550 
AUSTIN PETERS. 
cientific research and acquit themselves with a fair degree o 
credit, while the regular veterinary graduate has very littli 
conception of how to proceed in this class of work. 
At the same time I believe that the veterinary scientis 
should be a graduate of a school for the exclusive study o 
veterinary medicine ; that he should first be instructed how 
to rustle for a living as an every-day practitioner, and thaj i 
then, if his inclination lead his footsteps toward the paths o 
science, he should take a post-graduate course to fit himsel : 
for this work. 
Instruction at an agricultural college should simply be 
looked upon as an excellent preparatory training for a veteri . 
nary education, and the knowledge of chemistry, care and i 
breeding of animals, physics or microscopy as a great ad van- , 
tage in his future work, but the oniy degree to be given b} ; ; 
these institutions should be B.S. or B.A.S., and should not 
have any more to do with his acquiring a veterinary degree! 
than the title of A.B., A.M., or, Ph.D., and it seems to me 
that granting veterinary degrees by colleges of agriculture! I 
should not be encouraged by us, and that these institutions 
are diverging from their proper channels when they do so. 
In my last year’s report I dwelt at some length on the ; 
importance of a higher standard of education for matricujl 
lation in our veterinary schools, and that it was perhaps as ( 
important, or possibly more important, to first secure a reform 
here before taking action upon the length of the period of i 
study after entering. In most of our veterinary institutions® 
any pretence of a matriculation examination is a farce, and 
even in those where they require anything like a high stand¬ 
ard of education for admission it is doubtful if it is lived up 
to, and if it were it would be found that they would have very ?. 
few students in attendance. 
You will doubtless remember that at the Washington 
meeting when this portion of the report of the Committee on 
Intelligence and Education came up for discussion, the mem-, 
bers present thought that it was of much greater moment to , 
attempt to secure a three years’ course in our veterinary col¬ 
leges, and that the matriculation standard would advance as 
