sources of information-you may hear such people, I say, maintaining that, after all, the emanations of the cesspool are rather conducive to health than to disease; that their fathers lived and throve in such an atmosphere, and that, therefore, it has a healthy influence. I can point you to an exceedingly pleasant village which I have sometimes to visit, where, with a plentiful supply of water, there is an absolute want of any system of sewerage. Typhoid and typhus go zigzag through that town every year or two, making victims, yet you can't induce the people of that village to believe that their unsewered condition has any thing to do with it.

But it is not merely in the country districts that this state of things has existed. Up to a very recent period at least this same ignorance was manifested in a very surprising degree in this metropolis. It is now about five years since, with two other members of our State Senate, I visited this city, and sat in the Commission for examining into certain branches of the city administration, and especially into the conduct of that branch which had the care of the public health. The state of things revealed was such as could only exist under a great and wide-spread ignorance on the part of citizens of the first principles of Sanitary Science. To give an idea of this ignorance, let me recall, as nearly as I can, a little episode in the investigation: It happened that the late Judge Whiting, who had charge of the investigation on the part of the Citizens' Association, put on the stand a young physician, who testified that the Health Officers, or Wardens, or Inspectors, were men utterly ignorant of the first principles relating to the public health which they were appointed to preserve. In order to refute this, the head of the Health Department at the time brought on the stand, in perfect good faith, several of these Health Officers. Toward the close of the examination of the first (one) of these gentlemen, Judge Whiting asked this question: "Did you have a case of small-pox in your ward?" and he answered, "Yes, sir." Judge Whiting: "Did you visit the patient?" Witness: "No, sir." Judge Whiting: "Why not?" Witness: "For the same reason that you would not; that I was afraid of taking it myself." Judge Whiting: "Did the family have any Witness: "Yes, sir; they were 'highjinnicks' (hygienics); they doctored themselves." As the other witnesses came in, Judge Whiting used this as a sort of test question-as a sort of key to unlock the system, and show the utter ignorance that prevailed in every department of it. Every witness was asked: "Well, have you any 'highjinnicks' in your ward?" Some of the witnesses thought they had; some thought they had not; some thought they "had them pretty badly;" some thought they had them in some parts of the ward, some thought they had them in other parts of the ward. At last the Judge asked a witness, who had been answering his question in this way: "Do you know what the word 'highjinnicks' means?" and he replied: "Yes, sir, I do; it means a bad smell aris

care?"

ing from dirty water." Of course the exhibition was vastly amusing, but, after all the guffaw was over, a sad after-thought necessarily came to every thinking man as to the condition of the great metropolis which allowed all its dearest material interests to be placed in such hands as this. It may be said that this was the result of a political system, but it was not. Had there been a tithe of the instruction which should have prevailed-of that simple knowledge that should have existed on this subject—such a thing would have been impossible, no matter what the political exigencies or arrangements were.

So much for the need of popular enlightenment on this subject. Look, now, at a higher range. It is only a few years since the country was startled by the outbreak of a malignant type of fever in one of the leading boarding-schools in New England. The result was, that several ladies from the most respectable families in the country lost their lives. The school had always been considered an admirable one. It was under the charge of a principal and instructors in every way worthy of their calling; but an investigation by competent persons showed that causes of zymotic disease lurked at every corner of the edifice, and that the only wonder was that the disease had not come earlier and spread even wider.

Look now at the want of special and technical instruction. It is little over ten years since the International Commission on Quarantine Matters sat in Paris. They did a great and noble work, but their labors have taken no such hold upon the policy of various States as they ought to have taken. What is the reason of this? There are admirable sanitarians in our own country and in others. We have several of whom the country may justly be proud; but the difficulty is, that our institutions have not given us enough of them to create and spread a healthy public opinion on this subject. One or two, or half a dozen, cannot, in so great a country as this, accomplish so great a work, and especially they cannot if they are burdened with the laborious duty of a metropolitan physician. There is a great want of special instruction in our medical colleges in public hygiene-hygiene in its relation to quarantine matters, in regard to the prevention of epidemics, in regard to sanitary provision for the wants of great cities and districts. Again, if you go into any of our interior States, you will find that any thing like a thorough or carefully-thought-out or wrought-out system of sewerage is a very rare exception to a very wide-spread rule. Nothing can be more inadequate than the system. of sewerage of nine-tenths of our cities; and, indeed, until recently, the city of New York, with all its magnificent provision of watersupply, and in spite of its splendid position for drainage, was very improperly provided for in this respect. So much for the want of these different branches of instruction in this great science, and now as to the remedy which I would propose.

First, as regards Public Schools, I would make provision for simple

instruction in the elements of Physiology and Hygiene, either by the use of some short and plain text-book, or, what is still better, by lectures from some competent resident physician. I confess that I greatly prefer the latter method. Not only theory, but experience, leads me to prefer it. Were it not that we have made a very great mistake in our systems of public instruction, by severing our commonschool instruction from advanced instruction, we should by this time have a body of teachers in our common schools abundantly able to lecture to the pupils without a text-book. I trust the time will come when provision will be made just as thoroughly for advanced instruction as for primary and common-school instruction, when all will be connected together; when the present illogical separation that exists, under which primary and common-school education is provided for by the State, and advanced education is left very inadequately provided by various religious denominations, will be done away with. But at present we have comparatively few teachers in our public schools who are competent, without text-books, to teach a subject of this kind; therefore it is that I would have provision made, in our larger schools especially, for lectures by resident physicians. That the interest of pupils can be roused in this way I know, for I have seen it fully tried. It is one of those subjects in which, with a little care, the great body of school-children can be greatly interested, and this without the slighest detriment to other subjects. The very change of method will make them come back to other subjects of study with renewed vigor.

