THE HIGHLAND AND AGIIIGULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 



during the last two days, especially in reference to the success- 

 ful candidates. I need not remind you that your professional 

 career embraces two great periods — that in which you are 

 acquiring the elements of professional knowledge, and the more 

 extended period during which you will be called upon to engage 

 in the active duties of your profession. You have now just 

 terminated what is usually called the period of study ; but, 

 although henceforth you are entitled, in virtue of the certificate 

 which you have now received, to perform the duties of your pro- 

 fession, and the public expect you in virtue of that certificate to 

 discharge these duties efficiently, you must not suppose your- 

 selves quite prepared and capable of doing so without further 

 study. The fact is that you are now only entering on your true 

 professional education. Hitherto your great object has been to 

 acquire such an amount of scientific and practical information 

 as could be obtained in the comparative hurried and anxious 

 period of pupilage ; but it is now only after passing througli this 

 preparatory stage that you will have leisure to digest what you 

 have acquired, and to fit it for practical service. For you must 

 remember that no amount of knowledge acquired by listening 

 to the instructions of others, or even by personal reading, careful 

 reading, and observations as pupils, can produce the accomplished 

 practitioner. You are therefore to keep in mind two considera- 

 tions, which, I think, will assist you in your future proceedings. 

 You are to remember that you are to be constant students — 

 that it is only afterwards, and in connection with the everyday 

 duties of your profession, that you will acquire the necessary 

 tact and experience. What you are to do is to deduce from and 

 evolve out of the scientific knowledge, which you have obtained 

 during your course of study and training, certain principles on 

 which you are to proceed in the treatment of injury and disease 

 in the domestic animals. You will bear in mind that the duties 

 devolving on medical practitioners in any department presents 

 this peculiarity, that it is quite impossible by books or tuition 

 to indicate all the circumstances in any individual case. No 

 one case that you meet with in practice is exactly the same as 

 any former one, and the consequence is that the medical profes- 

 sion requires, in addition to mere possession of knowledge, prac- 

 tical and scientific, and in addition alsp to the possession of 

 manual dexterity and practice, the constant exercise of judgment. 

 It is evident, therefore, that your first qualification is judgment, 

 under the exercise and inihience of experience. I have to bring 

 before you the advantages of education which you have received 

 in this establishment, as they have come under my observation 

 during the discharge of my duties as one of the examiners. I 

 am happy to say that the character of the marks placed against 

 your names indicates that you have not only been stored with 



