258 “ VETERINARY PROGRESS.” 
tificate, and entered that school. This may be called 
sharp practice, but it is just the kind of thing the system is 
open to. If the preliminary examination were in the hands 
of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons the appointment 
of examiners would be such that the tests would be equal 
at each of the four schools ; any sharp practices, such as the 
one above referred to, would be provided against and be 
impossible ; the advantage of this is self-evident. 
The Court of Examiners to be composed of Veterinary 
Examiners only. —1 am fully aware that there are some of my 
professional brethren who still hold the opinion that we 
cannot yet, if we ever shall, be in a position to do without 
the assistance of extraneous help at the chemistry table; 
that there is not one man in the whole profession competent 
to fulfil the duty of examiner at that table. I say I think 
this speaks very badly indeed for my professional brethren if 
it is so, but more especially so of those who are our teachers. 
I have no hesitation Avhatever in saying that there are num¬ 
bers of young men who have distinguished themselves in 
chemistry whilst at College who could very soon so rub up 
their scientific] chemistry as to be quite competent to un¬ 
dertake the duty—quite equal to the teaching. Let us only 
remember we have been in existence about one hundred 
years; are we still too young to be entrusted to try to walk 
alone ? are we still to be kept in swaddling clothes, in 
leading-strings for another century ? 
I would here refer to an authority—a far greater autho¬ 
rity than any now living in England, I allude to the 
late Professor Spooner. He said, “ With regard to the 
Court of Examiners itself, it was said the time had not yet 
arrived when the College could dispense with a prop and 
pillar of support of which it had availed itself since its com¬ 
mencement ; but surely men could now be found within the 
body of the profession who were competent to determine as 
to the qualification of a candidate for a diploma of the Col¬ 
lege. He would be the very last man to advocate the 
removal from the Court of Examiners of any of those gentle¬ 
men who had so ably supported them at the physiological, 
chemistry, and materia medica tables; but, at the same 
time, he would say that so long as that pillar of support 
remained bound to the tree, so long would it require its aid. 
Remove it and the winds might blow it, and it might yield 
to some extent, but its roots would become strengthened by 
virtue of its self-supporting power, and then you could throw 
off the extraneous aid. No more then would he admit mem¬ 
bers foreign to their body after this period to the Court of 
