The member, the fellow and the franchise / by John Eric Erichsen.

  • John Eric Erichsen
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The member, the fellow and the franchise / by John Eric Erichsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    17/18 page 15
    There is yet an aspect of this question ihat requires the serious attention of the Fellows. It is this, that the admission of six Members to the Council if to the exclusion of six Fellows (one-fourth of the Council) would be an act of the grossest injustice to the great body of the Fellows; and if it be thought necessary to increase the Council, which is perhaps already too large, by the addition of six members, there is no reason why those additional six members should not be taken from amongst the Fellows. Now I have endeavoured to show that the Member has no right inherent in his membership, real or implied, to the franchise. The Fellow on the other hand has a right to the franchise which is inherent in, and an integral and much valued privilege attached to, his fellowship. The Fellowship is not a mere empty title, is not a mere honorary distinction such as a D.C.L. or a LL.D. degree con'ieri-ed honoiis causa by a University. The Fellowship was instituted in order to create an electoral body, and the Fellows constitute the true governing body of the College, who elect from amongst themselves the Council by which the details of the government are carried out. A man devotes years of labour to acquire the knowledge that will enable him to pass an examination for the Fellowship, not in order that he may have an empty title but that he may possess not only the electoral rights conferred upon him by the Fellowship, but also that he himself may in his turn be eligible to take his share in the government of the College, and to occupy the highest official positions in it. If the Council is kept at its present number and one-fourth of it is to be composed of Members of the College, the seats available to the Fellows will be reduced to eighteen, and by this infusion of twenty-five per cent of Members into the- Council the chance of any individual Fellow attaining a seat at its board will pro tanto be diminished. Not only will this injustice be done, but another and more direct wrong will be inflicted upon the Fellow by admitting to equal privileges with him within the College the Member w^ho is incapable of taking the Fellowship. We should thus actually place on the same level as equally eligible to the Council with the Fellow who has passed one of the most stringent examinations that he can undergo in surgery and the allied sciences in this country; that Member who having attempted, but unsuccessfully to pass the fellowship examination has been rejected and thrown back again into the ranks of the membership! These two men, the
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