ADDRESS 
BEFORE TIIE 
MASSACHUSETTS DENTAL SOCIETY, 
AT ITS 
Fourth Annual Meeting, May 21, 1868. 
BY 
THOMAS H. CHANDLER. 
BOSTON: 
W. H. CHANDLER, PRINTER, 21 CORNIIILL. 
1 8 6 8. ADDRESS 
BEFORE THE 
MASSACHUSETTS DENTAL SOCIETY, 
AT ITS 
Fourth Annual Meeting, May 21, 1868. 
/ 
THOMAS H. CHANDLER. 
BOSTON: 
W. H. CHANDLER, PRINTER, 21 CORNHILL. 
1 8 68. ADDRESS. 
Mr. President, and Gentlemen op the Massachusetts 
Dental Society : 
Now-a-days the fathers who send their sons to 
college, and the young men who are striving to edu- 
cate themselves, all look sharply at one great end, 
the saving of time in arriving at practical results. 
What is to be done must be done quickly. The hand 
must be taught practical work, the tongue actual 
speech, and no superfluous time or energy taken to 
acquire the great principles which underlie the one 
and the other, and on which alone a solid super- 
structure can possibly be built. In the haste to be 
rich, each seeks to join the busy throng of workers, 
and there is no time for aught that cannot be seen 
to bear at once, and directly, upon this great object. 
The ancient maxim “ hasten slowly ” is forgotten, and 
the superficial character of most of our knowledge 
is the consequence,— a general level of shallow dul- 
ness. Catering to this greedy haste of the public, 4 
our institutions of learning modify their courses of 
study, and culpably yield where they should stren- 
uously resist. And yet, the hobby of the age, rid- 
ing above international quarrels and local politics, is 
Education, “ the diffusion of knowledge and we 
Americans, New Englanders especially, pride our- 
selves upon our superior institutions of learning, our 
enhanced facilities for acquiring it. Schools are 
multiplied, Academies abound. The jealousies of 
cities and the silly rivalries of neighborhoods give 
rise to a myriad birth of institutions with high-sound- 
ing titles, which tempt the unwary student to his 
loss ; while wealth untold, which, combined in one 
vast fund, would accomplish more than the most 
sanguine could desire, is wasted in detached and aim- 
less efforts. 
The terms “ advancement ” and “ diffusion ” of 
knowledge are by no means reciprocal, though they 
seem generally to be so considered, inasmuch as the 
farther it is spread, the thinner it may become; and 
that it is diffused chiefly by teaching one to another 
in crowds, or by means of books; is advanced by the 
solitary labors of the student in his closet. The ob- 
ject of our schools should be to diffuse knowledge, 
but in such a way as to impress upon each student 
the depth of his ignorance, to instil into his heart an 5 
earnest longing for knowledge, and to cause him, by 
the labors of his life, to seek steadily and earnestly 
to obtain it. The pride of a little learning is dan- 
gerous, as it prevents the search for more; and the 
graduate who builds his faith upon a diploma which 
he can hardly read, sealed with a seal of whose origin 
or significance he knows nothing, is little better than 
a camp follower of the army of scholars, or a deserter 
from the cause for which he enlisted, and whose 
bounty he has received. 
That graduates cease to study as soon as they have 
shaken off the embrace of their Alma Mater is 
notorious, and the fact proves the general remissness 
and incapacity of their teachers; in that their aim has 
been for a day and not for all time, to make scholars, 
not students. It has always been easy, too easy in- 
deed, even in the best of our colleges and schools, 
for the dunce and the sluggard to pass over the 
course unscathed, and receive their diplomas at the 
end. In some, the course of study is so short, 
the studies so easy or so few, and the examinations 
of so little account, that but the merest smattering is 
requisite to enable the student to pass with honor, as 
it is called. Some have even descended so low as to 
sell their diplomas (on the sly) for money, not de- 
manding so much as the form of an attendance, or an 6 
examination. This is the worst form which it is 
possible for this disease to take ; but all our educa- 
tional institutions, from the highest to the lowest, are 
more or less infected with it. It is a matter of pride 
and rivalry with them, as well as of revenue, which 
shall have the greatest number of undergraduates, 
and which, at the annual period, shall send out into 
the world the greatest number of Alumni; therefore 
too great strictness in the requisitions for admis- 
sion and graduation are impolitic and unprofitable. 
