NEW YORK STATE VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
651 
To rest satisfied with any knowledge short of the best of to-day is to neglect our op¬ 
portunity and prove untrue to our trust. The lore of the past can never be safely set aside 
nor entirely ignored, yet this has led up to so much that is more recent, clearer, more 
de mte, and full of so much greater potencies, that with Socrates we may say it is criminal 
to neglect even its smallest lessons. . The accumulated knowledge of the ages is great 
and indispensable, but is small indeed unless we build upon it the riper fruits of its own 
modern development. This is true for teacher and student alike, for are we not all stu¬ 
dents in one common school. Some of us may have advanced to a higher grade, while 
some are but entering the lowest class, but success will crown each only as he devotes his 
best energies to his work in the spirit of truth and with the ardor of the enthusiast. In 
* ^ as in all else we must approve ourselves as men. The veterinary profession has long 
suffered from the low appreciation in which it has been held. Every one who has con¬ 
ceived an attachment to. animals has thought himself competent to deal with their diseases. 
^ crowded with men who without further preparation or fitness have been legally 
established as veterinarians by a simple registration of their names as such. To the future 
graduate it is given to redeem the profession from this low public estimate. He must 
everywhere approve himself first as a man of character, a good man. and a good citizen. 
.Next, he must approve himself as a man of science. His judgment and his word must be 
authoritative on all matters that involve his profession and the great interests connected 
with animal industry. He must be an educator in the highest sense. Wherever his lot 
may be cast, with whatever class of domestic animals he may be called upon to deal he 
must charge himself with the task of bringing to the work the accumulated knowledge of 
the centuries and especially of the wonderful century which is drawing to its close. 
Some of you may be called upon to engage in the extinction of animal plagues. In 
this, spotless integrity must be joined to the highest knowledge and skill, and conjoined to 
a deep insight into human nature and an inflexible purpose of applying even-handed jus¬ 
tice, if you would escape the danger of being overwhelmed in the storm of detraction and 
misrepresentation that will inevitably assail you. The honorable prize to be won is a great 
one, but it requires a good soldier and a sterling man to bear the brunt. When the com¬ 
plete triumph comes,, you will find that your whilom detractors, who have opposed you in 
per ect good faith, will come forward to acknowledge their error and endorse your achieve¬ 
ment. 
Some will be called to inspect markets and food products, and here with the weighty 
responsibility of a city s health on your shoulders, you will bless the day that brought you 
t the rigorous studies of anatomy, physiology, histology, pathology, toxicology, and 
enabled you with scientific certainty to endorse the wholesome and condemn the diseased 
and unwholesome. 
Some I tiust will be called to fill chairs of comparative pathology and comparative 
medicine now for the first time being established in the most forward medical schools, 
and which must soon be provided in all such schools that are worthy of the name. None 
can fill such a place so well as the man who has profoundly studied the special diseases 
of animals, and indeed none others are fitted to do justice to such a chair. Ever since 
ippocrates. the most advanced physicians have recognized and employed the lower animals 
as a means of advancing medical knowledge. Our knowledge of physiology consists largely 
in deduction irom experiments made on the lower animals ; our acquaintance with the 
physiological action of drugs and poisons, very largely consists in accurate observations 
made on the lower animals; pathology, surgery and medicine owe much—very much—to 
the same.source ; and bacteriology is essentially based on experimentation on the beast_ 
comparative medicine, therefore, can be best pursued by the veterinarian, who, otherwise 
equally well furnished with the medical candidate, adds to his accomplishments, a thorough 
practical knowledge of all animal diseases. This will quicken his insight into patho¬ 
genic causes, and the significance of morbid phenomena will protect him against hasty, 
erroneous conclusions, and will make his work at once more productive and more reliable. 
Others will be called to undertake investigations in our agricultural experiment stations, 
where the same wide and accurate knowledge, the same keen insight and skill, and the 
same scientific methods, can alone bring out valuable results. 
For all such future fields of usefulness, you must now make ample and thorough pre¬ 
paration. . Patient labor, earnest and systematic effort, daily accomplishing of the day’s 
problems in a thorough manner will make the work easy, and assure success. 
