OBJECTS OF THE VETERINARIAN. 
' 175 
without a stain. We admit their unrivalled skill and their 
honourable feeling and conduct; but to Their competence we do 
seriously demur. They have a tolerably accurate knowledge of 
the anatomy of the horse; but they have studied him as ama¬ 
teurs and not as a profession; and we could easily point out 
some errors with regard to the horse, and more with-regard to 
cattle, in the works of as good comparative anatomists, Blumen- 
bach, Cuvier, and Carus. They are good physiologists. But 
what do they know of the diseases of the horse, their minute 
symptoms, their actual seat, their strange method of treatment. 
They dare not push their questions far, no, not even in anatomy, 
with an intelligent pupil; and, as to pathology, they must pin 
their faith on the professor’s sleeve. But he may have singular 
- and erroneous notions of various diseases. ■ Dare the student 
to differ from his professor ? 
r We wilt not say that this necessarily leads to abuse, to 
favouritism, or to persecution; we will not say that free inquiry, 
is stifled, and that it is necessary for the candidate to believe in 
a certain creed ; but it has given an opportunity for the malicious 
to prefer this charge, an opportunity which the professor should 
. be most anxious to remove. 
We would not displace those gentlemen to whom the vete¬ 
rinary art owes so much, and whose association confers such 
honour upon us ; but we would add to them a certain number 
of our own profession, who are best able, who alone are able, to 
form a just decision on the competency of the pupil, and who, 
malice could not by possibility aver, had any interested purpose 
to effect. 
So far as the dignity of our profession is connected with the 
system of instruction pursued at the college, (and intimately 
connected it is with that system; for we want a succession of 
young and zealous fellow-labourers to vindicate our claim to 
respectability, and still to uphold that claim when we are low in 
the grave) these are. our deliberate opinions. These are the 
