REMARKS ON THE BY-LAWS. 
139 
remarks relative to the proposed alteration. I am not a veterinary 
surgeon, but I expect at the end of next session to become a 
member of the profession. I entered the College in October 1847, 
with the hope that I should have held a tete-a-tete conversation 
with the Board of Examiners this year ; but illness at the com¬ 
mencement of the present session prevented me from attending at 
College. 
I am one of the unfortunate class of non-apprentices; and I think 
the by-law No. 2, section 2, bears particularly hard upon me, and 
all in my situation. My father studied under the late Professor 
Coleman and the present Professor Sewell, but for some reason 
did not present himself for examination. He left the College 
after remaining there two sessions, and set up in business on his 
own account, in which he has been for nearly forty years. Our 
practice is rather extensive, being situated in an agricultural and 
mining district in South Wales. There is no other practitioner 
within fourteen miles. Now, I have been superintending this 
practice, with my father, for the last six years in particular; and 
lately I have been taking an active part in all the proceedings, 
such as castrating, spaying, firing, &c. : in short, I can perform 
all the minor operations in veterinary surgery; and yet, according 
to the by-law previously mentioned, I must attend four sessions at 
the College before T can become a member of the Royal College of 
Veterinary Surgeons; while a young man who has served his 
three years’ apprenticeship with a town practitioner, and learned 
the way to make balls and compound medicines neatly, can, if he 
chooses, go up for his diploma at the end of two; and perhaps, if 
his life depended on the question, he could not tell the difference 
between a spayed heifer and a cow, from their exterior appearance. 
I think the clauses relating to apprenticeship, as they stand at 
present, to be of more pecuniary benefit to the veterinary surgeon 
than advantage to his apprentice; for I believe, if either of the 
Professors of the Royal Veterinary College were asked to give 
their opinions relative to the qualifications of apprentices and non¬ 
apprentices (by the latter I mean persons similarly situated to 
myself), it would not be so much in favour of the former as many 
may suppose. 
From this I do not mean to infer that apprenticeship is unne¬ 
cessary ; on the contrary, I think it to be of the greatest importance 
for a young man to be acquainted with the rudiments of the pro¬ 
fession previous to his entering the College. That the by-law pre¬ 
viously referred to will admit of some qualifying in regard to myself 
and others of the same class, I think is plain ; and I think the Coun¬ 
cil would not greatly err in placing us on an equal footing with 
those who have served their three years’ apprenticeship. If every 
