THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 
31)7 
real earnest was, to put as much money as possible into the 
pockets of certain individuals. 
Here was the grand error; and until this be remedied, I fear 
that you, gentlemen, will not accomplish your laudable purpose. 
The veterinary college must be made a public, a government 
concern; and they who have hitherto contrived to pocket all the 
loaves and fishes, instead of being all in all, must have no voice 
in its management. 
The veterinary college did as all joint-stock companies do ; it 
became the property of one or two individuals, and they were 
anxious to make as much as they could of it; and so, perhaps, 
should you and I. Now what did they do? To what extent 
was the corruption carried? It had been very properly deter¬ 
mined by the excellent founders of the St. Pancras College, that 
the education of the veterinary surgeon should occupy three years. 
The education of the human surgeon occupies much more; and 
it was rightly thought that the veterinary surgeon, the practitioner 
on all domestic animals, whose patients were so numerous and 
so varied in organization, and all of them dumb, and the symp¬ 
toms of many of their diseases so obscure, could not possibly be 
qualified for the proper discharge of his duty in less than that 
time. Now, gentlemen, would it be believed, that by some 
witchery (for it could have been nothing less) this period of vete¬ 
rinary education was gradually diminished to six, five, four, and 
even three months; and, strange to say, as it concerned those who 
previously knew nothing at all about the subject. John Bull is 
a gullible animal; but no one could have thought that he would 
have been gulled to this extent. The fact was, that a very limited 
number could afford the expense of a three years’education; 
while ten times that number could continue to stay four or five 
months : yet, many of them, not without practising some handi¬ 
craft trade at the time. The theatre was thus filled, the college 
appeared to prosper, the governors were satisfied, the professor 
was better paid, and every little farrier’s son, “and every tinker 
and every tailor,” became a veterinary surgeon, and the profession 
was disgraced and ruined beyond redemption. 
When such a crowd of unqualified persons filled the list ol vc- 
