412 THE INADEaUATE PERIOD ALLOWED 
It is cruel to place us in that situation where our professional 
existence depends on our being able to apply to circumstances as 
they arise, the knowledge which we have acquired when we have 
had time to gain only the most superficial ideas, and the most 
inadequate conceptions of what we should be, or what we 
should do. 
Gentlemen, we look to you. If you are as you profess, and, 
as we believe, zealous in our cause, do to us as you would be 
done unto. If, although you shun association with us, you 
sometimes compliment us with the title of fellow-labourers in the 
advancement of science, prepare us for that situation to which, in 
truth, your kindness and disinterested patronage first permitted 
us to aspire. We appeal to your good sense,—your honourable 
feeling,—and that reputation which you would cany unsullied to 
your graves. 
We appeal to the .governors of the Veterinary College. We 
will suppose that some country boor or some petty tradesman has 
scraped together a little money, and has journeyed to town to 
study the science and practice of physic, and at the expiration of 
five or six months has come back with a surgeon’s diploma, and 
declared fully qualified to practise the art of human medicine in 
all its branches.” Sickness comes on you, or on those whom you 
love more dearly than yourselves. Would you confidently place 
yourselves and them under the care of such a man? Would you 
not deem him an impudent pretender, and conclude that they 
whose names sanctioned his diploma were incompetent or un¬ 
principled, or both ? Common sense would tell you that such a 
proceeding was disgraceful and mischievous. 
You, Gentlemen, have, for many a year, supported and orga¬ 
nized a system too similar to this. You have thrown on the 
country many a veterinarian who loas not, and could not be qua¬ 
lified for his profession. Your horses and your oxen are suscep¬ 
tible of pleasure and of pain. They form a considerable and a 
justly valued portion of your property. Can you confidently en¬ 
trust them to one of these veterinary surgeons of your making, 
who, six months ago, did not know a splent from a spavin, or 
the near leg from the off ? It should not ht forgotten that this is 
done not only in defiance of all reason, iid with manifest injury 
