LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 905 
comprise the veterinary practitioner, the veterinary student, his education, 
the teaching of the colleges, the teachers, the examiners, and the Council. I 
will, however, confine myself to some of the points of progress of late years. 
I have been occupied in this profession for over 45 years. I have felt it 
to be an honour to belong to it ; it is an honorable calling. I can 
remember the time when if a student paid his fee, however defective his 
education might have been, the college was obliged to receive him; it is 
not so now. All this is changed, and many reforms have been carried out 
in late years : but my toast is coupled with the name of a gentleman who 
is not only a most distinguished cavalry officer holding one of the highest 
and most honorable appointments in Her Majesty’s service, but he is 
also a veterinary surgeon, who is not only highly respected but is beloved 
by us all. I need not tell you that I allude to Major-General Sir Frederick 
Fitzwygram, Bart. He is not only noble by birth but is noble by nature. 
He has proved himself both able and willing to serve us. Everything he 
undertakes to do is done well, and as you all know he has filled the presi¬ 
dential chair for three years ; during those three years he never missed 
one general meeting, one quarterly meeting, or one special meeting of 
the Council. He spared neither time, trouble, nor expense, to perform his 
duties thoroughly and in every way to serve and advance our profession. 
I have sat under many presidents during the last eighteen or twenty 
years, but none with such entire satisfaction. Need I remind you that 
we are indebted to him for effecting a reconciliation in the pro¬ 
fession. It is he we must thank for the practical examination of the 
student, for our new charter, our supplementary charter, for our voting 
papers, whereby we can all vote for members of Council without the loss 
of time and expense of going up to London on the first Monday in May. 
The very last act of his official life was to serve us in an attempt to get 
together the Principals of the schools to enter into an agreement that 
the matriculation examination of the student should be transferred into 
the hands of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons instead of, as now, 
being in the hands of the teaching schools respectively, and which places 
said schools in such an anomalous position. To sum up : what I have to 
say is this, that by his influence and wisdom, the Council have been enabled 
to pass measures which will not only redound to his and their credit, 
but will benefit the veterinary profession as long as it exists, and that 
without him these measures could not have been carried. Need I allude 
to the magnificent prizes to the students to become better men ; these 
noble prizes are his gifts. In a word, he has done more for the veterinary 
profession than any other man. 
In reply to the toast of the “ Veterinary Profession,” 
Sir F. Fitzwygram said—I thank you cordially for the kind and hearty 
welcome you have given me. He thought he might lay down in this, as in 
every other profession, that science, real science, is and must be progres¬ 
sive. Now, the questions which are present to his mind are—1st. Is our 
science progressing ? 2ndly. Is it as progressive in the latter part of this 
19th century as the nation and the best and truest interest of science de¬ 
mands ? When he looked some years back on the state of veterinary know¬ 
ledge in this country, when he reflected that it is nearly a 100 years since 
the first school was established in England, when he looked upon the ex¬ 
tended curriculum which the students undergo compared to what they 
had at an early date, when he looked further abroad, and looked upon 
the able works which of late years (and especially from the pen of Prof. 
Williams) have been sent forth from the veterinary press, he thought he 
might venture to say that veterinary science has been and is progressive. 
lii. 63 
