66 CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
nations, would spare us from the devastation wrought by maladies 
which owe their presence and diffusion solely to contagion. 
Would not our Government be conferring a far higher boon on 
the nation, and adding far more largely to the national prosperity, 
by inquiring into the condition of veterinary science in this 
country, and the best means for improving it, and also for sup¬ 
pressing these animal plagues, than spending sessions on measures 
which can be productive of but little, if any benefit, or squab¬ 
bling over Ballot and other Bills which are a mere waste of legis¬ 
lation, and have no really practical or beneficial influence oil the 
welfare of the country ? 
But, gentlemen, we must not blame the public altogether for 
their neglect of veterinary science; we must largely blame our¬ 
selves. We have not always commanded attention by the means we 
have resorted to to improve it, and in many respects we have treated 
it so indifferently as to have degraded it from its high position. 
The education of veterinary surgeons has been faulty and imper¬ 
fect in the extreme; and the mere fact that an untrained youth 
can, in twelve months' schooling, be manufactured into a man of 
science, competent to give advice on important matters relating to 
subjects which, in other countries, require and receive four years' 
study, is surely enough to show the miserable footing upon which 
our profession stands in this country. Can we wonder that police¬ 
men and farriers are, in very many instances, preferred to deal 
with the suppression of contagious diseases, or that quacks should 
flourish everywhere? Our teachers should be highly educated 
scientific men, capable of, and not averse to mixing in scientific 
circles, and selected as teachers solely because they are eminently 
fitted to be so; the veterinary schools should be reorganized, 
aided by Government, and subjected to periodical inspections, like 
other public establishments; the teachers should have no pecu¬ 
niary interest in the number of students who enter or leave the 
schools; while the students themselves should possess a general 
education that would enable them to enter upon and pursue their 
studies profitably, and fit them for assuming the position they 
ought to hold in public estimation, when, after a thorough train¬ 
ing at college, they shall be deemed perfectly capable of doing 
their duty as scientific veterinarians. When the time arrives, 
gentlemen, in which we shall witness this change, we will have 
no need to blush in confessing ourselves to be veterinary surgeons, 
nor yet reason to complain of neglect as a profession, nor will our 
country present the spectacle it now does with regard to quackery, 
and the havoc wrought by contagious and other diseases. Vete¬ 
rinary science, as already mentioned, may be said to be unknown 
as such in Britain. When the period arrives of which we speak, 
it will be highly appreciated for the benefits it confers, and its 
