308 LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
individual who has only served his apprenticeship before he com- 
menced to practice, has lost the opportunity of learning much that 
would be useful to him, or he must have acquired the knowledge at 
a great cost of time and labour, besides being still outside the 
charmed circle of the R. C. V. S. 
We are upon the whole, I believe, too exclusively business men — 
merely veterinary surgeons — and have not taken our proper position 
as ordinary members of society. There are, no doubt, many reasons 
for this, some of them more and some less commendable ; but I 
believe this to be an error to be guarded against. 
I know we are placed in a very difficult position ; we have busi- 
ness relations with all classes of society, and w r ith every variety of 
character : it is our duty, and ought to be our pleasure, to do well 
for all, to be agreeable to all, and suit ourselves to circumstances as 
best we can; at the same time never condescending to meet any class 
by joining in their follies, by associating with them in their sports 
or pastimes, however innocent they may be in themselves, if we 
cannot afford to so, if our enjoyments are really of a higher nature, 
or if we for any reason scarcely approve of them. 
The veterinary surgeon is not always alike busy ; the unoccupied 
time is decidedly the dangerous time ; it is then that the tastes find 
their opportunity of development. If the taste is in the direction 
of scientific research, this spare time may be usefully and honour- 
ably employed ; if there exists a fondness for the pursuits of 
literature, it may be indulged at home, and the student will be 
ready for business when it comes. But if the idle man has to go 
to the nearest idle man to kill time — or run to all sales , racing, 
coursing, or other sporting meetings within reasonable distance, in 
order to find enjoyment — he will be often out of the way when 
wanted, and will not do very much for the advancement of himself 
or of his profession ; perhaps he will get worse in position as he 
gets advanced in years. This loose rambling sort of conduct, I am 
sorry to say, is somewhat characteristic of our profession in small 
country towns. I do, however, look forward with much hope to 
the good moral and intellectual effect likely to be accomplished by 
the superior education that will for the future be required of 
students ; but the senior members of the profession must see to it 
that they do not encourage the apeing at fast life, that young 
veterinary surgeons are so prone to : fast life and professional 
duties are not compatible. 
I think much is also in the power of the veterinary surgeon in 
selecting his pupil. If a lad has tried two or three trades and left 
them all, because of some difficulty — that ninety-nine lads out of 
a hundred get over with tolerable ease — and, at last, thinks of being 
a veterinary surgeon, that he may ride a fast horse and be a gentle- 
man at once, he is not likely to prove a very apt scholar ; and the 
veterinary surgeon who takes such a pupil neither does himself, the 
lad, nor the profession justice. 
I have placed these few remarks before you to night with con- 
siderable diffidence, knowing that many of you have thought over 
