149 
VETERINARY EDUCATION AND THE EXAMI¬ 
NATION QUESTION. 
By John Barker, M.R.C.V.S., Scarborough. 
Seeing that a committee has been ehosen to inquire into the 
present system of examination of the students with reference 
to certain proposed alterations, it is to be hoped that the late 
controversy on veterinary edueation, or what was aptly termed 
the Question of the Day,^^ is not yet at an end, and that 
each succeeding number of our monthly Journal will con¬ 
tinue to furnish the thoughts of various members of the pro¬ 
fession on this important subjeet, which, I consider, is all-im¬ 
portant at the present time, particularly to those who, like 
myself, have not the opportunity of attending the Council 
meetings and discussing the question. As the members of 
the Council are, for the most part, town practitioners, and 
the leading men, also, from our largest and most important 
provincial towns and cities, whose experienee is neeessarily 
made up of the brighter side of professional life from the 
faet of their practice being chiefly confined to the better 
classes of society, who ean, therefore, well afford to pay for and 
appreeiate their serviees ; and as such men, acting from their 
own experience in such matters, may possibly legislate on the 
question from their own point of view, instead of the broad 
prineiple of the best means of furnishing every part and 
district of Great Britain with the most effective body of men 
willing and able from their previous training and education 
to supply the wants of the public, both commercial and 
agricultural, in the care and treatment of their domestic 
animals, I deem it proper to state my views of the subject. 
I think it unwise and highly impolitic to materially alter 
and interfere with the usual method of examination. There 
are, perhaps, few who have gone through it but remember 
that the time preceding it was so full of anxiety as almost to 
interfere with the natural capacity for study, and in many 
cases the anticipation so unnerved some students as to prevent 
their presenting themselves for examination at all, or if they 
did it was only to meet with defeat, and then to eommenee 
practice and add to the number of unqualified practitioners 
with whieh the eountry swarms from John O^Groats to the 
Dandy’s End, or, as incase of some few, they have pertinaciously 
presented themselves again and again, and at last have got 
their diplomas and rid the College of their presenee, and 
