570 
ARMY VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
most to a level with the men out of whose brotherhood they, in 
private practice, have been for several years but just ascending-. 
Supposing* that a different line of conduct had been pursued ; 
supposing that young men of education and professional com¬ 
petency had been uniformly chosen for the army $ and that this 
preference had been made manifest to the public—what would 
nave been the result ? or, rather, what would have been the 
vast benefits that would and must have accrued to the army, the 
science, and the profession ? Many respectable parents would 
then have been found to have sent their sons to the Veterinary 
College, in order to embark them in the service of the army; 
and the army would have received them as gentlemen, and 
valued them as competent professional aids. No longer would 
the exquisite hussar have dared to turn up his nose at the horse 
doctor; or w ould the surgeon of the regiment have imbibed a 
low opinion of the profession from the ill-bredness or illiterate¬ 
ness of his veterinary colleague—the representative of it. Thus 
the profession would have become improved and augmented, the 
science successfully cultivated and advanced, and the veterinary 
department of the army rendered much more serviceable and 
effective than it is to be found in the hands of those who but 
yesterday were grooms, or mercers, or mechanics. 
Mr. Coleman annually proclaims from the professor’s chair, 
that “ the sons of grooms and farriers make the best veterinary 
surgeons.” That he has acted up to his belief nobody w ill 
deny; for if a gentleman , perchance, at any time came in his 
way, the odds were, that the professor so discouraged him, that 
he either left the College or the profession, and perhaps both. 
A medical man—I mean a surgeon —in particular, was quite 
certain of meeting with some discouraging insinuation or rebuke: 
either that his habits disqualified him; that “ veterinary prac¬ 
tice w ould be found to dirty his fingers (as if his own surgical 
practice w as a whit better in this respect); or that he “ never 
knew any one succeed who had been brought up a surgeon (as 
if he himself had not served an apprenticeship to a surgeon, and 
afterwards studied in London, even up to the very moment he 
metamorphosed himself into “ professor of the veterinary art!”) 
This is sad work! They order th^e things better in France. 
Your’s, 
An Army Veterinarian. 
