Tue resolution adopted at the meeting of the Subscribers to the Chinese Hospital, requesting the Trustees to consider with the Medical Officers the feasibility of establishing a medical school in connection with the Hospital, is, we have not the slightest doubt, sare to commend itself to the community, The reasons offered by Mr. Muirhead in support of doing something towards the medical education of Chinese boys were so strong that the resolution ich followed was but a formal recognition of the case which he had made out. It is only a matter of common prudence that the Trustees should take the best steps to prevent the serious interference with the work of the institution, to take a very limited view of what would occur if Mr. Wong Sheng-fa were incapacitated, or the Hospital were deprived of his services from any cause. r, Muirhead did good service by bringing the necessity of providing against such contingencies, and the spirit in which he was met by those present gives good hope that the matter will receive the early attention of the Trustees and the Medical officers. The times, it will be said, are not very proditions for obtaining subscriptions, oven to the most deserving institutions; or at least the duluess of business will be alleged by some people as a reason for wwithholdvug subscriptions. But we rather think the times are not so bad as they are called; at all events there is always plenty of money forthcoming for amusements, and some of it could surely be spared for good and charitable purposes. This, however is by the way, and will serve to indicate our opinion that the I'rusteos need not be doterred from proceeding to consider what can be dono to found a small medical school by a fear that if they require money it will not be forthcoming. Such a modest beginning in the way of establishing a medical school in connection with the Hospital as Mr. Muirhead's remarks and those of the Chairman sketched will not cost much. Theefficiont manner in which Mr. Wong Sheng-fa has discharged his duties gives promise that those of his countrymen who may be admitted to the school would, after proper training, prove excellent assistants, and from their number furnish a successor to him if the necessity arose of providing one. They would also be available for the same work elsewhere, and at other ports and in native cities would do excellent service to their countrymen.
Tt seems to us that the training of Chinese to medical and surgical work in Hospitals, and particularly in the Chinese Hospital here, has become a duty imposed on the community; one of those obligations which acts for good on communities as the feeling of self-respect acts on individuals. It is also necessity. Besides, as Mr. Muirhead said, there ought to be some likelihood of continuance and perpetuity in connection with the Hospital, so far as the Chinese management is concerned. Whether or not those who originated the Chinese Hospital contemplated its exteusion into a medical school for the training of Chinese assistants, its success, and consequent growth, require of the present generation of residents the carrying out as soon as possible of such a scheme as the speakers at the mesting on Tuesday indicated. If the training school is established on a sound basis it will provide the assistants which Mr, Wong may require, and, almost as a matter of course, lead by a simple, natural, process to a higher development of instruction, It seems very likely that such a training school would attract a sufficient number of Chinese to defray its expenses very soon, oven on a very moderate scale of fees, The reports of various Hospitals at the outports which we have recently published show the increasing interest which officials and other influential classes are taking in our medical, sargical, and other sciences. This makes the present time very favourable to the foundation of such medical training classes as it would at present suit the Trustees of the Chinese Hospital to establish, and to extend these, which we presume is in Mr, Muichead's mind. Such an extension might be undertaken in conjunction with the Hospital, so as not to involve that institution in anything of a speculative nature, as a medical school which would receive more students than the Hospital could employ would.bo to some extent. But we think it would pay; and unless there would be a very reasonable prospect of its doing so, it should be left alone, as all such things that won't pay their way should be. Supposing that in a few years the numbers of Chinese students here increased to a hundred, there would then be no difficulty in obtaining the services of European physicians and surgeons as lecturers, and in this way the training school would become the nucleus of a college. Other classes would be added in which the Chinese would Jearu things which would be usefal to them, as Chemistry, Enginceriug, aud other arts and sciences, for which we all Lope there will be before long a general demand among them. From such small beginnings as this proposed training-class universities have sprang before now, and it is not in-bulging an extravagant hope that what the ''tastees of the Chinese Hospital and their medical officers are authorized to consider may in time, and at no very distant time, if we only make a beginning, however small, result in Shavgbai becoming a great educational centre for the Chinese. Its site, easily acces sible from all parts of the empire, indicates it for that purpose.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.