SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING VETERINARY MEDICINE. 683 
framework of a more perfect plan ; many other things are 
needed to give it stability and solidity, as well as form; 
these, however, I leave for future experience and other 
workmen. I have freely, perhaps too freely, given expres¬ 
sion to my sentiments; and if, in my zeal to advance my 
profession, my judgment has yielded, you must remember 
that in the government of all things the law of nature 
is, that the weaker should give place to the stronger. 
Advancement must be made; and fully do I agree with 
Dr. Arnold, when he says, iS there is nothing so revolutionary, 
because there is nothing so unnatural and so convulsive to 
society, as to strain to keep things fixed, when all the world 
is, by the law of its creation, in eternal progress. And the 
cause of nearly all the evils in the w T orld may be traced to 
that natural, but most deadly, error of human indolence 
and corruption, that our business is to prevent , and not 
improve. It is the ruin of all alike, individuals , schools , and 
nations” 
There yet remains one other point connected with this 
subject, which it is absolutely necessary to say a word 
upon. In the foregoing observations reference has been 
made to an extension of the practical as well as the scientific 
education of the pupil. This necessarily would require 
additional lectures to be given, and it might therefore be 
supposed that I desire to see more done daily by w ay of oral 
instruction than is done at present. I desire no such thing; 
nay, I am fully convinced that, instead of an acknowledged 
good being produced by an extended system of instruction, 
any attempt of this kind w ould be a positive evil. 
Already w T e have lectures enough delivered here, and, per¬ 
haps, more than enough on certain days ; nor should the 
length of the present session be increased, rather indeed do I 
desire to see it shortened. The experience of every medical 
school in this metropolis proves that, if more than three lec¬ 
tures are crow r ded into one day, the pupils either depend 
entirely on their teachers for the attainment of knowledge, 
doing no work themselves in the vineyard, or that they quickly 
become satiated, and turn from their studies w 7 ith disgust. 
These become the hangers on of the school, the occasional 
attendants of the lectures, the careless and indifferent hearers, 
and with the dissipated and altogether negligent are the bane 
of every educational institution. Pupils to succeed, must in 
every w ? ay be students also, not the drones of the hive, but 
fellow-workers in laying in the store of honey for future sus¬ 
tenance and support. Look to the army, the navy, the law, 
and all other professions, and it will be found that the drudgery, 
as w T e may call it, of each must be gone through, to obtain 
