504 OBSERVATIONS ON VETERINARY SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 
advancing spirit of the age has travelled as far as the United 
States, and that we too are “ growing wiser’ 5 with the rest 
of mankind in Europe. Our practitioners now exhibit much 
less reluctance to communicate and compare cases, so that 
the disputations, so common among the uninstructed, 
have given way to candid discussion. All this is only a sign 
that here we are in the way of progress, and although we 
cannot hope to overtake those in other lands, who have long 
gone before us, still we can at least follow in their footsteps, 
and thus escape the dangers attending new explorations. 
I learn that two of our New England young gentlemen 
have recently graduated at the Royal Veterinary College 
of London, and are about to return to this country; and, as 
I have long had the pleasure of their acquaintance, I shall 
hail their return with sincere satisfaction, and expect much 
from their co-operation. Every addition to the number of 
educated practitioners tends to raise the profession to the 
dignity to which it is justly entitled. It is what we want 
here—to show the people the difference between those who 
know what is right, and practise what they know, and 
“ those who guess” at knowledge and practise by the receipt- 
books of their great-grandfathers. 
To show that we have not been neglectful of our duty, 
there was published here, during the years 1856-57-58, 
a Veterinary Journal , to which some of our best prac¬ 
titioners contributed. This periodical, among other things, 
contained many original hints to agriculturists, as well as 
to horse- and cattle-owners, and gave besides many valuable 
extracts from the London Veterinarian . Its publication, how¬ 
ever, was recently suspended, for want of patronage. The 
editor has often stated to us, that some of its contents 
w 7 ere too scientific for this country, and that he had to 
substitute matter of a more simple kind, as being the more 
acceptable to his readers. Thus, as we think, he aided in 
the dissemination of error rather than truth, and very soon 
after what he called the too scientific contributions were dis¬ 
continued the journal itself collapsed. 
I would observe that much injury has been done in this 
country, and particularly in this city, and I may add through¬ 
out New England, by the republication of books on the 
veterinary art which have long been rejected in Europe. 
True science has thus had to contend with opinions formed 
from the study of exploded theories and practice, and you 
can readily conceive that it was no easy task to recover the 
people from the path of error and place them on the clear 
and certain road of tested truth. But as truth always in the 
