the Royal Veterinary College. 
437 
of p;ood results that it cannot but be satisfactory to the Council 
to know tliat the Governors of the Royal College of Veterinary 
Surgeons are using their utmost efforts to secure the extension of 
the system, which this Institution initiated, to the Colleges 
of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Should this object be attained, 
an important step will have been taken towards the country 
being supplied Avith veterinary surgeons whose knowledge of 
scientific principles gives system to their practice, and great 
progress will have been made towards the permanent elevation 
of the veterinary profession. 
Before they conclude this report, the Governors desire to 
assure the Council, although they trust that experience must have 
rendered the renewal of this assurance almost unnecessary, that 
they have anxiously sought and will continue to seek to render 
the means at their disposal thoroughly available for the object 
which is mutual to the two institutions, " the advancement of 
science in the practical treatment of the diseases of cattle, 
sheep and pigs." 
The Governors would, however, venture to remind the Council 
that there are limits to their means. The primary object of the 
Royal Veterinary College is the special education of young 
men who intend to devote their energies to the veterinary 
profession ; and it must be obvious that the Governors cannot 
consistently with this duty undertake to provide general or public 
instruction to an extent that would be injurious to the profession 
which the students at the College are about to enter. Another 
limit is presented by the known impossibility of collecting in 
the metropolis an aggregation of disease among cattle, sheep, 
and pigs, such as is exhibited to the students of medicine and 
surgery as applied to mankind in the various London hospitals. 
The sanitary regulations of the metropolis, the absence of space 
and of the large funds which would be requisite for the esta- 
blishment of an extended hospital for diseased cattle, and other 
circumstances, forbid the idea of such an undertaking. The 
Governors, while encouraged by the general progress in veterinary 
science which the profession has of late years manifested, are 
convinced that they must be content with persevering in the 
development of the course which their Institution has hitherto 
pursued in the inculcation of those branches of science which 
are essential to the due organization and direction of the practice 
of future veterinary surgeons throughout the country. 
The Governors are nevertheless fully aware of the value of 
demonstrations in surgical and medicinal education. Indeed it 
cannot be denied that explanations of the kind give point and 
life to instruction which would otherwise be felt by many 
students to be cold, abstract, and uninteresting. The Governors 
