, lying around
the once peaceful field, with arms and legs
shot off, or bowels pierced by bullets, with
| ing in agony like trampled worms, or PRAYING
for water to cool their burning thirst, or for
death to come and end their sufferings. This
| is quite a minor feature of the contest in
comparison with its bearings upon the de-
nominational ideas and aspirations of Jour-
| nails which, Notwithstanding their frequent
predictions of the millennium, are using what
influence they possess to defer it as long as
possible, and who are given to quoting from
the Book of Revelations, in the true spirit of
the ''apocalyptic ignoramuses" of DIR. SCOTS
time, to show that either Bismarck or Napo.
leon is prefgured in prophecy. When those
who claim to be leaders and teachers of the
people look at things from such lights, it is