AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 437 



of instruction in veterinary medicine and surgery ; embracing not 

 horses only, but all the domestic animals. A student at his en 

 trance must be well versed in the common branches of education ; 

 and a full course of instruction requires a residence of four years. 

 The number of pupils is limited to three hundred. Of these, 

 forty are entirely supported by the government. These are 

 educated for the army ; and are required not only to become 

 versed in the science and practice of veterinary medicine and 

 surgery, but likewise in the common business of a blacksmith s 

 shop, as far as it is connected with farriery. Students can be 

 admitted only by the nomination or with the consent of one of 

 the great officers of government, the minister of commerce and 

 agriculture. The expense of board and lodging is about fifteen 

 pounds, or eighty dollars a year ; the instruction is wholly 

 gratuitous, the professors being supported by the government. 



The establishment presents several hospitals or apartments for 

 sick horses, cows, and dogs. There are means for controlling 

 and regulating, as far as possible, the temperature of the rooms, 

 and for producing a complete and healthy ventilation. There 

 are stables where the patients may be kept entirely alone, when 

 the case requires it ; and there are preparations for giving them, 

 as high as their bodies, a warm bath, which, in cases of diseased 

 limbs or joints, may be of great service. There is a large college 

 with dormitories and dining-rooms for the students; houses for 

 the professors within the enclosure ; rooms for operations upon 

 animals, and for anatomical dissections ; a room with a complete 

 laboratory for a course of chemical lectures ; a public lecture- 

 room or theatre ; and an extensive smithery, with several forges 

 fitted up in the best possible manner. There are, likewise, sev 

 eral stands, contrived with some ingenuity, for confining the feet 

 of horses, that students may make with security their first 

 attempts at shoeing, or in which the limb, after it has been sep 

 arated from its lawful owner, may be placed for the purpose of 

 examination and experiment. 



An extensive suite of apartments presents an admirable, and, 

 indeed, an extraordinary museum, both of natural and artificial 

 anatomical preparations, exhibiting the natural and healthy state 

 of the animal constitution ; and, likewise, remarkable examples 

 of diseased affections. The perfect examples of the anatomy 

 of the horse, the cow, the sheep, the hog, and the dog, in 

 37* 



