428 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
iginal purpose, and became special students of veterinary 
science, and along with such collateral studies as zo¬ 
ology, botany, chemistry, etc., took up, to a greater or less 
extent, the entire category of veterinary topics, and in their 
four years’ course put as much time—frequently far more 
thought—upon these special branches than is allotted to stu¬ 
dents in our short course colleges. Rarely did they stop 
with this, but having acquired a taste for veterinary study, 
and an inspiration for earnest work, armed with the knowledge 
of the collateral studies, until recently superior to that offered 
in any veterinary college in the land, and supported by a lib¬ 
eral general education, these students sought out veterinary 
colleges, and after obtaining liberal credits for the work done, 
entered the advanced classes and passed final examinations 
with credit. By referring to veterinary colleges requiring 
two or three terms attendance for graduation, we find students 
from the agricultural schools admitted to examination after 
one session’s attendance, and we have been unable to 
find the record of one whose knowledge was found wanting; 
but in every, or nearly every case, they have carried off honors 
and in an unusually large per cent, of cases have won first 
places. They were not book-worms either, but sustain to-day 
in the battle of life the positions assumed upon graduation. 
Numbering far less than ten per cent, of the total number of 
graduates from American colleges, a very large proportion 
of these students from agricultural colleges, or from veterin¬ 
ary departments of agricultural colleges, occupy prominent 
positions. 
Of the thirty-seven veterinarians engaged in experiment 
stations, or teaching in agricultural colleges, twenty-four re¬ 
ceived their veterinary education in America, and of these no 
less than sixteen or seventeen per cent, are either graduates 
of these colleges, or had been well advanced in the courses 
prescribed therein. 
If we turn to the pages of current veterinary literature, 
or to our National Bureau of Animal Industry, or to the 
Faculties of our veterinary colleges, we find the names of 
these once agricultural students occupying prominent places, 
