A NATIONAL VETERINARY INSTITUTE. 409 



scribers 1 horses, or to attend to subscribers' interests / the students 

 who entered the school have suffered all along from their and sub- 

 scribers^ interests clashing, and of clinical instruction there has been 

 none worthy of the name, as the subscribers' 1 ho?'ses could not be 

 made available, and no others were admitted within the gates : nei- 

 ther in the form of text-boohs, nor in other ways, has the school bene- 

 fited the prof "ession, and its existence as a scientific institution 

 is ignored by other countries. 



" The teachers, to exist, have been compelled, it would appear, to 

 practice their profession beyond the walls of the school, and thus 

 neglect the students, who seem to be only a secondary consideration 

 in the speculation, and are chiefly valued as contributors of fees. 



" A desire to get hold of money has been the bane of the school, 

 as it has been its chief aim ; hence the degrading ' subscription 

 system J and the determination to continue and extend it, no mat- 

 ter who suffers, whether it deprives the 'veterinary surgeon or the 

 blacksmith of their means of livelihood. [The universities of Har- 

 vard and Pennsylvania would plant this British parasite on our 

 shores, and, if the thing ' paid,' numerous other associations of 

 less responsibility and respectability would be sure ' to follow 

 suit and trump,' so easy is it in this country for everything and 

 everybody to get a ' charter.'] Surely the noblemen and gentle- 

 men who lend their names and patronage to these schools are 

 not aware of the fact that it is not a scientific institution, nor 

 yet a college, but merely and mainly a great co-operative horse- 

 doctoring and horseshoeing concern, devised to benefit wealthy sub- 

 scribers, having nothing to do with the introduction of humane or 

 improved methods of treating diseases or accidents, and doing its 

 business on shamefully cheap principles ! [Certainly the trustees 

 of the universities mentioned must have been most lamentably de- 

 ceived or wofully ignorant when they consented to the adoption of 

 the subscription plan.] 



" "We may be told that the ' subscription system ' is necessary to 

 the existence of the establishment, and that without it it must per- 

 ish of inanition. If such a statement is correct — and we do not deny 

 its correctness — then it reveals a very discreditable state of affairs. 

 No other veterinary school in these islands requires to resort to such 

 ignoble stratagem to live ; no medical school does or dares to under- 

 sell practicing physicians or surgeons ; in fact, the London Veterinary 

 College is the only medical or veterinary school in Europe which, 

 like a huge parasite, lives and grows at their expense, past and present. 



" Not only does the subscription system most seriously injure the 



