524 
THE EDINBURGH VETERINARY COLLEGE, 
way of getting quit of a disagreeable subject ; but as they began 
the correspondence, I call upon the Council to finish it, either by 
proving their statements or retracting them. 
The Report farther goes on to state, that the Council had received 
great support from many of the veterinary surgeons in Glasgow, 
who had, in a memorial, explained to them the “ grievous state 
of veterinary education in the north.” But where is this docu- 
ment ] why has it not been published in the Report ] Why do they 
not state who is to blame, or what is the grievance 1 and that, too, 
in explicit terms. What has been neglected, that the evil might 
be remedied if it existed, or the charge repelled if it should prove 
to be false ] In what respect, I ask, is veterinary education in 
the north in a grievous state 1 Is it meant to be conveyed by the 
statement, that the veterinary surgeons in Glasgow have been 
neglected in their education, and that they are consequently igno- 
rant ] If so, I ask, why have the Council then selected so many 
of their examiners from that quarter] Does the Council mean to 
say that the meeting of the veterinary surgeons in Glasgow de- 
clared that those who had studied under me had not been suffi- 
ciently taught ] If so, let the Council declare it; and let those who 
have studied here say why they have not yet made any com- 
plaints to me, or why did they not go elsewhere for farther infor- 
mation. If this statement had been made thirty years ago, when, 
after the London Veterinary College had existed a quarter of a 
century, and only a dozen of veterinary surgeons had settled in 
Scotland, there might have been some grounds for such a state- 
ment; but now, after I have delivered lectures for twenty-seven 
years, during which period at least 1000 amateur and practical 
students have attended my class, of which number about 400 
are in practice in various parts of the country — after I have thus not 
only devoted the best part of my life to teaching the profession, 
having fitted up and collected a museum to illustrate every de- 
partment of the study — having erected suitable accommodation 
for teaching the science, and attracted the extent and kind of prac- 
tice shewn in The VETERINARIAN for the last six months, by 
which I am able to afford my students opportunities of seeing a 
practice and of practising which I will presume to say few others, if 
any, in the profession have of doing, at a fee of oidy ten guineas 
for each pupil — and all this done without any public aid except 
twenty-five guineas per annum from the Highland and Agricul- 
tural Society — while the London Veterinary College has since its 
commencement received about £30,000 of the public money, 
besides immense annual subscriptions, and £200 per annum from 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and have charged a fee 
of twenty guineas for each student, without doing more for the pro- 