Next, as to instruction in our Colleges and Universities. I would have instruction in physiology and hygiene more advanced, systematic, and thorough. Those who have read Herbert Spencer's work on "Education," no matter what they may think of some minor ideas, must have been greatly struck by that part in which he gives his estimate of the comparative value of different branches of knowledge. Among those which should be placed first he names Human Physiology. The reason is very simple. Human Physiology is simply the study of a machine which we are to run, nay, which is to run us for threescore years and ten. Certainly it is a study which falls very directly to us. The study of hygiene naturally comes in connection with it, and it was in obedience to this idea that, in framing the general course of instruction for the Cornell University, careful provision for physiology and hygiene was made. An extensive series of models was purchased, diagrams from Paris and London were obtained, and what was far better, a young professor, who had already begun to obtain a reputation not only as a close investigator, but as an impressive lecturer, was set at the work. The result has been most satisfactory. I am persuaded that study of this kind forms an admirable relief from other studies, pursued in a different way, and for a different purpose. In this case, the study of Physiology and Hygiene has been made very thorough. Frequent and close examinations have been demanded,

and it has been made not merely a study for information, but a study for discipline. And here let me say that, as a starting-point for scientific studies, the study of Hygiene and of Sanitary Science seems to me to have great value. It is not, perhaps, the best point theoretically from which to start, but practically it has been found to be as good as any other.

Next, as to instruction in our Medical Colleges, I speak here with great diffidence, for there are those about me more competent to discourse on this subject than I am. I am well aware that all the effective knowledge that is given to sanitary science in the country, so far as its advanced branches are concerned, is now given in the medical colleges. But it seems to me that not yet is sufficient place given for good instruction in Public Hygiene-sufficient study of that kind which gives to town authorities, county authorities, State authorities, the national authority, a body of experts who can be relied upon in various public emergencies, or, indeed, for ordinary care of public health.

Next, as to instruction in Departments of Engineering, and in our Scientific, Polytechnic, and Technological institutions. Within the past twenty-five years there has been created a science of Sanitary Engineering. I say within the past twenty-five years, although I know that engineering, even in ancient times, had frequent reference to sanitary considerations. Any one who has walked along the Tiber at Rome, as far as the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, is well aware of that; but it is within the past twenty-five years that the science has been placed on solid foundations. Vital statistics have shown the ef fects of the introduction of sunlight, of pure water, and air, into our dwellings and cities, and engineering has shown us the best methods of introducing them. Any one who will take up the recent work on this subject by Mr. Baldwin Latham will see what great conquest has here been made. The statistics show that, of seven leading towns and districts in England, such as Croydon, Ely, Salisbury, and others, where careful and thorough modes of sewerage prevail, the percentage of deaths has been reduced from forty to twenty per cent. I also see, from calculations made on the basis of Dr. Allen's tables, that there is a saving to these districts pecuniarily. Taking into view the fact that, for every death prevented, about twenty cases of disease are prevented, I will say that, judged even from a cold financial point of view, the result has been magnificent. What the result would be by good modes of sanitary engineering may be judged from the statement in Dr. Lionel Beales's book on "Disease Germs," which is, that by a good system of sewerage 100,000 lives might be saved annually in England.

But I am aware of the opposition that will be made to any attempt to introduce these studies. First, it will be said that there is little material in this subject for advanced instruction, and that we know

very little regarding the causes or the nature of diseases. That is partly true and partly not true. Unquestionably, the true theory of disease is yet to be wrought out, although every thing leads us to suppose that science is at last upon the right track; but, unquestionably, in relation to the germ of disease, great conquests are yet to be made, and it is a matter of great satisfaction to me, and, I doubt not, to all of you, that one of the most careful of American investigators is to speak on that subject this evening. So, too, the relations of ozone to various diseases is a matter in which conquests are still to be made. There are multitudes of questions yet to be solved, but still many have been solved already. And a very great conquest was made when it was found that zymotic diseases had relation to physical causes, and that the causes were ascertainable and removable. So, too, we have made conquests, as I have stated already, in sanitary engineering. There is material for study. We have made great advances in the study of vital statistics-there is another object of study. I think that this objection, feeble as it is at present, should rapidly become more feeble as science advances, and it can have but little weight among thoughtful men.

But there is another class of objections which are more constantly made the same objections that have been made to every change in the curriculum of study, from the days of Erasmus until now, and to any liberty in the choice of studies. Those objections are on the score of Discipline and Culture. I remember once that, when this objection. was made in the presence of the late Horace Greeley, he cried out, "Discipline! I hate the word." Nor was this exclamation unnatural. Few words have done more harm to the progress of education than this. I am the last to say any thing against what is now known as the older system of education, or of classical education in general. I prize it; I love it; but, if there were no other argument to show that it is by no means the only mode of discipline or study, the return made by the Commissioners of the English Government, after their examination of the English public schools, is certainly proof on this point. It is there shown that seventy per cent. of the students under the old system, carried out as it is to its very highest point, failed to make any worthy use of their advantage.

What are disciplinary studies? I maintain simply that they are those which for any reason whatever a man takes hold of, and which take hold of him. It matters not whether the study be in obedience to natural tastes, or whether it be forced upon the student. This is the thing that the study be taken hold of, and that it take hold of the mind of the person studying. Now, in our primary instruction, the studies which I here advocate take hold of great numbers of pupils; take hold of them by virtue of their being a relief from other 1 President Barnard, of Columbia College, presented a paper on "The Germ Theory of Disease in its Relations to Hygiene."