" The Medical Department of Michigan and our CotemporariesP—We
refer our readers to an article under the caption above, which we quote from
the "Peninsular Journal" for April. It has enough of spice in its compo-
sition to make it eminently readable, and we do not like to undertake a reply
to it, without doing full justice to our confrere, by giving our readers every
opportunity to understand the issue.
The "Peninsular" assumes that the action of the Legislature, establishing
a Chair of Homoeopathy in the University, is to all intents and purposes
void; inasmuch as, in its opinion, the regents will not follow out the instruc-
tions of the Legislature. We have no very extensive acquaintance with the
organic law of Michigan. It may be tjiat the people have placed it beyond
the power of their representatives to control the affairs of their favorite insti-
tution.' If this be so, nothing can be easier for the "Peninsular" than to
quote, for the benefit of anxious outsiders, that clause, or provision in the
Constitution, which gives to the Regents, only, the power to establish a pro-
fessorship. And when the "Peninsular " shall have done this, we will concede
that there will be no chair of homoeopathy in the University of Michigan,
until the Board of Regents in their wisdom create one. How long this may
be, we do not undertake to say.
The principle, however, remains the same. The gentlemen of the Ann
Arbor school are at all times answerable to a power outside of the profession
— a power which may, or may not have those overflowing sympathies for
legitimate medicine, which the "Peninsular" claims for the Board of Re-
gents. And whatever our friend may say of the qiiasi-offiavsh character of
the Board of Visitors, however many epithets it may heap upon the authors
of the "Report" it so warmly denounces, it cannot conceal the fact that
there now exists in Michigan a strong and determined opposition to the
present management of the University—an opposition, which, if we may
judge from the character of that portion of the public press which sustains
it, will be likely at some early day to bring about the overthrow of its pres-
ent officers.
We have no knowledge of the merits of the case between the Legislature,
the Homoeopaths, the Board of Visitors, the Detroit Free Press, and Prof.
Allen on the one side, and the Faculty on the other — it is altogether prob-
able that the latter may be entirely in the right, but can they carry on this
fight without somewhat interfering -with the quiet dignity of a professional
life in the shire-town of Washtenaw (we believe) county — nay, wrould they
fight at all without some strong motive—for instance a fear that some one
was writing "mene, mene," etc., on the wall of their lecture room.
Let us assure the "Peninsular" that when it and the Buffalo Medical
Journal, their editors, and the motives which actuate them, are alike forgot-
ten, the principle for which we contend will still live—a medical school
should recognize no control beyond that of the medical profession.
We have alluded to "motives," a favorite subject with the "Peninsular,"
for it always seems to think it unnecessary to reply to our arguments, so long
as any question rests upon our motives. Is there no way that we can con-
vince our friends that it is, most emphatically, none of their business what
may be our motives. We will, if it wishes, acknowledge the soft impeach-
ment, own up that our chiefest motive is the prosperity of tbe cause of inde-
pendence of legislative control in medical education generally, and in the
Buffalo School particularly, plead guilty to a general watchfulness over its
interests, confess our personal, pocket-al, stake in the argument, but we still
claim that the medical public will decide the question upon its own merits,
without reference to the interest of either of the debaters in the matter.
And now we mean to go farther in that frankness and generosity on which
our contemporary so compliments us. Speaking of us, he says, "if he had
always been as frank in his expressions as he has now, he would have avoided
some of those 'sore-headed rejoinders' of which he has so lively a remem-
brance, and which even still he seems to apprehend."
If our cotemporary has any distinct recollection of the particular "rejoin-
der" to which we alluded, he will recall certain epithets applied to us, such
as we could not answer. Our readers felt no interest in Peninsular editorial
opinions of'ourselves, but farther than that, we believe that we have never
yet made use of a similar style of argument—if we have, we pray to be for-
given 1 We had no alternative but to terminate the discussion. It has been
opened again on more promising terms, and if the "Peninsular" is willing,
it would afford us the greatest pleasure to debate with it any or all of the
following questions, if we can do so without going farther into personality
than that good-natured banter, which will make our prelections endurable to
our readers:
1st. What will be the effect of free schools upon the morale of the pro-
fession ?
2d. Should medical education be controlled in any degree by public sen-
timent, or by non-medical authorities?
3d. Is clinical instruction necessary to the efficiency of medical teaching?
4th. Is a fixed salary an incentive to activity in usefulness on the part of
a medical teacher ? And
5th. Does not the establishment of a free school by a state choke down
all competition, and thus tend to the injury of the true interests of medical
education ?
Suppose that before settling who is victor in this discussion, we have a lit-
tle direct and relevant argument upon the real thomashernandez@example.net.	II.

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