William Henry Welch : a brief tribute on his eightieth birthday.

  • Meyer, Arthur William, 1873-
Date:
[1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: William Henry Welch : a brief tribute on his eightieth birthday. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stronger desire to make some return in a closer devotion to high ideals of service and of efficiency in such work as may remain for me to do. Early in his career Dr. Welch called attention to the urgent need for ample facilities for medicine, but also emphasized that men, not buildings, make institutions of learning. An address on “Higher Medical Education and the Need for Its Endowment/’ delivered at Western Reserve in 1894, concludes as follows: .... let us not forget that a university, or a medical college, may have large endowments, palatial buildings, modern laboratories, and still the breath of life be not in it. The vitalizing principle is in men—both teachers and students—who work within its walls. With¬ out this element of life, this bond between teacher and taught, these things are but outward pomp and show. But let these greater oppor¬ tunities receive the breath of life from the inspiration of great teach¬ ers and they then become the mighty instrument of higher education and scientific progress. The great need for endowment for medical education had been emphasized two years before in an address at Harvard on “The Advancement of Medical Education.” Dr. Welch had previously called attention to the fact that the total endowment of all the medical schools in 1892 was only a little more than $600,000. Indeed, the Johns Hopkins Medical School itself had to wait for an endowment of half a million before it could open its doors in 1893. Fortunately, Dr. Welch has had an open sesame to the hearts and purses of men of great wealth, so that the present endowment of Johns Hopkins forms a princely sum indeed. In his address at Harvard, almost forty years ago, Dr. Welch said: We fully realize that at the present day a medical school cannot get along with the simple appliances of former times. Large endow¬ ments are necessary, for laboratories especially, and here in the East¬ ern States at least, we must look to private philanthropy for this purpose. I think experience teaches that the community at large, even the educated community, takes little interest in matters per¬ taining to medical education and to medical legislation. There is no adequate appreciation of the present state of medical science. The very idea that there is any longer room for special schools and sects