THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 
261 
cheap and ready resort for every man who, having wearied out his 
friends and ruined his expectations, may manage to scrape together 
twenty guineas and a winter’s board. 
The Professors, probably, might see a benefit in the entrance fee ; 
and, not being themselves in practice, the consequences of such 
additions to our number might not alarm them. They thrive by 
teaching, and pupils are all they want. Let the class be large, and 
what takes place beyond the College walls will not affect them. 
Possibly they may think the general degradation makes more con- 
spicuous their respectability. The contrast might be gratifying ; 
but f trust it never will be seen. It might, however, soon be 
witnessed, could the proposed new charter be established. The 
foregoing clause was bad enough ; but the fiftieth far exceeds it. 
The trap is here so thinly baited, that the intent is seen. The 
object evidently is to increase the school. Diplomas, it is pro- 
posed, should be in the master’s giving; and the way to gain 
them is made very smooth. All obstacles are removed, and every 
class or state has its advantage. It is true, apprenticeship is men- 
tioned ; but that difficulty is tenderly considered. We know some 
agriculturists imagine, that he who has not been used to cattle 
may be of little service on a farm. There may be a few who 
think a veterinary surgeon should know how to approach a beast 
without alarming it, or being himself afraid. Men have said the 
students raw from Saint Pancras have killed the cow they were 
called in to cure. Such accusations have been heard ; and, there- 
fore, to overcome the prejudice, this clause provides for due 
apprenticeship. Apprenticed the candidate for a diploma must 
have been, for so the proposed new Charter stringently insists. 
The only point is, with whom he shall have served 1 What can 
that matter 1 Those who think apprenticeship imperative towards 
the qualification of the practitioner shall be indulged. Let them 
take the word, and ask no more ; for if they inquire further they 
will not be pleased. Three years spent with a surgeon, an 
apothecary, a druggist, or a farrier, will satisfy the College. The 
country doctor of some distant village, who takes a boy to eke his 
income out, and finds that idleness renders the younker wild, can 
cancel his indentures ; and when the lad is ruined, turn him over 
to Saint Pancras for a Yet. How much knowledge most youths 
gain by such apprenticeships the Report of the House of Com- 
mons Select Committee may declare. The farmer, possibly, w r ould 
not find the future race of veterinary surgeons much improved ; 
and the agricultural interests might not be well advanced by the 
aid of those who were incompetent to mix a draught or make a 
pill. The practitioners’ cast off would be bad indeed ; and yet the 
chemists’ torment would be worse. The one might have ridden to 
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