990 WEST OF SCOTLAND VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
the different colleges should make this distinction, that the gen- 
tlemen who came to the College with a certificate of having 
served a pupilage with a qualified veterinary surgeon, might be 
allowed to present themselves before the Board of Examiners, 
say, after two sessions of study, and that those who could not 
produce such certificate should not be allowed to go up for ex- 
amination for at least another year. In that way they might com- 
promise the matter. He could assure them that he should object, 
and do everything he could to oppose the apprenticeship clause, 
whilst he would be willing to accept the compromise he had sug s 
gested. Then they were going to have a practical examination. 
They had the Highland Society, which had introduced this for 
some years, and a gentleman present had conducted this examina- 
tion. So far it had been satifactory — not satisfactory to the 
pupil, but satisfactory to the profession, because it had urged 
upon teachers the necessity of imparting clinical instruction, and 
because students had known that at the end of the session they 
would have to undergo a certain test. It had made them work. 
It had not been a matter of lecturing, but a matter of practical 
administration in the art. The practice was looked upon as un- 
worthy of the student’s consideration, whereas now, both teachers 
and pupils understood the necessity of working up the practical 
part of the profession ; for, after all, the profession was not worth 
one pinch of snuff without practical knowledge. He disagreed 
with Mr. Maclean, when he said that the schools should receive 
Government support. He thought the schools should be self- 
supporting. So long as they were in that state they would have 
teachers who would work, and let the best school, whether of 
London, Glasgow, or Edinburgh, have the greatest success. That 
success could not be obtained by Government patronage, but by 
the honest hard work of the teachers. (Applause.) He now 
approached the question of preliminary examination. They were 
all aware that the Edinburgh Veterinary College had been the 
last to institute educational examinations. He had objected to 
preliminary examinations, not in principle, but in matter of de- 
tail. He still objected to them so long as the teachers of the 
college conducted the examinations. He held that any prelimi- 
nary examination of students conducted by the teachers was a 
farce. He would never join in that farce, for he believed it was 
a farce which would terminate some of these days in a tragedy to 
their profession; therefore, so long as the teachers of the col- 
leges conducted these examinations, he would never consent to 
their being instituted at the Edinburgh Veterinary College. 
Eancy a man examining students from whom he received his daily 
bread ! The examinations in Edinburgh would now be conducted 
by the masters of the High School. It had been arranged that, 
upon the Friday following, the directors of the High School and the 
other masters would conduct, for the first time, the educational 
examination of the students of the Edinburgh Veterinary College. 
In this way the examination was put beyond the influence of the 
