LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 409 
cation both mentally and morally, had been entirely neglected ; men 
who only cared for a diploma that it might serve as a cloak for 
their ignorance, and enable them to practise their nostrums more 
successfully on the gullible natives ; men whose only motto seems 
to have been, “ Get money, aye, get money still, let virtue follow if 
she will.” And, gentlemen, notwithstanding all our boasted pro- 
gress, and the possession of a charter of incorporation for the last 
quarter of a century, we have a good many, far too many, of the 
latter class in our midst still. 
One could almost have thought that a profession possessing the 
power of improving itself would have exercised it before this 
time, and made some advance on the highway of reform ; but, 
unfortunately for us as a profession, we have most of the time been 
either buried in helpless lethargy or in a state of civil war, kingdom 
against kingdom, school against school, and man against man ; a 
state of things under which neither nations nor professions can 
progress or prosper. 
But thanks to our veterinary medical associations, they have 
altered much of this ; they have been the means of healing much of 
the dissension that existed amongst us, and taught us to lay aside 
our private piques and quarrels, and join hand in hand and shoulder 
to shoulder in the great work that now lies before us — the reforma- 
tion and advancement of the profession. And here I must award 
my meed of praise to one man in particular for the untiring energy 
and indomitable perseverance he has displayed in the establishment 
of these associations. No road is too long to travel, nor any labour 
too heavy a burden for him if, by the performance of either one or 
the other, he thought he could add one atom to the success of these 
societies. Need I say that I allude to our friend Greaves, one of 
the former presidents of this Society, and now the President of the 
Koyal College of Veterinary Surgeons, an honour he has worthily 
earned, and the duties of which he ably fulfils? He is emphatically 
the “ right man in the right place,” as a proof of which I may state 
that during his year of office we have commenced the journey of 
reform : in future no person will be admitted as a student to either 
of the teaching schools until he has first undergone a preliminary 
examination as to the amount of general education he possesses. 
The test will not at first be a severe one, but the adoption of the 
principle is a great deal. Some say it is so simple that it will do no 
good ; but I feel assured that the name alone of a preliminary 
examination would be enough to exert a stimulus to the mind of 
any young man whose thoughts were turned to the veterinary pro- 
fession as a means of making a livelihood. 
Such an examination has been adopted for some years past at 
one or two of the colleges, and with the best results; but the 
examination has been by the teachers, who might be excused if 
they occasionally allowed some to pass who were not altogether 
well up; for this reason rejecting a candidate was just rejecting so 
much money, and let one despise money as much as one will, still 
we must acknowledge it to be a pleasant companion, and that 
