Buchanan, ever resourceful, but always visionary, conceived a scheme (in 1858) of instituting a great “Free College of America,” in which a medical education would be practically free and within the grasp of all medical aspirants. A costly building was to be erected with a hospital of 1,000 beds attached thereto, and a large library and an anatomical and physiological museum were proposed. The professional fees ($60) were to be abolished, and only matriculation ($10), dissection ($5), and graduation ($20) fees were to be exacted. This Utopian dream, conceived no doubt with purely philanthropic motives, but wholly suicidal to Eclectic.
