GLASGOW VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
969 
forwards to the first rank, namely, ambition and duty. Some 
men become great through the ambition to be so ; others, per- 
haps humble-minded, gain the pinnacle of fame, their actions and 
their thoughts being regulated by a deep sense of duty ; and, 
gentlemen, if you desire to study your own happiness and that of 
your fellow-labourers in this life, let duty and not ambition be 
your “ guiding star.” It is far better for a man to be happy and 
contented, ^conscious of having discharged his duty to society, 
than discontented, although fortunate in his ambitious career. 
Most men are fortunate at some period of their lives, but many 
men have never known what it is to be happy and contented. 
Thousands of ambitious men have fallen a wreck upon the rock of 
ambition and fortune, but none have foundered upon happiness. 
After alluding to the examples of Alexander the Great, of Csesar, 
and of Napoleon in proof of this, the lecturer went on to say : — 
Let duty, then, be the motive power, the mainspring of your 
actions, and although many of the high hopes and lofty aspira- 
tions you had formed of your future career in life be not realised, 
rest assured, the sum of all your labours will be contentment and 
happiness — that for which the most ambitious towards the close 
of life would gladly exchange position. (Applause.) 
I consider it my duty, however, to say that with every atten- 
tion to duty few members of your adopted profession rise to 
power or eminence or to be men of note. Ours is a humble pro- 
fession, and its members must carry themselves humbly before 
the world. But while admitting this, there are few professions 
of more usefulness and none more interesting. In social import- 
ance we do not cousider it on a level with the medical profession. 
Human life is of incomparably more consideration than that of 
the brute. The requirement, however, of the knowledge requisite 
to conserve the health and life of the lower animals is equal to 
that of the higher, and the stimulus to its acquirement as inviting 
in the one as in the other. So that in one sentence the difficul- 
ties in the way of the acquirement of a knowledge of veterinary 
medicine and surgery, and the pleasure and blessings — the result 
of its acquirement — are as many and as pleasing in the one pro- 
fession as in the other. And this leads me to observe that while 
the veterinary profession can never rank as high in public estima- 
tion as the medical, yet it is destined, as years roll on, to creep 
much closer alongside its elder brother. (Applause.) We admit 
the two professions can never be equal in social importance. W e 
admit, with sorrow, that they are yet wide apart in scientific and 
practical results. But we know the reason. We know the 
enemy and the war against him has in earnest begun. The enemy, 
I need only mention, is lack of educatiou. Let the profession 
see to it that those who shall fill your footsteps and mine shall 
have received the same liberal education in their youth as their 
medical compeers, and I venture to prognosticate that when this 
event has been accomplished the science and the practice of the 
one profession shall be as exact as the other, and the veterinary 
