CORRESPONDENCE. 
787 
year schools, per se ? Why this demand for an immediate and 
arbitrary extension of the course all along the line at a time 
when the value of horses has depreciated to an alarming extent, 
and when there is an unexampled depression in business of all 
kinds ? 
The two-year schools have never been brought to perfection. 
There has always been abundant opportunity to strengthen the 
faculties, improve the methods and advance the entrance ex¬ 
aminations. Would not improvement of this rharacter benefit 
the profession as well as an extension of the time, if the faculties, 
methods and requirements for admission are to remain the same. 
There can be no doubt of it; but this plan of advance apparently 
has no attractions for the gentlemen who are proclaiming them¬ 
selves as the repositories of all the progressive tendencies, all 
the professional pride, all the unselfishness, and all the wisdom 
in the profession. 
Instead of opposing the three-year institutions, I am most 
happy to see them established ; indeed, I should be enthusiastic 
over them had not their promoters shown such an intolerant 
spirit and a scarcely concealed determination to crush, if pos¬ 
sible, all competition. The graduate of a two-year course is 
not necessarily inferior to the graduate of a three-year course ; 
this depends partly upon the institution and partly upon the 
student. There may be some institutions which could not turn 
out a competent practitioner, after a six-year course, for the 
very reason that a faculty cannot very well teach that which it 
does not itself know. Consequently, a practitioner’s competency 
should be measured by the examination which he can pass, 
rather than by the fact that the college from which he graduated 
has a two or three-year course. 
I regret that a comparatively few gentlemen, whose experi¬ 
ence in the work of building up a profession is in inverse pro¬ 
portion to their zeal, are likely to injure a good cause by going 
to extremes in language and measures. There have already 
been too many attempts by veterinarians in this country to 
build up certain individuals or certain interests by pulling others 
