Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - Synapsis Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 11 text:

y y .:- A BRIGHT NEW ERA in tlic liistory and development of Philadelphia College of Osteopathy was beckoned with the purchase, in June of 1957, of the sixteen acre Moss Estate at City Line Avenue and Monument Road. On June 7, 1958, the Moss Mansion, remodeled at a cost of $65,000, was opened and occupied as an administration building. Future plans call for the building of a two-unit 600 bed hospital, complete with out-patient and auxiliary services, a college with research facilities, an auditorium, a library, a student dormitory, nurses home and a building for staff and faculty.

Page 10 text:

■ 3J -i-|-|- |r| • i| I 48th Street College and Hospital Moss Mansion Administration Building iJ- WE HAVE Progressed The dreams and aspirations of Dr. O. J. Snyder and Dr. M. W. Pressly came to rea- lization when the Philadelphia College and In- firmary of Osteopathy became incorporated on the 24th of January, in the year 1899. The first college held its classes in the Stephen Girard Building at 21 South 12th Street with a faculty of seven professors and a grad- uating class of two students in 1900. Since then the college has been located at various parts of the city. Among these were the Witherspoon Building at 33 rd and Arch Streets, 1715 North Broad Street, 832 Pine Street, 19th and Spring Garden Streets and finally to its present site at 48th and Spruce Streets in 1929. In 1951 the hospital purchased the build- ings and grounds of the Women ' s Homeopathic Hospital at 20th and Susquehanna Avenue. Our progress has been rapid in the past fifty years and we have outgrown our facili- ties. This resulted in the purchase of 16 acres of land at City Line and Monument Road to be used as site of the future expansion program.

Page 12 text:

•2 WITH AFFECTIONATE PRIDE WE Doctor Walter M. Hamilton Someone once described a lecture as the process by which the notes of the pro- fessor passed to the student without passing through the brains of either of them. President Lowell of Harvard expressed a similar skeptical view when he said there must be a great deal of knowledge in our universities because the freshmen always bring a little bit in and the seniors never take any out. Stephen Leacock offered this idea for education: If I were founding a university I would found first a smoking room; then a dormitory. Then, when I had a little money in hand, I would establish a decent reading room. After that, if I still had some money I couldn ' t use, I would get some textbooks and hire a professor. But it was President Hutchins of Chicago University who expressed the modern view of education. He said, My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. Dr. Walter Hamilton, the distinguished scholar and physician to whom we dedi- cate this senior yearbook, has managed to make a happy compromise between the old tradition of teaching and the modern approach of encouraging independent thought. Dr. Hamilton, a young fiftyish, graying gentleman, arrived in our midst at a crucial time. It was his decision that education is the training of the mind not the amassing of facts which aided in placing the Department of Osteopathic Principles on top-level recognition, nationwide as well as student wide. Through his dominant driving force as stimulator, educator, and friend, he captured the audience to the basic principles of our existence as a profession. Students and faculty alike who had ob- served a declining approach to our science and art cheer the day Walt Hamilton U)ok us in his understanding and powerful hands. Dr. Hamilton brings to us a desirous, well-rounded background best suited to his new role. As past Assistant Surgeon General in the New Jersey Medical Corps, partici- pant in officers ' training in chemical warfare, and practicing physician-surgeon in the states of Maine and New Jersey, he has been able to afford brilliant examples of modern osteopathic principles as a combined power of structure and chemistry, and truly a proud department is taking form under his assistance, a department which will best prepare the osteopathic graduate for his exceptional capacity of combined medical practitioner and osteopathic physician of modern times. The value of the synchronization has never been so well applied. From the simplest class demonstration to the complexities of hospital procedures, Dr. Hamilton has bridged the once impossible gap. The development of Junior Clerk- ships, which we as a class have the proud distinction of initiating, has been the culmina- tion of a man ' s dogged desire to do what is right in spite of past principles and prejudices. The burgeoning notebooks of principles and techniques of which a few short years ago there were none bespeak of this man ' s desires and drives. Yes, it can be humbly said, this is a man who in spite of personal tribulations works from pain in the morning until groan at night, and this work is a labor of love, the recipients of its fortunes we are humbly proud to say have been us. Walt, you ' re our friend. We are ever grateful.