SCOTLAND. ST. ANDREW'S.-A great sensation has been produced in the medical world by certain new regulations just issued by the University of St. Andrews, which place attendance on the classes of a certain description of lecturers on the same footing with attendance at classes in colleges, as qualifications for degrees. The following is the substance of the new rules : I. No candidate shall be admitted to examination till he has subscribed a declaration that he is twenty-one years of age, and has produced satisfactory evidence that he is of unexceptionable moral character. II. The candidate, if he be not in possession of the degree of A.M., must produce certificates of his having had a liberal and classical education, and be ready to undergo an examination as to his proficiency in the Latin language. III. The candidate must produce certificates that he has regularly attended lectures delivered by professors in some university, or by resident fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians or Surgeons of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, or Dublin, for at least four complete sessions, during four years, on the following branches: 1. Anatomy.-2. Practical Anatomy.-3. Chemistry.-4. Theory of Physic, or Physiology.-5. Materia Medica and Pharmacy.-6. Principles of Pathology and Practice of Physic.-7. Surgery (each of the above courses to be of six months' duration.)—8. Practical Chemistry (three months.)-9. Midwifery and Diseases of Women and Children, do.-10. An Apprenticeship, or Six Months' attendance in the shop of an Apothecary, or in the Laboratory of a Public Hospital or Dispensary.-11. Attendance at a Public Hospital, containing not less than eighty beds, for at least twelve months. To these must be added, for degrees in Medicine, Clinical Medicine; for degrees in Surgery, Clinical Surgery. Two three months' courses of either to be considered equivalent to one six months' course. These regulations will be invariably observed, except when the candidates are possessed of a surgeon's diploma from London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, or Dublin; have been in regular practice previous to the year 1830, or have served as medical officers in his Majesty's army, navy, or East India Company's service-in which cases three years' attendance on the above courses will be sustained. The gentlemen appointed as conjunct examinators with the Professor of Medicine in St. Andrews, are-Messrs. Robert Liston, J. A. Robertson, J. Mackintosh, A. Lizars, and W. Gregory-the four first members of the Royal College of Surgeons, and the last members of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. UNIVERSITY OFFICERS, 1834. Chancellor, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, D.C.L. Provost of Trinity College, Barthol. Lloyd, D.D. Frs. Hodgkinson, LL.D., Vice-Provost. turer. Rev. H. Wray, D.D., Senior Proctor. Rev. Thos. Gannon, D.D., Assist. Lib. Rev. John Blair Chapman, A.M. Rev. Fran. Sadleir, D.D., Senior Dean, Rev. Chas. Wm. Wall, D.D., Auditor. Fellows. Mountiford Longfield, LL.D. Rev. John Lewis Moore, A.M., Junior Rev. Sam. John M'Clean, A.M. Rev. George Sidney Smith, A.M Jas. M'Cullagh, B.A. Professors and Lecturers. Erasmus Smith's Mathematics.-Fras. Nat. Philosophy.-Humphry Lloyd, A.M. Dr. Andrew's Astronomy.-W. Hamil- Abp. Whately's Pol. Economy.-Mount. Anatomy and Surgery.-Jas. Macart- Chemistry.-Fras. Barker, M.D. Natural History (Lecturer).-Whitley French and German.-Chas. Willi- Italian and Spanish.-Evasio Radice, Public Examiners for the year. Rev. J. L. Moore, A.M. Logics and Ethics, at the Degree Ex- Mountiford Longfield, LL.D. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. THE YORKSHIRE INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB, AT DONCASTER. In a report of the Birmingham Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, recently published, appeared a statement that the number of deaf-mutes in England and Wales alone was not less than eight thousand. This statement was noticed in many of the London and provincial newspapers, and was received in some parts of the country with discredit. From various sources of information, whose accuracy can no longer be disputed, it is ascertained that the proportion of deaf and dumb persons in South Britain is one in seventeen hundred, which, with an aggregate population of fourteen millions, fully establishes the correctness of the Birmingham Report. Returns, in fact, have been procured in various parts of the kingdom on which this proportion is founded. The proportion throughout Europe is 1585. With such a fact as this resting on unimpeachable evidence, the situation of these helpless beings, in respect to moral culture and improvement, becomes a subject of important and anxious investigation. The difficulty of addressing instruction to minds shut out from the ordinary means of intercourse entails miseries upon this unhappy portion of the community which cannot be averted by the most tender parental solicitude. Cut off from almost all communication with the world, the mind so bereft of companionship is apt either to sink into imbecility, or to become subject to the development of headstrong and hurtful passions. Without the checks of knowledge and religion, and too frequently spoiled by injudicious indulgence, the temper grows ungovernable, and fits of violence and spleen give a frightful and melancholy aspect to the character. This is the common condition of the poor deaf-mute, without the benefit of that peculiar training which he can rarely receive in the bosom of his family; and it is from the consideration of this fact that public institutions, whose JAN.