How many who retire from our colleges with the 
coveted parchment can turn about and enter again 1 
To how many of those graduated from our profes- 
sional schools would we be willing to trust our lives 
or property, until they have received a new diploma 
from the school of experience \ The poor we have 
always with us, and we are very willing that “’pren- 
tice hands ” shall be tried upon them before we place 
full confidence in professional skill. It may be 
answered that it is not the object of these schools to 
make perfect practitioners at the outset, but to guide 
to proper methods of study and practice, and so start 
the neophyte on the right track. But how many do 
even this properly ? Are they careful enough whom 
they send out with their recommendation signed and 
sealed % Are they not too regardful of their reputa- 7 
tions and revenues to discriminate over closely \ It is 
not well to have it said that a half or other large 
proportion of a class were not allowed to be gradu- 
ated, because, in what they had pretended to study 
they were not sufficiently up to pass the examina- 
tions ; therefore, that the Professors have not done 
their duty, and, therefore, that the institution is not 
what it pretends to be, but no better than an incor- 
porated swindle. Theories of education are beauti- 
ful on paper. Plans are excellent till tried; and men 
of the best motives will often fail from want of 
courage to face and fight down difficulties. We pray 
“ lead us not into temptation,” and then walk 
deliberately into it, trusting to Providence or to luck 
to enable us to overcome it. However short-sighted 
mortals may err in their judgment, the right will 
eventually prevail, and any stepping aside from the 
path of rectitude in pursuit of interest is sure to be 
punished at last. The spirit of rivalry is the mock- 
ing fiend that deludes, more perhaps than any other, 
not only our college faculties, but the communities 
on which they depend. This divides interest, scatters 
wealth, fritters away revenues, and prevents a good, 
strong, healthy public spirit from attaching itself to 
any one institution. As in a city or town it is im- 
possible to have a school-house next door to every 
home, and it is necessary to centralize that the aver- 8 
age accommodation may be equal, so it is with our 
colleges. It is not wise policy for the profession, for 
the community, nor for the colleges, that there should 
be one at every practitioner’s door. They should be 
so centralized as to concentrate upon themselves the 
full strength and interest of the profession, and should 
have for their object not the aggrandizement of this 
or that man or set of men, nor the fostering of the 
pride of any one section or locality, but the best 
good of the students who commit themselves to their 
maternal care, and of the profession upon which 
they depend. The good of the students, again, should 
be sought, not in making things easy, and launching 
them half-taught to deceive and prey upon an un- 
suspecting public, but in so regulating the studies 
that the worthy and industrious can get the educa- 
tion he seeks, while the lazy and the shirk must work 
or go without a diploma. The number of ignorant 
and worthless graduates from all our institutions of 
learning is notorious ; and the fact of having been gra- 
duated from one is daily becoming of less account, 
even in the eyes of the credulous and long-suffering 
people, who have hitherto suffered themselves to be 
beguiled by the name, and have been but too willing 
to accept as a lion any ass who will wear the skin. 
It it disgraceful that it should be so, but so it is, 
and so it will continue to be, until our colleges re- 9 
gard themselves, or are compelled by the community 
to act as something more than conductors by which 
the common fountain, the public purse, may be tapped, 
and as vehicles for the dissemination, not of know- 
ledge, but of degrees among mankind. 
It becomes us therefore, each and all who have 
the good of our profession at heart, to lay aside re- 
ligiously all envy and uncharitableness, all petty 
jealousies and heart-burnings, individually and collec- 
tively, and throw our united influence to bear upon 
the elevation and improvement of our Dental Col- 
leges who hold the fate of our profession in their 
hands. Let us insist upon it that “ they be an 
example unto themselves”; that the spirit which 
inspires them, and emanates from them, be a lofty 
spirit, breathing life. Make them feel that even 
from a money point of view, an elevated standard, 
and a high-toned policy are the true ones; that 
cheap diplomas, short courses, and nominal exami- 
nations will not be tolerated. Make them extend 
their courses of study, and at the same time make 
them more thorough, that they may graduate stu- 
dents, earnest and faithful seekers, inspired by the 
zeal of their teachers to emulate them. 
