At a meeting of this Society the subject of students of medicine becoming apprentices of medical practitioners was brought under notice, and it was agreed to refer the matter to a committee to consider and report. At a subsequent meeting the committee's report was brought up and agreed to as follows :-On the general question of medical apprenticeships your committee would remark that the system cannot be regarded as holding, in the present state of the profession, the same important place as it

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... did in the memory of many of our number, when in the majority of cases it was the only means of providing for the effectual study of the several branches of medical education. In the present day, the full organization of numerous efficient schools of medicine, the greater facilities afforded in hospitals for the training of students, and the system of examination now in force, as well in the ordinary courses of lectures as preparatory to the granting of degrees and licences, have, in the general judgment of the profession, provided so complete a system of imparting knowledge, of stimulating the exertions of the students, and of testing their abilities, that it is now comparatively rare to find a medical man laying himself out for taking apprentices. Your committee feel that at present the tendency of public opinion is so decidedly against the general adoption of the apprenticeship system, that it may safely be left to students themselves, and to those who have a personal interest in their education, to judge of the cogency of the arguments to recommend it in particular cases. The practical good sense of the parties most directly concerned may be held a safe guide, when no undue influence is brought to bear on them; and your committee repudiate the idea that any member of this Society would use his social or professional influence for such a purpose. In Aberdeen especially, as the seat of an important medical school, in which a large proportion of those practising here are employed as examiners for degrees, both the profession and the public at large are naturally suspicious of any influence which might possibly be supposed to interfere with the impartial discharge of these official duties In this very sensitiveness, however, on the part of the public, there is so ample a corrective of any unconscious bias of personal regard, that your committee believe the credit of our Aberdeen degrees never stood higher than at present. The admitted status of the graduates of our University, and the high position many of them have taken before other examining boards, are the best indications both of the efficiency of its teaching and of the stringency of its examinations. If additional security is still required, we have it in the appointment, under the late ordinances of the Universities' Commissioners, of extra-professional examiners, to be changed from time to time; and in the circumstance-which your committee think ought to be generally known-that the medical faculty of the University, who have long followed the rille that no professor should examine his ovrn son, have recently adopted the same practice in regard to apprentices and private pupils.