I started a collection of texts from old osteopathic journals that could be of interest to osteopaths and people curious about osteopathy.

You can fin the full list here
Some were translated into French here

Length of time necessary to acquire the foundation principles of osteopathy

The question is often asked, “How long will it take a person to learn to do this work successfully?” In reply I will say that with a man or woman of ordinary intelligence my observation has been that by close application under competent instructors, he will have obtained a comprehensive knowledge of anatomy, physiology and the workings of the body in two years’ time. He is then qualified and well prepared to take charge of and do successful work provided he has been properly taught or is not a mental blank. I have been advised to make our school course longer than two years; to add another year and make it three.

I have been constantly in this service for the past thirty years. I think I know all the requirements of a competent osteopathic physician. My best operators have completed the school course and gone to work at the end of two years. They use no adjuncts and are unqualified successes. My opinion is, that after two years of constant application to his studies in my school, if he can show good grades, he is then as well qualified to begin practicing as he ever will be. He must learn much by experience.

Another point that I would make is that I think my opinion should be as well worth your consideration, after thirty years experience, as that of any man or boy who has gone out from our schools and has only devoted two or three years to the study and practice.

And as the discoverer and unfolder of the science of osteopathy, I will emphatically state that I consider a two years’ course sufficient, if the work is confined to the essentials and all obsolete theories carefully excluded, the student attends strictly to his business, keeps out of billiard saloons and is well versed in all branches taught in the schools of our science which are to prepare him for the higher school of experience. The graduate should go to work at the end of the two years or he will lose many of the valuable principles that have been taught him before he has gotten hands and head to practice them until they became second nature, and he finds a proof in the results obtained. Thus I consider every day wasted to the serious detriment of the student, that he delays putting his knowledge into practice, after he completes his two years’ course. If he begins on a third year the work assumes a monotonous routine and he begins to unlearn that which should have become a part of himself from frequent practice. At the end of the two years he should be master of the knowledge of the form and functioning of the human body and should be able to assume full charge of the engine of life and wisely direct it along its course. Again the average man or woman does not have the means to spend for an additional year. If I thought a student could not master the science in two years, I would tell him so and refuse his money. We need in our ranks only those qualified to do good work as osteopaths.

Let us stand by our flag or quit!

A.T. Still
Journal of Osteopathy, August 1904

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