INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
615 
my discourse to them as but a C( thrice told tale.” And yet, 
every year our subject is really new, the details which consti- 
tute it, and the arguments that enforce it, being altered or 
varied by the fluctuations of time. 
These anniversary events, are indeed like a wheel, in which 
there is a certain sameness in its revolutions ; and if I may 
continue the figure, this wheel is in constant progress, never 
stopping for a moment in precisely the same place. 
We are undoubtedly travelling with a force which nothing 
can hinder, because it is the force of necessity. We are 
passing into a state in which greater energy, more work, 
larger scientific attainments, strict sobriety and self-denial, 
more sedulous cultivation of talent, and keener competition 
for all the prizes of life, will be inevitably demanded from 
every man who expects to obtain any measure of success in 
his generation. In ordinary times, institutions, statesmen, 
professional men, students, and in short all go on quietly with- 
out that change which is always occurring becoming markedly 
perceptible; but when the energies of a people are roused 
and called upon as they are by the present war, then woe be 
to laggards in whatever grade of society they may be found. 
Professions and industries are the nerves and muscles of 
nations; and when the great wrestle of war comes, these 
muscles are put upon the stretch, and they are required both 
to grow in bulk, and increase in powers of resistance, if the 
conflict is to be maintained and carried to a succesful termi- 
nation. Especially is this the case with those callings 
which are directly connected with the “ field of honour.” 
I need hardly tell you that our own profession is one of 
those engaged in the carrying out of military operations. 
The purchase of horses for the cavalry, the transhipment of 
them to the theatre of war, the care of them during the 
transport, the landing of them on the enemy’s shores, the 
maintenance of them in new climates (where they are exposed 
to new diseases), the whole economical dispensation of the 
cavalry, its management in long marches and over difficult 
roads, to say nothing of the veterinary surgeon’s duties on 
the field of battle, — all these are matters which press upon 
our profession with a very different weight to any which it 
has been subjected to, during the long years of peace with 
which it has pleased God to bless us. In our proficiency in 
these various details, 1 trust that we shall be enabled to show 
the public some of the advantages that accrue from this In- 
stitution, and that the country will have reason to acknow- 
ledge that the scientific cultivation of the veterinary art, and 
the attempt thus made to raise its practitioners above the self- 
