102 VETERINARY STUDENTS’ DINNER. 
ever, a bad system. It savours too much of the charity-school. It 
strikes at the root of our independence and respectability. If we 
profess to be educated as gentlemen, if we claim to be received 
in society as such, away with this pauperism ! Let the pupil find 
within the College walls all that he requires; or let his initiatory 
fee entitle him to attend on certain lectures beyond these walls. 
This system of gratuitous instruction must, of necessity, place us 
in a state of inferiority and degradation, incompatible with the 
nature of our profession and our just claims. 
Mr. C. Bell returned thanks; and there was so much feeling; 
and kind-heartedness in what he said, that the impression will 
not soon be worn away. He lamented that now, engaged in 
another school, over the management of which he had little con¬ 
trol, and, indeed, not being the anatomical teacher there, he was 
no longer able to admit the veterinary pupils to his lectures; but 
he still retained the vivid impression of their uniformly good and 
gentlemanly conduct when he had the pleasure of seeing them at 
his theatre; and should the time arrive when there might appear 
a probability of procuring their admission either to the lectures on 
chemistry, or on comparative anatomy, which were delivered at 
the London University, all the influence which he possessed 
should be zealously employed. 
He then contrasted the two professions, so far as the feelings 
of the practitioner were concerned. “ The human surgeon,” he 
said, “ was often called in under circumstances of peculiar diffi¬ 
culty, and witnessed the most harrowing scenes. The veterinaiy 
surgeon had only just enough to excite him.” We do not think 
that Mr. Bell did us quite justice here. If we throw ourselves 
into our profession, as it is our duty to do (and some of us, 
we trust, actually do), the interests of our employers, and the 
sagacity and value of the animal on which we operate, and some 
of our operations, are almost as complicated and as difficult as 
those performed on the human being: these identify us with the 
case, and sometimes expose us to a keenness of regret scarcely 
inferior to that of the human surgeon. It is a law of nature, that 
that on which the mind is fully occupied shall possess an intensity 
of interest, little connected with the comparative value or import¬ 
ance of the thing. 
