522 PROP EH CHARACTER OF THE VETERINARY SURGEON. 
mere mechanical system of administering remedies without a 
proper consideration of cause and effect. We have been, and in 
truth are, seeking a charter to elevate our profession ; but to you 
I will frankly and candidly confess that, although I am most 
desirous to avail myself of every external means to promote its 
advancement, and would most willingly do all in my power to 
assist the attainment of this great object, yet I feel assured no 
legal enactment that government can provide will be eventually 
successful unless the profession will rouse itself, and determine 
to uphold and maintain its own respectability, by sending forth 
and diffusing through the country a body of practitioners quali- 
fied to sustain, with regard to all the species of animals, the 
character with which the charter will invest them. 
While uneducated men of low pursuits, vulgar habits, and 
uninformed minds constitute such a majority of the profession, 
no human law, however strong, will counteract the force of 
public opinion — no charter will secure respect for a body which 
ceases to respect itself. 
The perfection of a circle consists in its completeness, not in 
its dimensions. If every veterinary surgeon were entitled by 
education, intellect, and professional ability, to rank as a mem- 
ber of a liberal profession, he would soon be admitted into the 
confidence and society of his employers, instead of the company 
and fellowship of coachmen, grooms, and stablemen, with whom 
I regret to fear too many compromise their self-respect, and be- 
come lowered to this most degraded level. 
Until this evil is remedied by giving the student a more ex- 
tended education, and demanding from him a higher standard 
of professional acquirement, no charter will ever enable him to 
attain a rank for which his mind, his manners, and his con- 
nexions wholly unfit him : — 
“ What can ennoble fools and cowards ? 
Not all the blood of all the Howards.” 
If I have written warmly, and, perhaps, unkindly, as regards 
some of my professional brethren, I am convinced you will par- 
don this unreserved expression of feeling, and attribute it to 
the desire that I so strongly possess to see the dignity and honour 
of so noble a profession supported and practised by scientific 
men and gentlemen. I believe that you fully sympathise with 
me in the conviction that the renovating spirit of the veterinary 
profession must be within itself. 