-APRIL, 1834. object is to supply by other means the loss of those organs through which knowledge is commonly conveyed to the mind, have received such splendid encouragement from the enlightened and the charitable, in all Europe, in North America, and lately in British India. Most truly has Dr. Johnson described deafness as the 'most desperate of human calamities.' With what class of persons can we compare the uneducated deaf and dumb? Not with the idiot, nor the maniac: their deprivation is that of reason, a deprivation frequently more afflicting to their friends than to themselves. In the very possession of reason, the deaf and dumb are more pitiably afflicted than these outcasts, inasmuch as they have a sensibility to something higher than they can attain, a desire never to be gratified, a light within which flashes and gleams at times for a moment, until it languishes for want of something to feed the flame. It has often been said, that blindness is a greater misery than deafness. The reason for this popular opinion is sufficiently obvious. Blindness claims a readier sympathy than deafness the one is silent and often retiring, the other can tell its tale of calamity, by which a mind endued with sensibility cannot fail to be deeply interested; nor is it until the contrast between these two calamities receives more than a superficial attention, that the heavier privations of deafness are discovered and understood. We then perceive that the ear is a ready inlet to the mind of the blind, and that a language is already framed in which the blind man can communicate his ideas, and by means of which the most useful parts of knowledge can be conveyed to him in return. But the deaf-mute has acquired no language. A few rude signs, expressive of his physical wants, are the extent of his commerce with his species, until his mind has been developed and informed by a long and tedious process of instruction, through the medium of the eye; and this instruction, in the first instance, must be simplified to the very last degree. Even when educated, the deaf and dumb person can never occupy that station in social life which is occupied by the blind. Every topic of interest is easily communicated to the blind; but to the deaf, much of the enjoyment which results from mingling with society is unappreciated, because unfelt, -unfelt, because he is often a stranger to the more refined pleasures of social intercourse. We speak of the deaf and dumb as they have been, and as they are generally educated; we by no means wish to pronounce it to be impossible to fit them for enjoying, and even for being useful in society. We know that much has been already done, and that more is being done at present than was ever attempted before; and we confidently anticipate the time when a due proportion of the deaf and dumb will be raised from their forlorn condition to an eminence which will be at once grateful to them, and honourable to their instructors. We have spoken of the difficulty of approaching their minds compared with that of communication with the blind; we see that this difficulty almost vanishes in the case of the latter; while in that of the deaf it cannot be overcome but by the most patient and persevering labour. The magnitude of the obstacles to the mental cultivation of the deaf and dumb was doubtless the consideration which prevented many philosophical minds from encountering the labour, even after they had ascertained the practicability of such cultivation. The general spread of inquiry, especially during the present century, has brought more accurate information respecting the state and numbers of the deaf and dumb; the result of which has been to call forth the sympathy of the public for their relief: and although the provision which is at present made for them is by no means commensurate with the object to be accomplished, there is reason to expect that more ample measures will soon be taken for removing as far as possible the moral and physical evils attendant upon this deplorable calamity. Benevolent minds have been awakened to this duty in our own country, among whom, the late Rev. John Townshend, the founder of the London Institution, deserves especial notice, as the first individual who effected the extension of education to the indigent deaf and dumb. The imitators of this good and great man in other parts of the kingdom, whose names are recorded in the memory of some hundreds of pupils, are the late Dr. de Lys, of Birmingham; Dr. Orpen, of Dublin; Mr. Bateman, of Manchester; and Mr. Comer, of Liverpool. In Yorkshire, where an institution for the deaf and dumb has sprung up within a very few years, may be found another gentleman whose name must be ranked with the above benefactors to this class of sufferers: it is the name of its first promoter and honorary secretary, the Rev. W. C. Fenton, whose benevolence and untiring zeal have given it prosperity as well as existence. As this institution, from its locality in a populous and wealthy district, and the success which has attended its establishment, will furnish us with some materials suitable to the purpose we have in view in this paper, we propose to take a survey of its origin, history, and internal management, and to explain the system of instruction there pursued. One of our objects in doing this, is to diffuse a knowledge of all |