LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 295 
standard of excellence required from the student. But, Gentle¬ 
men, whilst one cannot help drawing unwelcome comparisons, 
feeling indignant at the treatment we have been called upon to 
submit to, we must not remain inattentive to the lesson it incul¬ 
cates, but strive the more earnestly to discover the true cause for 
the non-recognition of our services, and yet more strenuously 
endeavour to remove every obstruction to the obtainment of that 
social and political status to which we are justly entitled to aspire. 
In our everyday individual existence the difficulties we have to 
encounter insensibly become helpers by strengthening our nerves 
and sharpening our skill, so let it be with us as a united body, 
and when called upon to overcome obstructions against our ad¬ 
vancement, may we ever remember that real ability is not to be 
estimated by what it attempts, but by what it finishes. 
An important question has lately arisen, to which I trust this 
meeting will give due consideration, and exert its influence to 
revive the apparently fleeting interests to veterinary progress. 
Many have been the conjectures formed upon the causes for the 
decreasing vitality of this and other associations. 
There are, no doubt, several causes conducing to so unsatis¬ 
factory a state of things, and although I may not anticipate the 
report of the committee appointed to inquire into the causes for 
the falling off in attendance at the quarterly gatherings of this 
Association, I may be allowed to name one or two possible reasons, 
a definite solution to which the Committee have not been enabled 
to determine, as results to their inquiries. 
Want of interest in the proceedings of our meetings is un¬ 
questionably a cause of absence with many, who, although having 
at heart the advancement of the science, and desirous of increasing 
their individual knowledge on practical subjects, absent them¬ 
selves because the essays and discussions do not afford them a 
fair equivalent of information for the inconvenience of attending. 
Let me, however, ask, have these gentlemen nothing to impart 
for the benefit of others ? Have they tried, by experiment, the 
correctness of the Divine truism, that “ to give is more blessed 
than to receive” P If not, let them lose no time in testing it, 
and I am sanguine that they will be as anxious to repeat the ex¬ 
periment as we can possibly desire that they should give it a trial. 
Others there are also, I fear—may the number decrease—so im¬ 
bued with a sense of their own superior attainments that they are 
afraid of imparting knowledge to men less liberally endowed. 
These we cannot hope to attract by any effort, nor is it to be 
desired that any should join us under the suspicion that they 
have all to lose and nothing to gain. Should the above observa¬ 
tion perchance meet the eye of such an egotist, let him think on 
the words of one who had seen something of the world; he says, 
