ROYAL COLLEGE OF VETERINARY SURGEONS. 117 
I 
A SPECIAL MEETING 
was then held to consider a notice of motion by Mr. Taylor for 
the alteration of bye-law 37, which is as follows : “ No student 
shall be allowed to present himself before either section of the 
Board of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for his first, 
second, or third examination more than three times.” 
Mr. Taylor , in bringing forward his motion, characterised the 
bye-law in question as cruel, oppressive, and unjust, both to the 
student and his parents. He gave several reasons in support of 
his proposition, and remarked that there was no such bye-law 
in the clerical, legal, or medical professions. It was a hardship 
that a man after having passed his first and second examinations 
should be rejected on the third. It took away his last and 
solitary hope, and left the student a dejected and degraded man, 
and made the College the means of sending him into the world 
to get a livelihood under the guise of professional quackery or 
empiricism. He called attention to the fact that the clever 
student did not always make the best practitioner, but it was 
more often the plodding, industrious student who by sheer in¬ 
dustry obtained that scientific knowledge which, after he had 
gained it, he retained all the more firmly in his mind. It was 
an injustice, to his mind, not to allow such an one sufficient 
time to complete his education, and he would therefore move 
that bye-law 37 be expunged. 
Mr. Greaves, in seconding the motion, fully concurred in the 
remarks made by Mr. Taylor. 
The President said he regarded the existing bye-law as a most 
useful and beneficial one. It was an advantage to the student, 
because it checked idleness on his part; and it was an advantage 
to the father, because it prevented the student from wasting his 
time at College. It was most disadvantageous to a school to 
have a number of idle old students hanging about spreading 
around them an atmosphere of idleness. A veterinary student 
ought to be a man of quickness of parts and able to get through 
his work in a moderate amount of time. He did not see any 
injustice in the rule; on the contrary, he thought it was a 
most valuable one, and moved that the Council should stand 
by it. 
Mr. Collins said he agreed with every word that fell from the 
President. At the Royal Veterinary College there were eleven 
who had been rejected three times, and twenty-one who had been 
at the college from periods varying from six years downwards. 
They found London a very pleasant place to live in, and as long 
as they remained at College and enjoyed themselves the parents 
found them the means. As the President had said, they dis- 