In this regard, it is worthy of consideration whether 
some preliminary examination for admission should 10 
not be had. The man who has left the workshop 
of the mechanic, the day-laborer who can hardly 
write his own name correctly, and has had no in- 
tellectual training whatever, notwithstanding five 
years more or less of practice, is hardly in a condi- 
tion to receive the lofty results of metaphysical re- 
search, to sound the depths of chemistry, or to thread 
the mazes of anatomy. What can he comprehend of 
the technical nicety of their nomenclature who can- 
not pronounce the names, or by what principle of 
association can he store away his new gleanings with 
his former intellectual gatherings? He is in the 
condition of the Danaids, the sisters of heathen story, 
who for their crimes were forced to draw water in 
sieves; or of that other, Tantalus, ever tormented 
with hunger and thirst, seated in the middle of a 
fountain whose waters fled at the approach of his 
lips, and beneath refreshing fruits which hung just 
out of his reach. 
How much of real knowledge does his diploma 
represent? How much of what he has acquired 
during his college course ? Has he even learned how 
to study ? Is he not rather disgusted with his use- 
less efforts, and rejoiced when he is at last released? 
The giving such a man a degree is not only an impo- 
sition upon the public, as a certificate of superior 
knowledge, but an absolute injustice to his fellows, 11 
as putting him upon a par, so far as it is in the power 
of the faculty to do, with his hard-working and 
intelligent companions. It seems then that some 
other preparation is necessary than mere time spent, 
and labor performed in an office. If a man has not 
been ambitious and industrious enough in his time 
past, if no sense of shame for his deficiencies in the 
presence of his patients or of his professional brethren 
has impelled him to acquire the merest rudiments of 
an English education, it is useless to hope that he 
ever will. His time past images his time to come ; 
his life intellectually hopeless and aimless, he exists, 
content with what he is, and strives for nothing 
more. His diploma is but an additional adver- 
tisement, framed and hung up as a bait for pa- 
tients, and his D. D. S. is flaunted on all occasions, 
proper and improper, for a like purpose. No man 
is worthy the graduation of any college, whose thesis 
is the witness of his ignorance ; who cannot write a 
line without misspelling the commonest words, and 
whose ordinary conversation breaks every bone of 
the Queen’s English. A degree given to such a 
man, is simply a declaration of the unworthiness 
and mercenary character of the Faculty by whom it 
is given, and places another clog in the way of the 
general advancement of our profession. 
The objection to the granting of degrees upon exam- 12 
ination merely, without requiring attendance upon 
lectures, is similar. All who have passed a literary 
examination of any kind, are familiar with the pro- 
cess of “ cramming,” as it is called. Where this 
is a wholesale review of previous studies gone over 
in course, and made somewhat familiar by that iter- 
ation and reiteration which our fallible powers of 
memory and association demand, it is not objection- 
able. But that other “ cramming ” which is the 
posting up on subjects altogether new, for a short 
period and a definite purpose, to be forgotten as soon 
as the occasion that calls for it is passed, is objection- 
able in the highest degree. A few days, and no 
trace is left other than those of the reaction of over- 
wrought powers, like the wrecks of a last night’s 
storm. 
The diploma so obtained represents, on the one 
hand, little else than a few sleepless nights, a short 
and strong strain upon the memory, and a small sum 
of money; on the other, it tells of a criminal disregard 
for the advance of the profession, a heedless care- 
lessness of professional duties, slight appreciation of 
the value of then' diploma, and a greedy hankering 
after college revenues. Such action offers a premium 
upon charlatanism, and remorselessly undermines 
the fair edifice which we and they have striven so 
hard to erect. It is inferred that our and then object 13 
is to elevate our business from the level of a handi- 
craft to that of a science. To do this, those who 
have taken it upon themselves to declare in advance 
that it is a science, and to teach it as such, should 
beware how they hasten to open its gates to the un- 
worthy. Let the past be past, and all who have come 
into our feast from the highways and by-ways and 
hedges, continue unrestrained in the full enjoyment 
thereof, each conscientiously striving to do his duty 
to those who place themselves and their families 
under his professional care: but let not the errors 
of the past be repeated in the future. Let the wise 
and the ignorant, the learned and the unlettered, 
with one mind and one accord, frown down all 
attempts to enter by any other way than by the 
wicket-gate at the beginning of the road. Make all 
to pass the slough of Despond, climb the hill Difficulty, 
and be caught by the giant Despair, before they enter 
our Delectable Land. Let not the time-server and 
the charlatan be hereafter recognized. Let us hold 
out our hands to our weaker brethren, and strive to 
lift them up; do our duty to those already with us, 
but see to it that no more come in. The dentists of 
to-day are all, or nearly all, members of some Dental 
Society, and as such have it in their power, if they 
will but work together, to control the future of the 
profession, by refusing to receive students who will 14 
not agree to a full course of study. But the lower 
strata of our profession have been heretofore recruit- 
ed chiefly from the help in our laboratories, and care 
should be taken that this is not repeated hereafter. 
