tor should know positively that his preliminary education was sufficient to qualify him for professional life. He should be examined by the faculty of the college where he selects to receive instruction, and proven qualified in those primary branches which are essential for success in all the avenues of life.

Colleges, too, should be compelled to maintain a high standard of medical education, and the examination of candidates for graduation, should be conducted by a medical board not identified with the faculty or the alumni. Prejudice or favoritism should be unknown in the graduation of students from schools of all kinds.

Another reform in medical colleges should be established. Fees for diplomas should be at once abolished, and the lecture fees made sufficient to meet the deficiency produced by such abolishment. A student who labors faithfully, and successfully passes the examination, deserves his diploma as a gift from the hands of his alma mater, and if he cannot acquire a grade necessary to qualify him for graduation, the faculty will not strain a point in order to secure the graduation fee, and turn loose upon the community an incompetent physician.- Medical Advance, St. Louis.

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. BY H. B. ADAMS, PH. D.

This is one of a series of volumes issued by the United States Bureau of Education, giving the history of educational institutions. No. 1 was largely devoted to the history of the College of William and Mary, of Virginia, and the current No., 2, is principally devoted to the scheme of Jefferson for the founding of the University of Virginia; and it certainly presents a pleasant picture of the Virginia statesman in his efforts for higher education in his own State. He was hardly behind the New England sentiment, which favored State aid for higher education, and local taxation for support of primary schools. For fifty years he struggled against the selfishness of the

wealthy class in behalf of the "holy cause of the university," and to this day Jefferson is the foremost figure of the promoters of educational interests in Virginia. During his diplomatic residence in France, he made a study of European universities, and he caught the French spirit in the educational sphere quite as much as in the politieal.

It is remarkable that when France lost her territorial influence and control in the West, some of the leading spirits made earnest efforts to impress upon the United States, French thought and French educational methods through a Southern university. The story in the volume reviewed, of Chevalier Quesnay's project of a university under the patronage of Jefferson and other Virginian leaders, reads like a romance. He was the grandson of the famous court physician of Louis XV., and served for some time in our army of the revolution.

It was to be a French academy he would found, to be equipped with French professors. Richmond was to be its seat. Its corner-stone was laid June 24, 1786. Quesnay then returned to France to complete his plans for an intellectual and educational union between France and the United States. This was at a period when Rousseau and the Encyclopedists dominated French thought, and there was great danger that they would become potential in the Southern States. But that influence was checkmated in time by a current of "Scottish Presbyterianism proceding from Princeton College."

Jefferson's bill of 1779 provided for the foundation of common schools for both male and female children, ten years in advance of the time when even Boston gave a place to female children in her public schools. In connection with his system was a system of township government and taxation, after the type of that of New England, whose power he felt in the hostility of New England to his own policy when at the head of our government. Referring to this concentrated power in townships, and to its energy at the time of the Embargo, Jefferson said he "felt the foundation of the government shaken under his (my) feet by the New England townships." Quesnay's plan did not mature, and it is very remarkable that, in 1794, the French faculty of the College of Geneva, Switzer

land, proposed to Jefferson to transfer that college to Virginia. Jefferson favored it, and endeavored, unsuccessfully, to influence Washington to second the scheme; but the Virginians did not sustain Jefferson in this project. And it is well, for it was far better for American institutions to represent the American spirit, than to start under the auspices of French philosophers. Jefferson was, as is well known, an advanced liberal in religion, yet it is matter of interest to find that he favored placing the ethical education of children upon a theistic basis. He says: "The proofs of the being of a God, the creator, preserver, and supreme ruler of the universe, the author of all the relations of morality, and of the laws and obligations, these, I infer, will be within the province of the professor of ethics." He even favored the establishment, in the immediate vicinage of the university, of theological classes by different sects, which he thought would create a spirit of toleration, "and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason and morality." Here he anticipated, in large degree, the policy of several of our leading universities. It certainly is pleasing to see the intense democratic leader of American politics, who represented all the bitterness in controversy characteristic of the early period of the Republic, devoting his old age, as well as his early years, to the promoting of that higher education which is the glory of a commonwealth, and to see his early philosophic hardness-for such it was-softening as he advanced in years, until toleration and charity and social "sweetness and light" chastened and subdued all the harsher elements of his nature.

