THE MEMORIAL. 
695 
the conditions of the veterinary profession itself, and of the inte- 
rests asssociated with it, were in a very different state to that in 
which they can at the present time be shewn to exist. 
The Charter, among other privileges, gives the Council of the 
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons power to test the qualifica- 
tions of those persons anxious to become members of their body, 
and, consequently, is of important use in regulating the examina- 
tions of those who have been students at the veterinary colleges of 
London and Edinburgh. 
When the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons 
were first instituted, the Colleges both of England and Scotland re- 
quired supervision. 
At the London College the pupils had been examined by a board 
constituted principally of highly talented members of the medical 
profession ; the only persons upon that board pretending to investi- 
gate the more important branch of study and immediate object of 
the examination being the Professor and Deputy-professor, who, 
being teachers also, were thus the principal judges deciding on the 
merits of their own pupils. 
Some pupils received diplomas after a very brief interrogation, 
and many were admitted into the profession who had attended their 
preparatory studies but a few months. 
No person present at that Board of Examiners was qualified to 
test the knowledge of the pupil concerning the pathology of cattle, 
sheep, dogs, &c. ; nor can the Council discover that any gentleman 
who received his diploma from that Board was in any manner ex- 
amined upon those branches of study in which the interests of the 
agriculturist are principally concerned. 
The Scotch College presented features even more objectionable ; 
but as the facts known concerning the proceedings of this school 
are too gross to be advanced by parties who might be supposed 
interested to exaggerate, the Council of the Royal College of Ve- 
terinary Surgeons will only refer to the documents which they have 
in their possession, and which they are ready to produce. 
At a meeting of the veterinary surgeons of Scotland, held in 
Glasgow, July 9th, 1844, a memorial to the Council of the Royal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons was agreed to. 
That memorial stated that the Edinburgh College was the pro- 
perty of a single individual — that the lectures there delivered were 
given only thrice a-week during the first two months of the session, 
and only five times a-week during the latter period, the length of 
the session being five or six months — that great irregularities were 
permitted in the time and manner of giving instruction, and in 
conducting the examination — that the Professor constituted the sole 
teacher of the College on every branch of science — that many pupils 
