REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATION. 
597 
now fill our lecture rooms, and in the interest of the advance¬ 
ment of our profession, the length of studies should be increased 
to three years by all schools, and the curriculum to include 
lectures on a stated given number of branches. 
4. That as soon as possible a national board of examiners, 
to be known as the Veterinary College of America , shall be or¬ 
ganized with power of granting a national, uniform degree, 
which will be the only one recognized in this country, and the 
only one granting the privilege to practice. 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATION. 
By Prof. F. Osgood, M.D., C.Y.S., Chairman, Boston, Mass.* 
When we reflect that thirty years ago, when this Associa¬ 
tion was organized, how few college graduates there were in 
this country, what the facilities were for the education of the 
veterinarian, that the calling to which we have devoted our¬ 
selves was to a great extent in the hands of inferior and 
incompetent men, and compare the conditions with those pre¬ 
vailing to-day, we need have no misgivings as to the future 
of the profession. When we are inclined to discouragement 
we shall do well to remember that the Veterinary Profession 
had no definite recognition until within a period of a little 
more than a hundred years. 
It was not until Bourgelat, in 1760 or thereabouts, began 
his teachings, which had their signal fruition in the founding 
of the Veterinary School at Lyons, which three years later 
passed to the control of the State, that veterinary science can 
be said to have had any standing as a branch of medical learn¬ 
ing. We are told that in the middle ages the practice of ani¬ 
mal medicine was an employment of shepherds and black¬ 
smiths who employed the crudest superstitious arts in the 
cure of animal disease. The Greeks had some knowledge of 
veterinary science, as is evidenced by the collection of the 
writings of Greek veterinarians which have come down to 
* Read before the First Veterinary Congress of America. 
