THE SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 313 



founded a menagerie filled mostly with exotic animals, and gave 

 great attention to the breeding of sheep, rabbits, fowls, and even 

 silk-worms. To the formation of the so-called " royal cabinet," stu- 

 dents and teachers were sent at great expense to the sea-coast to 

 gather examples of different sea-animals. They studied the anato- 

 my of the dolphin and ray, and forgot that of the domestic animals. 

 This superficial learning of a little of many things was especially cul- 

 tivated by Bourgelat to the cost of a true scientific method, and 

 found, fortunately, little imitation in Germany. But instead of pass- 

 ing quietly by these French extravagances, and copying them in 

 what good things they had, we fell into the opposite extreme of 

 developing one-sided empirics, the so-called " Kossarzte " (horse-doc- 

 tors) and " Kurschmiede " (farriers). Every attempt of individual 

 men at the schools to introduce the true scientific method was ener- 

 getically combated, and the French schools quoted to strengthen 

 the ground of the opponents. Bojanus, medical councilor in Hesse, 

 enjoys the unenviable reputation of having most successfully op- 

 posed all improvement. I can not refrain from telling you how 

 Bojanus would have the veterinarians educated and the schools con- 

 ducted. He had a controlling power at the Munich school until 

 1852, 



Bojanus looked upon the education of practical men as the sole 

 task of the schools. They would fail of our purpose were they edu- 

 cated to be scientific veterinarians. (The English have most reli- 

 giously followed in this direction even to our day, and here in Amer- 

 ica a good practical ignoramus is in general more prized than the 

 man of genuine scientific attainments ; let it be understood, I claim, 

 a truly scientific man can never be aught else than practical.) Cer- 

 tain axioms were to be learned as articles of practical belief, the 

 students being reduced to mere mechanical machines. The state 

 needed only veterinary hand-workers (in some parts of France the 

 veterinarians are still spoken of as " artistes veterinaires "), who would 

 follow the rules learned at school with blind confidence. Such a 

 practitioner never asks the cause of the phenomena which he sees 

 presented to him by a diseased organism ; he does not seek to enter 

 into the real nature of the disease, but is contented to know that dis- 

 ease is before him. He does not seek to arrange a special method 

 of treatment, but uses that which he has learned as something dis- 

 covered for all time. He is all content when the patient recovers, 

 and asks not why, nor under what necessary laws, it has taken place. 

 He enters public life as a common artisan, and must always be 

 classed as such ; he never feels the power in him that is given to 



