Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-02
AT STUDY AGAIN
Medical and Law Students Resume
Their Work.
OPENING PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS
Dr.. Johnston's interesting Talk on
Problems for Physicians.
JUDGE COLES REMARKS

JUDGE COLES REMARKS
Never in the seveaty-four years of Co.
lumbar Medical Colleges life has the pros
pect be en- as bright as it is this year.
Last night the college opened with new
year. The exercises attending it took place
in the main lecture hall of the university on
H street. Shortly after S o'clock the fac
ulty, headed by the new president. DR..
Whitman, and Prof. Shute, dean Of the
faculty, marched into the room and took
seats on the platform. The hall was crowd
ed and as each professor made his appear
ance he was greeted with cheers Or. ].
Ford Thompson, rosessor of surgery, who
had been dangerously ill Tor some time, re-
ceived an ovation. Rev. Dr. j. L. Whit
man, president of Columbian University,
when introduced by DR.. Shute, was received
with much enthusiasm. DR.. Whitman
spoke few minutes. The promise of the
year, he said, was full of good things. The
enrolment IN the collegiate department
was larger than last year. and altogether
the prospects Of Columbian We're indeed
bright He introduced Dr. w. w. Johnston,
professor of the practice of medicine, who
delivered the address to the students. DR..
Johnston also spoke of the bright prospects
of the university and it's medical school I'M
der a new leader full of resources and Wig
or. He spoke also Of the changes in and
additions to the medical faculty. DR.. John
ston spoke Interestingly of the physician Of
the future, and enumerated the following
as questions with which he would have to
deal: l. Education. 9. Charities, including
the establishment and management of hos
pitfalls. g. Sewerage and the water supplies
of cities. 4. The drink question and inebri-
ETY.. 3. The relation of heredity and the
physical condition of the individual to
crime and the prevention Of it.
InjudiciOus Education.
Education unlimited and injudicious,' he
said, Education superficial and without any
reference to the end in view, is one of the
evils of the day. At the very starting point
OF education in this country there is q
wrong, which no one has made any effort
to correct, and yet it is at the foundation
of much of the i'll health and precocious de-
generation of the young. I aliude to the
custom which exists in most of the states
and territories of sending children to the
public schools at the age of six years-and
even at four or five years. as in Wisconsin
an age when the immature brain Is I'M
fitted for Intellectual work, and should be
allowed the rest necessary for it's proper
development. Jersey City had $3.50 under
six years in 1SS3-S4, and Albany had 4425
Of the same age.
1.-The system of education which awards
prize to pathological precocity, which
stimulates the growth of an unhealthy i'm
aginatlon, and which forces the fragile and
the strong, the well and the diseased. to
submit to the same invariabIe law of de-
mand and supply, is not a system which
can be called perfect
There are here 10000 children in the
public schools, and there are 10000 prob
lens presented. No two are alike and how
can the same process do for all? Under
any uniform system it is nothing but the
survival of the fittest; the weak in brain, in
body, In eyes go to the WALL often the
strain IS kept up to the end, and then there
is breakdown forever. great step was
made with the discovery that four per cent
of the children in the lower classes in the
schools and twenty-si% in the higher classes
had imperfect vision and needed glasses !;
that with glasses health was better and
brain work more active; but there is no uni
fern study of the eyes of new scholars, and
the evil is left to the parent to have cor
rected Until there is thorough medical
Inspection of the schools until work bears
some relation to health and strength until
health comes first and learning after do
not see how things are to be any better
than they are. But these questions are be-
ing studied: We have a bureau of education
whose special purpose it is to study them
great strides will be made in the future,
hut you must have, in the nature of your
calling much to do with this future.
The administration of hospital charity
ard charities in general he said, require
kre Wedge of social conditions, of statistics
:,
nate charity does more harm than good,
ar d, II undeserved, debases the people who
receive 1t.
The Drink Question.
After speaking of the physicians rela-
tons to the great problems concerning the
public health, DR.. Johnston spoke of the
drink question and inebriety. He said:
That the question is serious one the
chemist the psychologist. the pathologist
will assure you; that 1t is your own duty
to consider 1t fairly, and to bring all the
technical aid you possess to its solution,
your own conscience, judgment and knowl-
edge will teach you. The responsibility
rests upon you because the drink habit lies
at The root of large proportion of ;he dis
eases with which We hay to deal, and un-
derlies much of the unhappiness and crime
with which the world is cursed. We know
that mary chronic diseases are directly
traceable to it; we know that every consti-
tuition thus enfeeDle is unable to cope with
acute Illness, and that certain diseases, as
acute pneumonia, are almost always ia tai
in system broken down with alcohol. We
read that of 1l2tuU males and 1:t;S,uOO fe-
males arrested in England yearly % to ii,
per cent of the men and 81 to 50 per cent
of the women We're charged with drunken
ress. Out of II 500 arrests in New York
over 10000. or nearly one-half, We're made
fer drunkenness, and the proportion is
practically the same in all the large cities,
in Boston more than one-half of the arrests
being for this cause.
And when you reflect that many of
these are ha btual dTunkards, who no
sooner released than they are again arrest
ed, that the question is now being agltated
as to how many arrests for drunkenness
constitute man a confirmed inebrate and
makes him amenable to state control, that
SO many arrests mean SO much disease and
death, hospitals and morgues being filled to
a great extent from this cause, that crime
is closely associated with inebriety and that
criminals are largely the offspring of drink
ing parents, one begins to realize what a
bearing this question has upon the we'll
being Of society. Baer Of Berlin estimates
that 30 per cent of all criminals are either
inebriates or the children of inebriates.
Core of France and Virgilis of Italy at
tribute from 81 to 40 per cent of existing
crime to the excessive use of alcohol in
parents.
THE depopulation of France is traced by
enc author to the use Of alcohol; in Cher
bourg. in France. the consumption is repre-
sented by over eighteen quarts of alcohol