COLLEGE AFFAIRS. 
689 
to be preferable to suggest an arrangement which, while it makes no indivi- 
dious distinctions, insures and prescribes a preliminary education. The other 
points are so self-evident that I cannot add more than to offer them to your 
serious consideration : — That persons having attended other veterinary schools, 
and having obtained certificates of their attendance and examination after a 
shorter residence than others, be presented with their diploma on paying the 
usual fees; — That the number of professors and the amount of fees be 
increased. 
Before I conclude, I just wish to allude for a moment to the report of 
Mr. Cherry being appointed to a situation relative to the introduction of 
veterinary surgeons to the cavalry service, and to express my decided opinion 
that, however competent this individual may be for the situation, it is the 
duty of government to place it in the hands of a board of veterinary surgeons, 
such board to consist of those who are veterinary surgeons to the household 
troops ; — and no candidate to be appointed as veterinary surgeon to a regi- 
ment until he has passed such an examination by that board as shews him 
qualified for the situation he aspires to. 
Trusting that these remarks will incite some of you, residing near the me- 
tropolis, and better qualified than myself, to take immediate steps to respect- 
fully memorialize the Governors on this important subject, and assuring you 
that I shall be ready to lend my hearty concurrence, 
Believe me to remain, 
Newcastle-under-Line, Yours, &c. 
Sept. 13, 1839. Tho. Walton Mayer, Y. S. 
Letter III. 
“Labor omnia vincit.” 
I presume that the improvements which are announced as having taken 
place at the Royal Veterinary College, as regards the education of the pupils, 
may be mainly attributed to your zealous and indefatigable exertions ; for, if it 
had not been for your strenuous efforts to support and maintain a veterinary 
periodical, public attention would not have been directed to those important 
branches of veterinary science, nor to the diseases of neat cattle and other 
domesticated animals, which appear hitherto to have been purposely avoided 
and shamefully neglected within the walls of our alma mater. Public opinion, 
the most powerful of all tribunals, has, at length, prevailed ; and that which 
was originally intended should be taught, but which was so studiously opposed 
and pertinaciously withheld, has, to a certain extent, been at length conceded. 
The alteration which is to take place in the course of instruction at our 
national institution may be said to constitute a new epoch in veterinary sci- 
ence ; and I congratulate my brethren, that a much longer period of pupilage 
at the College is at length required, as it will necessarily enable future 
veterinarians to acquire a more extensive knowledge of their art. 
By attending Assistant-Professor Spooner’s anatomical and physiological 
lectures on all domesticated animals, the students, of course, will have an op- 
portunity of becoming anatomists and physiologists ; and as anatomy and phy- 
siology form the basis of pathology, succeeding veterinarians will, ultimately, 
be enabled to build up a noble superstructure, including every branch of 
veterinary science. Those pupils who intend to commence country practice 
will do well to acquire an intimate knowledge of the structure, functions, and 
economy of the mucous membranes and digestive organs, for, in cattle prac- 
tice, the malady, in an overwhelming majority of the cases which come under 
