EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
291 
Veterinary Surgeons have at last acted prudently, and we 
hope timely, in conceding to the wishes of the schools, by 
lowering the examination fee. We do not think it was wise 
on their part, at the onset, to go to the utmost limits which 
their Charter allowed them. It would have been better gradu- 
ally to have reached this point as circumstances called for 
it. Acting as they did, it necessarily awakened the inquiry, 
What is gained for the payment of so large a sum? What 
are the privileges and advantages derived ? 
It is true that, for a very long time past, the only means of 
support to the College have been the fees obtained from the 
candidates for examination, and these principally of one 
school. Had the opposite course been adopted by them, it 
is more than probable that much of the unpleasantness which 
has prevailed would have been prevented, and the funds too 
would have been richer than they now are. Or what if a 
system of rigid economy had been resorted to at first. 
Must it not come to this? 
We will, however, hope for the best. For a time, unques- 
tionably, a pecuniary loss will be sustained by the College, 
but if in the end that be attained which may now be fairly 
anticipated, namely, a cordial union between it and the 
schools, permanent good must be the consequence to the 
profession, since we are told, 66 a threefold cord cannot be 
broken.” Let us then, at the forthcoming meeting, be found 
strengthening each other, and also the hands of the council, 
by being there in unprecedented numbers. There is much at 
the present time to awaken considerations in a professional 
point of view; much upon which there should be a oneness 
of mind and of sentiment; an important matter respect- 
ing which considerable information has to be acquired, and 
nothing tends so effectually to accomplish all this as a free 
interchange of ideas, where each communicates and each 
receives; for the imparting of knowledge is (i like mercy, 
twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes.” 
May the aniversary meeting of the profession for 1857 be 
hereafter referred to as the most numerously attended, the 
most united, the most interesting, and the most beneficial of 
any that ever took place ! 
