“A FAILURE”

Evening Star, Issue 21628, 25 January 1934, Page 14

“A FAILURE”

AMERICANS AS A GROUP DR MAYO'S STRICTURES A prominent member of the medical profession has taken a look at his countrymen and concluded that “ under onr present form of education ” Americans as individuals “ are great men, but collectively we are a failure,” says the ‘ New York Times.’ Dr William J. Mayo, of Rochester, Minn., retiring president of the InterState Post-graduate Medical Association of North America’, made this statement in an informal discussion on the ways of educating lawyers and engineers as well as doctors. “At present,” he declared, “we throw together into Congress a group of men, each educated along his own narrow line. None has a broad general knowledge of the problems of his country.” A general education of youth, he added ultimately would improve government. “We have been teaching our youth too much memorising of things out of the past. It does not matter one whit how much knowledge of the principles of medicine, law, engineering, or any other profession a youth hay have poured into his memory if he does not know how to use it.” Dr Mayo mentioned “ a university course ” for youths just out of high school being tried at the. University of Minnesota, of which he is a regent, as a means of orientation for the youth students. “We make it easy for him to browse,” he said. “ The youth who desires to practise medicine in the coal, fields,” he went on, “ should know something of coalmining. The same is true of the man who is to practise medicine, law, or anything else in agricultural country. Our present system of loading to a narrow cultural aristocracy does not allow that. Textbook indigestion, brought on by years of cramming down the knowledge poured into the youth, is not the wisdom of dealing with his fellow-man.” Automobiles were blamed by Dr John J. Moorhead, of the New York Post-graduate Medical School, Columbia University, for “ a terrific financial strain on every community ” because of the unpaid hospital bills of injured motorists. The automobile, he said, “ is a greater factor in injury production than the World War. “ Suppose a man and his family from New York, Illinois, or any other State, come touring through your city. They have an accident. They are taken to one of your hospitals. They receive treatment that runs anywhere from a single dressing to two or three weeks of hospitalisation, or even more. “ They recover. They tell you they are grateful for the treatment, but have no money to pay. There is nothing the hospital can do about it. Everybody is just out of luck. Since these cases result from travel by automobiles on the roads of the country, part of the road and gas taxes should go to community hospitals to compensate theta lei; these cases,”