LETTERS TO A STUDENT. 
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mense mass of information, mixed, as I confess, with much error, 
and a great deal of useless and frivolous matter often repeated. 
But the same is true of all medical journals, and cannot be 
otherwise. The Veterinarian has no more than its share. 
The French periodicals have much more. If you do not read it, 
and appropriate all that is worth appropriation, you must not go 
where there is any opposition in practice. r lhose that surround 
you will have more skill, because they will have read more. 
You must study the diseases of all domestic animals — that is, 
as far as you can. Never heed the sneer of anybody on this 
point. Let the chatterer exhaust himself. Learn you your busi- 
ness as fully as you can. You will be a successful practitioner 
when he is a beggar. 
You will be a mere pretender, little better, indeed, than a 
quack, if you offer to treat diseases of which you have never 
heard. If you cannot learn them at College, you must go to 
the University, as I did. You need not murmur at that. Are 
you to go without information because you cannot get it all 
heaped within four walls? There never was any single college 
in the world famous for every branch of instruction. Why 
should that be expected from the Veterinary College which is 
not expected nor obtainable from any college of medicine ? The 
additional fee is a very paltry consideration. There would be 
more good practitioners, were the fees all doubled or trebled. 
Education, in reference to its cost, is like every thing else : the 
less you pay, the less you receive. 
Remember, wherever you settle, you cannot confine your 
practice to the horse. If an opponent sits down against you, who 
can manage cattle, sheep, sw 7 ine, dogs, &c., he will get the horses 
too. 
You are not such a fool surely as to imagine that you can treat 
the diseases of these animals merely because you can treat those 
of the horse. If you try it, you are ruined : you will very soon 
be found out. Your friends may give pity ; but enemies will 
brand you for an impostor. I speak from what I know. I have 
seen many young men commence business with fair prospects. 
Several of them w r ere not half taught. Of these not one has 
succeeded well. Some have gone entirely to wreck ; one is selling 
books ; one is selling stockings ; one, very lately, w r as begging ; 
some are keeping grocery and whisky shops ; one is a gentle- 
man’s gardener ; one is keeping livery stables ; many are working 
as blacksmiths, and, three months ago, I had one in my own forge 
seeking employment. Had these men known their business, they 
would have done well. There was work to do, and it might have 
been obtained by skill and perseverance. This country is not yet 
