ELECTION OF EXAMINERS BY CONCOURS. 311 
working, trained in the struggle for success to very various 
kinds and grades of learned contests ; informed by personal 
observation of the effects attendant upon the examining sys- 
tems which prevail in the great majority of European aca- 
demies and colleges, I feel warranted in emitting a judgment 
in point; the more so as I feel its growing necessity. 1 
daily wax stronger in the conviction, that the many defects 
which beset us in the study of the pathology and treatment 
of human infirmities will only be thoroughly practicable 
when the basis of comparative physiology and pathology 
shall have been soundly laid. I cannot, therefore, but feel 
deeply anxious in every eventuality implicating the interests 
of the veterinary profession ; the more so, as my youth being 
devoted to its study, I ow T e much of the advantage which has 
enabled me to attain my present position in human surgery. 
To the point. 
In commenting on a proposed scheme for due notice of 
vacancies in the Board of Veterinary Examiners to be given to 
the whole profession, and candidates to be invited to send in 
names and testimonials of qualification, you give hearty con- 
currence to it, but intimate that “ we must not stop here, for 
if so, little good would follow. Where a thorough reform is 
needed, half measures invariably fail ; and therefore we should 
wish to see adopted a modified plan of the French system of 
election by concours, and have the merits of the several 
candidates tested, by all being submitted to some kind of 
examination, anatomical or pathological, as the case might be, 
orally and by writing.’* 
Instead of warranting me in giving assent to your doc- 
trine that, w here thorough reform is needed, whole measures 
are indispensable, the experience of history teaches me to 
adhere to the opinion I propounded a few years since in 
writing on examinations for a veterinary diploma : “ It is not 
radical change which is required, but gradual and pacific 
reform. Durable good is not the result of casual or instan- 
taneous influences, but can only be the consequence of w ise 
and prudent measures, for the development of w T hich time 
and unanimity are required.” 
After agreeing most fully wdth an eloquent author who ex- 
presses himself on appointments in general to the effect that 
<c merit should be everything , and wealth, family connexion, 
rank, and party nothing ,” you add, " nevertheless, no one 
should be eligible to take his seat at the Board who had not 
been several years in practice, and whose standing in 
society did not warrant his occupying such an honorable 
post.” These tenets are contradictory. In the appointment 
