114 
W. Y. WILLIAMS. 
that we condemn the lecturing upon some subjects by JVL JDs., hut 
that such lectures should be confined to such subjects as the lec¬ 
turer, by his education, is especially adapted to teach. 
The demands of the lecturer’s private practice upon his time 
often passed the bounds of policy and denied the student import¬ 
ant instruction, for which he had already paid a fee; and yet, what 
was to be done ? 
A large part of the public still exerted an evil influence upon 
the success of the colleges, by their attitude toward graduates, 
considering them as a sort of necessary evil, useful in cases of 
emergency or colic, at other times an unmitigated nuisance, sim¬ 
ilar to the empiric, and not very distantly related to the vagrant, 
scoundrel or ignoramus, regarding them approachable in anyway 
for money consideration ; devoid of social or educational standing, 
wholly unrecognized by the medical and other learned professions. 
With these influences, it is quite natural that the colleges 
should draw largely for their students upon men from the lower 
walks of life—the broken down jockey, the ruined race horse gam¬ 
bler or the empiric’s son, cherishing a morbidly profound reverence 
for his father’s ideas, or the empiric himself, desiring a diploma 
for a cloak—yet we honor the practising non-graduate who sees 
his error, and qualifies himself that he may be a better man, a 
true veterinarian, and would not in any way prevent their taking 
such a course. 
Slowly, higher-toned public sentiment brought new and better 
influences to bear upon veterinary education, some colleges ob¬ 
taining valuable financial and other encouragement, and also there 
being established veterinary professorships in many of our agricul¬ 
tural and polytechnical institutions, which exerted a powerful in¬ 
fluence for good, insuring to the lecturer social and scientific re¬ 
spect, with reasonable salary and appliances. And the honorable 
position of the lecturer made his profession honorable in the stu¬ 
dent’s eye, bringing worthy young men into such relations as to in¬ 
terest them in veterinary science, and, being generally liberally 
educated, and acquiring thorough training in the collateral 
branches, their services were rendered quite beneficial to the pro¬ 
fession at large, and in their turn influencing other capable young 
men to become qualified veterinarians. 
