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HISTOEY OF DENTAL SURGEEY 449

attending the same lectures for the three collegiate years. In 1904-05 a graded
course of lectures for first-year class-men was established, attendance upon
which was optional to second-j'ear and third-year classmen. The second-year
and third-year class-men continued attending the same lectures during their
second and tliird year. The latter feature was imperative in order that stu-
dents might be better prepared for the taking of the license examinations of
the State Board of Dental Examiners (these examinations commenced in 1895)
than they would be were the curriculum of the second and third year sessions
divided into two graded courses.
The curriculum has been an evolutionary one. The methods of fulfilling it
having been governed by the space available in the college premises; but, the
trend of the work maintained through the years is embodied in the opening
paragraph of the annual announcements : "The purpose of the institution is
to educate men to practice dental surgery as a specialty of medicine, therefore,
the curriculum includes the fundamental departments of medicine with opera-
tive dental surgery and oral prosthetics. The lectures on the fundamental de-
partments of medicine are specially directed to the needs of the dental surgeon."
From 18G6-91 the college premises only admitted of educational work by
didactic lectures, cliuics and infirmary practice. In 1891, when the college
moved to its present building, the faculty were enabled to progressively fit up
laboratories for practical work — practical chemistry and normal histology were
the first opened. In 1894 additional laboratories were opened for the conduct
of graded "Practical Classes"—for first-year, second-year and third-year class-
men—to afford opportunities of personal work and direct demonstrations of
every feature of the technic of operative dental surgery and oral prosthetics.
The work of the "Practical Classes" and the plant of the laboratories have
been perfected and added to from year to year, until now no less than 37 classes
—including the original practical chemistry and normal histology—with 177
class sessions are conducted, affording 2,550 hours of practical work and dem-
onstration to the students during each lecture session. The several classes take
from five to eighty men for varying periods from a week to the entire session,
according to the work dealt with. At present this system of "Practical Class"
work covers the practical field of every department of the curriculum—dental
and medical.
The "Plan of Organization" submitted by the "Committee of Conference"
from the dental profession of New York in 1866, had, as its principal feature
for the education of students in practical dental surgery and oral prosthetics,
that members of the profession were to volunteer their services to give clinics