IMPROVEMENT OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 513 
school, roused to exertion by the fact, of the competency of its 
pupils being submitted to the examination of another board, and 
by the probable starting of rival schools, would be materially im¬ 
proved, and its students, and its funds, and its patients, and its 
subscribers, would increase with that improvement. We would 
only put the St. Pancras school on the same footing with Guy’s, 
and St. Thomas’s, and Bartholomew’s, and St. George’s Hos 
pitals, and the Windmill-street, and the Aldersgate schools, 
and even the London University and the King’s College. They 
confer no degrees ;—they are content with the education of the 
student, and there is an honourable rivalry among them, who 
shall best educate him :—they leave it to another board to decide 
on the result of their efforts, and the competency of their pupils ; 
and I ask, in the name of common sense, what claim the vete¬ 
rinary school at St. Pancras has to privileges which none of the 
others enjoy, and which they would be hooted and despised if they 
urged. There is, indeed, one set of men whom I should displace,— 
men whom I sincerely esteem, and to whom I owe much gratitude, 
but who are now pertinaciously, and, I may say, almost dis¬ 
honourably occupying a post which is no longer justly theirs, 
and by that occupation assisting in the degradation of our pro¬ 
fession: but 1 am sure there is in the majority of them, nay, in 
all of them, when old connexions and habits do not blind them 
to a sense of propriety, that good feeling which would induce 
them to retire without a murmur. Let no one tell me that I am 
attempting to degrade the St. Pancras college when I leave it 
every privilege enjoyed by the highest medical school in the me¬ 
tropolis, and only take from it that anomalous office which it 
ought never to have been permitted to exercise, and which it 
has exercised to its own and our disgrace. 
Let me enlist you, gentlemen, in the accomplishment of this im¬ 
portant, and reasonable, and truly just object; and until it be ac¬ 
complished, I would say, pursue the path which you are now tread¬ 
ing. Improve the present education of the veterinary pupil. The 
establishment of the college which I have recommended will 
take a great deal of work off’ your hands : it will render our prin¬ 
cipal school solicitous that its pupils shall pass the ordeal of 
VOL. III. 3 z 
