The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-04
THE FOREIGN EXAMINATIONS
 OF AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
 CANDI DATES FOR THE DENTISTS Ph"- CENTRES - THE WORLDS TEETH FOR BY

the examination to be held and re- sponsible person to conduct 1t. TO this person Is sent, carefully sealed, sition one might say is purely automatic-like the blindfolded Goddess of Justice. At the hour when the same examinations arc beginning in other parts of the world, he distributes the papers to his candl- date or his little group of candidates. At the end of the allotted time he gath CTS up the answers and at the end of the week they are forwarded to Cam bridge to become part of she great mass of yearly examination papers.
 Success or failure may be more or less qualified. The student has passed in some subjects, perhaps, and failed In others, and it is then open to him to cross the ocean If he sees fits and try to dispose of these deficiencies at the fall examinations There are no fall examinations outside of Cambridge, the foreign test being intended primarily to afford the candidate his first eppor- tunity without compelling him to sross the Atlantic. There is one way in which the foreign student may enter the American college without going through the ordeal of the examination. If he can present certificate of ad- mission for examination to Heidelburg or can show that he has passed suc- cessfully the gymnasia that in Gers many correspond to our best prepara- tory school, such certificate entities him to enter the Dental school without further test. Lacking such proof of being up to the prescribed standard. the future dentist, whatever his national ity, must show that he Is sufficiently proficient in the use of the English language to express himself clearly and grammatically, and to have an intelli- gent acquaintance with its literature: he must be familiar with tho clement ary facts of physics and have perform ed series of laboratory experiments: he must have foundation knowledge of Latin. French or German, the history of at least two important nations, a working knowledge of chemistry, and practical acquaintance with mathe- matics. In other words, he must have good all-round preliminary education equivalent to what a college education would have stood for less than a cen tury ago.
 What Is perhaps yet more interesttng 2 is that the prospective dentist of even twenty-five years ago might have dis pensed with any such course of prelIm- mary study, for 1t Is only as dentistry has grown In importance and dignity tAot SuCh d IOunQdtlCn has been considered necessary The sever ity of the examinations has made the membership of the Dental School at Harvard comparatively small, and at the same time helped to make 1t TO- markedly efficient in instruction. Its European prestige has made it not only a centre of interest to many nf the young men of other countries, whose ambitions turn to dentistry as a pro- fession, but the starting point of a sys tenn or entrance examinations that lit- orally encircles the world, the con meeting links being Cambridge. Bonn. Honolulu, and San Francisco, while yearly examinations are also held in between forty and fifty other places In the United States and Canada, and at the request of prospective students may De held practically anywhere in the world.
 The raising of the standards of ad- mission has taken place simultaneously with the elevation of dentistry itself from mere adjunct to medicine to an active partner. The trained dentist and the trained medical specialist are pro- ducts in the growth of scientific knowl edge, and each is now yearly counting more and more upon the others skin. Except for this development In It's im- portance and standing, the profession of dentistry would hardly attract the Kind of young men who now yearly cross the water to study 1t under Amer ican teachers.