Much of the volume we have noticed treats of the influence and power of the University of Virginia, which the author of that paper regards as the transcendent intellectual influence in the South.

A continuation of this series, which shall embrace the higher educational history of the whole country, presented with equal intelligence and breadth, as appears in the volume before us, will be a valuable contribution to the literature of the country. -Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal.

Editorial Department.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

ALEXANDRIA TO PALESTINE-GREECE-SPAIN.

Before leaving Alexandria, I ascertained that by taking the Austrian steamer to Jaffa, I could stop a week in Palestine and then proceed to Athens. But if the steamer should be taken a week later, the stay in Palestine would have to be two weeks instead of one, making me two weeks later in Greece, and disarranging my subsequent plans of travel. So I resolved to take the Austrian steamer.

On the 17th of December, 1886, we embarked on the steamer Danae, for Jaffa. After passing the custom-house there was a swarm of Egyptians struggling to get possession of the baggage, so as to get the fee for taking it on board.

The natives look upon travelers as legitimate prey, and it is very difficult to avoid payment of the most extortionate charges. Even the customhouse officers or employees who volunteer the passenger's protection, sometimes make themselves parties to the abuses which are practiced. It is a crying evil which calls for correction from the law making powers on the Mediterranean.

On the morning of the 19th, we arrived at Jaffa, having stopped several hours at Port Said.

At Port Said, the houses, fronting on the sea, with their bright contrast of colors (the windows and some other portions being painted green or red, and the body of the house white), presented a motley and picturesque appearance.

A dignitary of some kind was being conveyed ashore from one of the vessels, and on the small boat in which he was seated was what might be called a band. The music resembled a Scotch bag-pipe, accompanied

by a base drum. A large crowd had assembled on shore to do honor to the public functionary.

There was also music on our vessel, consisting of the performance of a Turk on a rattle and a tambourine. It was a chant, ending frequently in the chorus, "Alla-hoo-ah, Alla-hoo-ah."

The poor Egyptians who were loading coal on one of the steamers, had to go on the run, not only with the empty baskets, but many of them with the baskets loaded.

Under a splendid sky we sailed over this inland sea, arriving at Jaffa, as stated, on the 19th of December.

This City contained from twenty to twenty-five thousand inhabitants, composed largely of Jews, with many Syrian Christians.

Stopping at a hotel I asked of the landlord the expense of going to Jerusalem. He would take me there, stay two days and return, for 125 francs. But that would not, of course, include my meals and hotel bills. To go to Jerusalem merely, would cost 50 francs in one carriage, and 40 in another not so good. I told the landlord I would take a walk about the City. Would I have some one with me? No. I had better. "No!" (Somewhat emphatically.)

Fearing the result of the walk, he took me into the back yard, and showing me the second class carriage, offered to take me in it for 15 francs. I insisted upon my walk, however, and walking to Cook's Office, purchased a good cushioned seat for 12 francs. In a few hours, I was on the road to Jerusalem.

The Arabs are a fine people-honest, industrious, and moreover, very religious. For a mile or two out of Jaffa, the road was lined with trees and plants of tropical growth-the palm tree, the date, the olive, and the orange trees, loaded with fruit ripening in the December sun. The earth rejoiced in its luxuriousness of vegetation.

But this did not last long. Soon we began to cross vast, open plains, with no fences and no habitations, though mostly under cultivation. This was the character of the country until we reached the mountains-two thirds of the way to Jerusalem.

At 5 or 6 in the evening, we reached Ramla, a place of 4 or 5,000 inhabitants, and after supper proceeded to the foot of the mountains, where we halted for about 3 hours.

It was an Arabic public house; a stone building resembling a brick or or lime-kiln; the entrance corresponding with the arched opening in which the fuel is put.