306 LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Let us look now at the prospects of the profession generally, at 
the present day, as compared with the past. Ever since I began to 
think of the profession as such, I saw the necessity for a preliminary 
educational test ; but it is only now that the universal voice of the 
profession has found a channel of expression through these societies, 
that this most important step has been taken. I am not here to 
condemn the men who, being in positions of influence and power, did 
not do long ago what has now been done. Selfishness is an inherent 
principle in all men, and requires a powerful restraining and cor- 
rective influence to keep it within bounds. This influence has been 
applied principally through local societies, like this, acting on and 
through the council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons ; 
and, I dare say, we are glad to be able to discover some good thing that 
it has been able to do after so many years’ existence. I am glad that 
the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has no legal power, or 
so little that [it is not worth exercising ; and that the members 
of the profession are left to act upon each other through the 
medium of public discussions, rather than by the enactment of 
statutes. We are more likely thus to retain a lasting interest in 
every arrangement of our licensing and teaching institutions ; 
and these institutions are more likely to yield to moral than legal 
pressure. 
I think we may fairly assume that, whatever is right, we can now 
get at our colleges : it remains for us to keep up our interest in, and 
freely give our views upon those matters which require amendment, 
and the change which we desire will come. 
I now come to a very delicate part of my subject, namely, the 
position of the private practitioner, as a teacher of pupils. “ Our 
hope is in the young” — the man is through life very much what he 
has been made when a boy. His habits of thought and the general 
current of his whole character are often formed, almost imper- 
ceptibly, by the individual to whom he is only expected to look for 
mere professional teaching. No fact is more firmly established by 
biography than this, that the young are highly imitative — far more 
influenced by example than by precept ; the hand-writing of the 
apprentice, his language, his accent and his learning, his general 
habits and methods of observation, closely resemble those of his 
master. I do not think that anything very definite can be said in 
favour of the present mode of apprenticeship as a preparation for 
college. Many practical students, as they are called, have been 
found quite incapable of understanding a theory ; and appear as if, 
during their apprenticeship, they had exercised themselves merely 
in the mechanical departments of the science. 
This deficiency in the pupil I attribute, in a great degree, to the 
present system of apprenticeship. The master, as a rule, is a busy 
man; his time is almost entirely taken up in doing ; he sends his 
assistant to do also ; this is very pleasing to the young man, and not 
unprofitable to his master, who, of course, is also pleased. Time 
moves on, and the young man gradually learns to distinguish or- 
dinary diseases, and recollects what is usually done in certain cases, 
