The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XXIII. Education.

§ 29. Medical Schools.


Medical education, like legal education, had been given during the colonial period chiefly by the apprentice system. Transition from this occurred through proprietary schools. While these schools persisted for the most part until the middle of the nineteeth century, yet university affiliation was found as early as 1767 at King’s, now Columbia. More noted, however, was the proprietary school in Philadelphia from which the patriot physician Benjamin Rush laid the foundation of American medical literature.   42