It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we suffer not 
ourselves to be confounded with such; and to the 
public that, by our remissness, we permit them not to 
be deceived. Through the powerful influence of 
habit, we are apt to look at such matters with too 
much indifference, and even to sneer at those amongst 
us who hold high their heads, and keep aloof from 
the smaller fry as 
“base knaves, and unmannerly, 
To come betwixt the wind and their nobility.” 
But even this is an error in the right direction. 
We would not, in private life, admit a stranger into 
our society, and associate with him upon terms of 
friendship, until he was proved to our satisfaction to 
be a gentleman. So it should be in professional life. 
When a man puts out a sign Dr. so and so, that 
should not, of itself, be a pass to recognition and 
full fellowship. By their works, we should know 
them. The public, indeed, by using so little discre- 
tion and common sense in their search for profes- 
sional services, are as much to blame in this as we. 
It has, no doubt, often been said to all of us by strange 15 
patients who had suffered by another’s malepractice, 
that they thought “ one dentist as good as another/’ 
forgetting that though men are “ born equal ” they 
do not long remain so. It becomes us then, in edu- 
cating ourselves, and elevating our own standard, to 
strive to do the same for the public whom we profess 
to serve. When we show that we respect ourselves, 
they will begin to respect us. And here it is that 
the proper influence of our colleges will be greatly 
felt. When it is insisted that students shall be grad- 
uated at a Dental or Medical College before com- 
mencing to practise ; when the older members of the 
profession, who have not enjoyed this privilege, show 
themselves worthy of it by earnestly working to raise 
their own attainments to the same standard which 
they require of their students; and when the Facul- 
ties of our colleges take such care in the selection of 
their graduates, that none shall be permitted to re- 
ceive a diploma who is not likely to reflect honor 
upon his Alma Mater, — then public attention will 
be attracted, intelligent inquiry will be made, and our 
light will begin to shine. As things have been, can 
we blame the physician for not liking that his time- 
honored title of Doctor, should be adopted and dese- 
crated by the ignorant charlatan fresh from the work- 
shop or the plough % or for giving the cold shoulder 
to the whole body of dentists who make no distinc- 16 
tion between the skilful and the clown 1 When we 
look around us, we cannot but observe how com- 
paratively few there are who have received anything 
like a professional education, and how many who 
have stolen into our fold with the merest pretence at 
study, or any other proper preparation for its diffi- 
cult and delicate duties. Some of these are men of 
talent, who arrive almost by instinct at correct re- 
sults ; others, merely men of assurance who have ob- 
tained their skill at the expense of their patients, 
and whom even practice cannot make perfect. This 
being so, we must feel and acknowledge the necessity 
that lies upon us, to labor with earnest and united 
effort to lift our profession to its proper position. All 
enmities, all jealousies, all unkindness, all lukewarm- 
ness should cease for the sake of our cause. These 
must give place to brotherly kindness, forbearing one 
another in love; to the charity that suffereth long 
and is kind, that envieth not, that vaunteth not itself 
and is not puffed up; doth not behave itself un- 
seemly, is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil, 
but beareth, believeth, hopetli, and endureth all 
things. The past is irretrievable, but the future is 
in our hands, and it is our own fault if we do not 
make such use of it that, at least, the youngest 
amongst us may live to find himself a member of an 
acknowledged learned profession.