INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
651 
like that of veterinary medicine, in consequence of its offering 
greater opportunities than many other occupations, of dis¬ 
tinguishing yourselves by your labours; for although much 
has already been accomplished by your predecessors, there 
is an abundance of good work yet to be done, in a variety of 
wa 3 's, towards enabling the veterinarian and his art to occupy 
a more exalted status in the estimation of the public than 
they now do. 
I am not a veterinary surgeon myself, nevertheless I shall 
now venture to point out to you a few of the broader paths 
which I consider it will be best for you to take in order that 
you may hereafter acquire a sound knowledge of your pro¬ 
fession ; how you may be the means of increasing its utility 
and importance; and how you yourselves may raise its 
dignit}^ 
Firstly, gentlemen, your parents, your guardians, or your¬ 
selves, should take care that, before 3 'ou commence your 
purely professional studies, your general or scholastic educa¬ 
tion is equal, aye even superior, to that acquired by the 
majority of youths of the present day. I know, by expe¬ 
rience gained in this College and in several schools of human 
medicine, that the study of anatom}^ and physiology, for 
instance, as well as that of other medical subjects, is incom¬ 
parably easier to the pupil who has a knowledge of the 
classics than to him who is deficient in this respect. Then 
again, unless the student is a good arithmetician, it is utterly 
impossible for him to master and apply the beautiful and 
immutable laws of nature which a profitable study of che¬ 
mistry tells him governs the varied changes in composition 
which all materials in this world are capable of undergoing. 
Independent, however, of the benefit arising from the pos¬ 
session of a good scholastic education, in enabling the pos¬ 
sessor to gain a knowledge of his professional subjects with 
greater facility, the student, by his previous training, has 
learnt lioio to study before he comes to college. He does not 
simply know how to read in its most literal sense, but he can 
also mark, learn, and inwardly digest,^^ and, finally, readily 
assimilate the mental food with which he has been dealing. 
We all know that the members of the medical and legal pro¬ 
fessions at the present time hold, as a rule, a high position 
in the social scale. Now, to my mind, this tenure of 
superiority of station is not to be attributed so much to the 
nature of the duties performed by the doctor or the lawyer as 
to the circumstance of its being universally understood that 
they are men of education and refinement. These qualities 
are the talismen which admit them into all grades of society; 
