152 
W. Y. WILLIAMS. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
THE VETERINARY PROFESSION: ITS OPPORUNITIES AND 
NEEDS FOR THE FUTURE. 
By W. Y. Williams. 
(Continued from page 119.) 
No college advises its students, after graduation, to insert on 
their professional cards that they graduated at this college, requir¬ 
ing eleven months attendance, or that college, requiring nine 
months. We do not believe that any of these “ old ” colleges 
are over-zealous to impress upon the public mind these facts, 
knowing too well that the more enlightened portion of the public 
would not approve of it. 
We grant that there are those of us who are in successful 
practice—and we note, too, that some colleges refer to the success 
of their alumni as a recommendation for their college—but most 
of what we are we owe to hard, earnest study in the wide field of 
experience, after graduation, and if aught be due to the credit of 
the college, it is merely to the rudimentary groundwork, to im¬ 
perfect outlines imparted to us there, serving as a rickety founda¬ 
tion, which we have to remodel to some extent before we can 
safely build upon it. 
Turning now to the future, we may safely assert that, to the 
young man of to-day, well equipped with integrity, energy and 
brains, no profession offers a brighter prospect for honor, useful¬ 
ness, comfortable income and even wealth than that of veterinary 
medicine. The empiric of the past and present boasts most of 
.his power to cure, his specialty consisting largely of imaginary 
diseases, and our profession, born largely as a more worthy suc¬ 
cessor, to furnish better and more scientific treatment for animal 
ailments, has been too narrowly confined to this channel for our 
highest good, but this field still offers grand opportunities for use¬ 
fulness and reward. The increasing number and value of live 
. stock demands of us, and offers due reward for, higher knowledge 
and skill in the treatment of their maladies. 
