ON THE PROGRESS OF THE VETERINARY ART. 11 
our growth and strengthen with our strength, until they become 
entwined with the very fibres of our mental character : nay, the 
very spot where we imbibe instruction assumes a paramount in- 
terest in after-years, as it becomes associated with the youthful 
hopes of professional reputation and an honourable name achieved 
by industry and integrity. How much more, then, are we in- 
debted to those who have watched while we slept; who pour forth 
from the treasured mines of accumulated experience that solid ore 
which we are to mould to the daily purposes of professional life ! 
To our parent institution, then, as to our nursing mother, we are 
all bound to look up with filial veneration, and a good under- 
standing between her and the profession at large must be the 
earnest wish of all who sincerely desire the permanent welfare of 
both. When it was at first projected to print the “ Transactions 
of the Veterinary Medical Association ” separate from The Ve- 
terinarian, 1 was in some degree apprehensive lest it might 
prove injurious to the interests of that excellent periodical, to which 
provincial residents are especially indebted for professional in- 
formation, both domestic and foreign. A year has now passed ; 
and 1 have the satisfaction of seeing, under the good management 
of yourself and Mr. Percivall, that my fears were perfectly un- 
founded. There is a wide field and ample space for both to exer- 
cise that “ diversity of operation with unity of design,” which 
has ever been the handmaid of prudence and the herald of suc- 
cess; and I feel assured, from the honourable mind and generous 
nature of him who conducts the reports of the Veterinary Medi- 
cal Association, that although separate in your duties, you will 
ever be united in working out good to the profession at large. 
But while we have cause to acknowledge and rejoice in our in- 
creased union, there is much left for us to do. There must be 
cultivation of personal intercourse and readiness to bear with 
those varieties of opinion which must spring from the necessary 
variations of individual character. In the moral as in the physi- 
cal world the violent is never the lasting — the tree, forced into un- 
natural blossoms, bears them and dies. We must anxiously avoid 
any strain of personal invective, which is unworthy of our cha- 
racter as members of an honourable profession, and injurious to 
the very cause we thus so injudiciously advocate. Personal 
abuse and ungentlemanly language should be confined to those 
who can use no better weapons: the cause of truth does not re- 
quire such moral pugilism 
“ To prove its doctrine orthodox. 
By apostolic blows and knocks.” 
Opprobrious epithets and degrading vulgarisms of thought and 
language should never be applied by one capable of reasoning by 
