No. 7, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 615 



public spirit; as professional men nothing can more entitle them to 

 the rewards due to their labors. Who is there among the most 

 respectable of our own citizens, or in the highest grades of society 

 in the Old World, who has not deemed it meritorious to promote 

 the interest of agriculture? And is there any branch of that 

 occupation so important as that now recommended to the notice and 

 inquiry of medical men? If it has held an inferior rank in the 

 classification of science and knowledge it is entirely owing to the un- 

 merited neglect with which it has been unaccountably treated. It 

 should be rescued from obscurity and placed among .the most com- 

 mendable and necessary branches of medical education." 



During the following year, 1807, just a century ago, an address 

 was delivered at the University of Pennsylvania by Dr. Benjamin 

 Rush upon the duties and advantages of studying the diseases of 

 domestic animals and the proper remedies to relieve them. Dr. 

 Rush formulated under nine headings and for the first time in 

 America, a series of powerful arguments in favor of developing 

 studies of the diseases of animals. 



It was not, however, until 1884 that the Veterinary Department 

 of the University of Pennsylvania was established. For twenty- 

 three years this school has taken a leading place among the veteri- 

 nary institutions of the United States. It has educated 374 veteri- 

 narians who have taken the full course and have received its degree. 

 It has now enrolled 111 students. In this body there is a considerable 

 number of earnest young men from the farms of Pennsylvania, who 

 are working hard to obtain their training in this fundamental know- 

 ledge underlying animal husbandry, and who plan to return to rural 

 districts and apply the knowledge thus gained for the relief and ad- 

 vantage of agriculture. 



The maintenance of the Veterinary School has thus far been pro- 

 vided by the generosity of a few philanthropic persons who have rec- 

 ognized the importance of its work, and by the loyalty and devotion 

 of its teachers. The extent of the services that have been given gra- 

 tuitously by members of the teaching staff of this school for a per- 

 iod of nearly a quarter of a century is most unusual. If they have 

 succeeded with the assistance of their public spirited and generous 

 friends in placing veterinary education in Pennsylvania on a sound 

 and enduring basis, I am sure that they will be satisfied. And it 

 begins to look as though they are succeeding, for the legislature at 

 its last session appropriated |100,000 towards furnishing part of the 

 equipment that the school urgently requires. But this provides for 

 only a portion of its work, and some of its most important branches 

 must still be taught in wholly inadequate, unsanitary premises. It 

 is still unable to do for the State, work that the State urgently 

 needs. 



There is coming to be more general appreciation on the part of 

 breeders of veterinary work of what it has done for them, and of the 

 importance of the objects veterinarians are striving to attain. 



There are several reasions for the slow development of this ap- 

 preciation in this country. Perhaps the veterinarian has not been 

 sufficiently insistent on the achievements of his profession and the 

 value of his services: undoubtedly the schools have not been ade- 

 quately equipped, and they have not been able fully to meet the 



