A NATIONAL VETERINARY INSTITUTE. 397 



patient in one part of the city, and an impatient and neglected 

 class in the medical school at another part. The scenes of " hur- 

 rying to and fro " are often ridiculous in the extreme. It is self- 

 evident that the students must suffer. Too many medical schools 

 seem only to have been established to give a certain class of ambi- 

 tious men a false rejmtation, and a certain degree of imposability 

 before the people. Professor iEsculapius Wormwood is always 

 going before the people as a very learned man, while in truth he is 

 generally a most consummate humbug, one of his most frequent 

 specialties being the removal of parasites, which, like himself, prey 

 upon the vitalities of his patients. 



The publications in which most of these medical schools make 

 known their respective advantages are certainly as uncreditable to 

 scientific institutions as is the ridiculous race for students in which 

 nearly all the schools indulge. They are embellished with numer- 

 ous striking woodcuts of the main buildings, laboratories, etc., and 

 in more ways than one resemble the publications issued by hotel 

 proprietors at summer resorts. The promises and opportunities are 

 unexceptionable ; but, once having you fairly in their grasp, with 

 the fees secured, it matters very little in the one case about the 

 intellectual and in the other about the corporal food one gets. 



As I have previously said, the States have not been content with 

 chartering one medical school within their respective limits. State 

 charters for medical schools seem to be far more easy of attainment 

 than liquor-licenses ; in fact, it is very questionable if our inquiries 

 as to the character of applicants for the latter are not more strin- 

 gent than those which are made with reference to those who would 

 originate a school for medical education. The law requires no abso- 

 lute testimony of character or ability on the part of persons desiring 

 to establish schools for medical education. Our legislators never 

 ask, Have we not enough such schools ? They seem to assume that 

 the more we have the better, and look upon them from the same 

 stand-point as they do institutions for general charity. 



Chapter XXXII, section 1, of the Massachusetts General Stat- 

 utes, reads : " Seven or more persons within this State, having asso- 

 ciated themselves by agreement in writing for education, charitable, 

 or religious purposes, under any name by them assumed, and com- 

 plying with the provisions of this chapter [which say nothing as to 

 their individual fitness], shall, with their successors, be and remain 

 a body politic and corporate." The conditions are the same in 

 nearly all our States — at least, I know of no exception to the rule. 

 A friend writes me from Philadelphia : "As you are writing upon 



