MEMORIAL TO SIR GEORGE GREY, BART. 247 
ticeship is made a necessary qualification towards the obtainment 
of a diploma. In the draft of a proposed new Charter, apprentice- 
ship, however, is introduced as imperative towards the education 
of the practitioner. Once they lamented that they were not 
allowed to be examiners of their own pupils : now they ask only 
to retain that position the Council of the Royal College of Vete- 
rinary Surgeons have accorded them, of ex-officio Members of the 
Board of Examiners. 
The principal reason advanced in support of the prayer for a 
new Charter is a fiction : it has no foundation in fact, and cannot 
be made to harmonize with truth. It is asserted that the Charter 
has taken the management of their affairs out of the hands of the 
Governors of the Royal Veterinary College or School, and exer- 
cises uncontrolled power over the said School. The assertion is 
utterly false. Your Memorialists ask that the statement be in- 
quired into, and demand that it be supported by evidence. 
The proposal to institute a Veterinary Board, as sought in the 
new* Charter, is, in the opinion of your Memorialists, a ridiculous 
and weak invention, designed only to elevate the Professors, 
placing them over the other members of the profession, to whom 
they are by no means superior in ability. Such Veterinary Board, 
if attempted, could never be made of practical utility. One half 
of its members being resident in Scotland, and the other half 
located in England, no place of meeting for ordinary occasions 
could be found convenient for all the members to assemble at. 
The London and Edinburgh School having long been, and still 
being, opposed to one another, disputes would soon spring up. 
The Governors of the College, or School, act under the instruction 
of the London Professors. The Highland Agricultural Society 
give their confidence and patronage to the proprietor of the Edin- 
burgh School. The interests which even now are at war would 
find support, and the result would soon be seen. The non-pro- 
fessional members would seek advice from the Professors ; the 
Professors would become virtually the Board itself, and, that point 
secured, the quarrel, which has scarcely been disguised, «would 
be openly displayed. 
The proposed Veterinary Board, however, being intended to 
rule over the profession, ought to be possessed of the confidence 
of those who are to obey it : without such confidence no power 
could be enforced. The Professors have earned the dislike of 
their professional brethren, and where their influence predo- 
minates no reliance could be placed. Distrust would engender 
faction. The Council would, by the profession, be elected to 
oppose the Veterinary Board, which the proposed Charter con- 
templates they should obey. A state of things calculated to 
