19 
TUITION IN OUR VETERINARY SCHOOLS. 
By a Student, Royal Veterinary College, London. 
Gentlemen, — I have seen several papers on the above 
subject of late in the Veterinarian, but none of them to my 
mind are to the point at issue. I trust, therefore, you will 
allow me space to state my views, with the hope that they 
may draw forth remarks in forthcoming numbers of your 
journal on so important a subject to the student. 
I cannot agree with some persons that too much time is 
wasted over lectures. I am sure the trouble our professors 
have had to get up their subjects must have occupied them 
many years before they entered college as professors, and con- 
sequently they are enabled to condense their knowledge into a 
concise form, and give us the pith or heart of their labours, 
instead of our wasting weeks, nay months, in poring through 
works for the same amount of information. 
I perfectly agree in all that has been said with regard to 
our instruction in the laboratories and dissecting rooms. We 
must have practical experience in both, to be able to get on 
at all. Up to the present time, however, we have no labora- 
tory for the use of the students. The museum also should be 
open for our inspection. How can we possibly study compara- 
tive anatomy from books alone ? I am perfectly aware that it 
may be said specimens would be damaged in the museum, or 
chemicals wasted in the laboratory, but this can be no excuse. 
Make stringent rules and see them observed. Let the authori- 
ties remember they are dealing with young men from nineteen 
to thirty years of age, and not with a lot of boys. 
With regard to the clinical instruction as it is at present car- 
ried out I think the less said the better. I am not casting any 
censure upon the clinical professors ; they are ever ready to 
impart information ; but is it possible, I would ask, to repeat 
to over 170 students each symptom of disease ? A very simple 
plan might be carried out, so that every student could see for 
himself what ails the animal, and how he is treated. For in- 
stance, let there be suspended on the wall immediately behind 
each animal a board, say twelve inches by nine inches, and 
upon this nail or paste a card with the following headings: — 
No Colour 
Disease 
Entered Date 
Treatment . . . 
These headings should be filled in by the clerk in the office on 
