550 
CONFORMATION OF HORSES. 
stated; and even if such had been the case, what is the 
use of 
“ Convincing men against their will, 
To be of the same opinion still.” 
The science or abstract consideration of the subject is 
lectured on in our veterinary schools, the art is repudiated as 
derogatory to the Veterinarian. It is not as with civil engineers, 
who are art workmen. The remedy for this has been pointed 
out by the Editor of The Veterinarian (whose experience 
cannot be doubted), in July, 1852, No. 55. The Com- 
mander-in-Chief can extend the boon of a commission to edu- 
cated deserving farrier-majors : the fees for admission to the 
Veterinary College, and leave of absence to attend, being 
granted. As to his having the privileges of the chartered 
body, these seem very like the Town Lots of the little French- 
man, in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, — Three gentlemen, 
“ by Shrewsbury Clock/ 5 having had to take the water off 
their Lots themselves. Mr. A. Cherry has explained that 
the intelligent farrier knows what the veterinary surgeon 
should know; well, secure this advantage to the Army by 
these means. As to uniformity, the schools know they would 
fail at this ; so scientific shoeing was sent to sham death, like 
Juliet in the tomb of the Capulets. The uniform death-blow 
has fallen upon practical men, who, whatever their pre- 
conceived notions, least deserved it. If their notions were 
considered incorrect, why did not the schools institute direct 
experiments for the observation of their students, as was 
suggested ? They were informed what a veterinary surgeon 
ought to know who enters a regiment : this he could never 
know but by dint of observation. Lectures often go in at one 
ear and out at the other. It is not possible, in a free country 
like England, to give an education to veterinary students as 
in France. If young Hopeful will not be a farrier, and it is 
a sine qua non that he must be one, to be Veterinary Surgeon 
in the British Army, the sooner the profession know it the 
better. It certainly is not required in India, where farriers 
even do not shoe the horses ; but the natives, who in my time 
practised uniformity, both in Irregular and Regular Cavalry, 
but then the climate, state of the roads, and the hoofs, do 
not prevent; but in mid-Europe it is very different, and 
under the different treatment of horses’ feet, whether unshod, 
or shod by the German, French, or English methods of 
shoeing, the detrimental descent and expansion of feet alike 
happens, as the treatment more or less induces it. 
The la'te Professor Coleman used to say, “ Where young 
stock have light fore quarters and high hoofs, they should not 
