Memories and Adventures Chapter 3 - Recollections of a Student

**Arthur Conan Doyle** (0:00)
Chapter 3 of Memories and Adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Chapter 3 Recollections of a Student.
Edinburgh University. A Sad Disappointment. Original of Professor Challenger. Of Sherlock Holmes. Deductions. Sheffield. Brighton. Birmingham. Literary Aspirations. First Accepted Story. My Father's Death. Mental Position. Spiritual Yearnings. An Awkward Business.
When I returned to Edinburgh with little to show, either mental or spiritual, for my pleasant school year in Germany, I found that the family affairs were still as straitened as ever. No promotion had come to my father, and two younger children, Ines, my only brother, and Ida had arrived to add to the calls upon my mother. Another sister, Julia, followed shortly afterwards. But Annette, the elder sister, had already gone out to Portugal to earn and send home a fair salary, while Lottie and Connie were about to do the same. My mother had adopted the device of sharing a large house, which may have eased her in some ways, but was disastrous in others.
Perhaps it was good for me that the times were hard, for I was wild, full-blooded, and a trifle reckless. But the situation called for energy and application, so that one was bound to try to meet it. My mother had been so splendid that we could not fail her. It had been determined that I should be a doctor, chiefly, I think, because Edinburgh was so famous a centre for medical learning. It meant another long effort for my mother, but she was very brave and ambitious where children were concerned. And I was not only to have a medical education, but to take the university degree, which was a larger matter than a mere license to practice. When I returned from Germany, I found that there was a long list of bursaries and scholarships open for competition.
I had a month in which to brush up my classics, and then I went in for these, and was informed a week later that I had won the Grierson Bursary, of forty pounds for two years. Great were the rejoicings and all shadows seemed to be lifting. But on calling to get the money, I was informed that there had been a clerical error, and that this particular bursary was only open to art students.
As there was a long list of prizes, I naturally supposed that I would get the next highest, which was available for medicals. The official pulled a long face and said, unfortunately, the candidate to whom it was allotted has already drawn the money. It was manifest robbery, and yet I, who had won the prize and needed it so badly, never received it, and was eventually put off with a salatium of seven pounds, which had accumulated from some fund. It was a bitter disappointment, and of course I had a legal case, but what can a penniless student do, and what sort of college career would he have if he began it by suing his university for money?
I was advised to accept the situation, and there seemed no prospect of accepting anything else.
So now, behold me, a tall, strongly framed, but half-formed young man fairly entered upon my five years course of medical study.
It can be done with diligence in four years, but there came, as I shall show, a glorious interruption which held me back for one year. I entered as a student in October 1876, and I emerged as a Bachelor of Medicine in August 1881
Between these two points lies one long weary grind at botany, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and a whole list of compulsory subjects, many of which have a very indirect bearing upon the art of curing.
The whole system of teaching as I look back upon it seems far too oblique and not nearly practical enough for the purpose in view. And yet Edinburgh is, I believe, more practical than most other colleges. It is practical too in its preparation for life, since there is none of the atmosphere in a large public school, as is the case in English universities, but the student lives a free man in his own rooms with no restrictions of any sort. It ruins some and makes strong men of many. In my own case, of course, this did not apply, since my family lived in the town and I worked from my own home.
There was no attempt at friendship or even acquaintance between professors and students at Edinburgh. It was a strictly business arrangement by which you paid, for example, four guineas for anatomy lectures and received the winter course in exchange, never seeing your professor, save behind his desk and never under any circumstances exchanging a word with him. They were remarkable men, however, some of these professors, and we managed to know them pretty well without any personal acquaintance. There was kindly Crum Brown, the chemist, who sheltered himself carefully before exploding some mixture, which usually failed to ignite, so that the loud boom uttered by the class was the only resulting sound. Brown would emerge from his retreat with a really gentleman of remonstrance, and go on without allusion to the abortive experiment. There was Wyville Thomson, the zoologist, fresh from his Challenger expedition, and Balfour, with the face and manner of John Knox, a hard rugged old man, who harried the students in their exams, and was in consequence harried by them for the rest of the year. There was Turner, a fine anatomist, but a self-educated man, as was betrayed when he used to, take and put this structure on the handle of this scalpel.