270 
THE PAST AND PRESENT STATE OF VETERINARY 
SCIENCE. 
No. V. 
By Mr. Thomas Walton Mayer, Jun. of Newcastle-under- 
Line. 
[Continued from page 144.] 
If there is any one subject of more import than another in 
veterinary science, and on which there is more divided opinion, 
and lax notions prevail, it is Education. 
To “ train up a child in the way he should go,” is a command 
which every parent, every master or mistress, every institution 
connected with education, is bound to obey and act up to. But 
it is not to morality alone that this command refers, and with 
regard to which this obligation is binding : it applies equally to 
the common and ordinary affairs of life, and to the peculiar pro- 
fession or calling which the individual will have to follow. 
In considering, sir, the present state of veterinary education, 
it is natural and right, to a certain extent, to keep the spirit of 
the foregoing remarks in mind. Hence we are led to expect, 
that now, after so many years have elapsed since the establish- 
ment of the Veterinary College, veterinary surgeons, and pa- 
rents bringing up their children to the profession, should have 
fulfilled their parts in training them up in the way they should 
go — in the way in which they may become useful members of 
society, and ornaments to the veterinary profession. We are 
also led to expect, that the governors and teachers of our veteri- 
nary schools should have fulfilled their parts in the training of 
youth for their profession, in expanding their ideas, in correcting 
their crude and unfounded opinions, in urging and enabling them 
to keep pace with the march of scientific improvement, and in 
fully qualifying them for the practice of veterinary medicine. 
In order to bring this subject more before you, sir, let us con- 
sider to what extent these several duties are fulfilled. 
To form a correct idea of the manner in which the parents and 
the teachers have performed their duties, we naturally look to 
the characters, conduct, and attainments of our veterinary stu- 
dents ; and here it is painful to confess that a number far too 
large, many of them sons of veterinary surgeons, enter the Col- 
lege every year destitute of the common rudiments of education, 
and, some of them, with corresponding habits and manners. 
Whence is this ? It ought to strike every one, that in a science 
the technical terms of which are in the Latin language, in addi- 
tion to common English, of which even there is too gross igno- 
