EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
101 
tliat of Mr. Field. Thus our readers will see that, as 
Editors of this Journal, we have a direct personal interest in 
the decision, and therefore it may be thought we are scarcely 
in the right position to criticise it. But we would ask, must 
our comments as Editors be necessarily partial and unjust 
because the act affects one of us in his official relationship 
to the other ? Cannot one speak independently of the 
other? Or must it be always inferred that what is written 
is by the mutual consent and approval of the “ Editorial 
we ?” Journalism, as conducted in this country, would 
give a negative reply to the first and last of these queries, 
and an equally emphatic affirmative to the second. Were 
it otherwise, freedom of thought and independency of action 
would be stifled, and our Journal, like others so cramped, 
soon cease to be. Throughout our career as Editors we 
have been zealous for this independency, and it is this 
which has contributed to make our Journal what it is, 
and given it a vital strength of which we may be justly 
proud. 
Much has been said against teachers being examiners; 
but we hesitate not to affirm that of all men they are the 
most efficient. In what did the strength of the Board of 
Examiners attached to the Boyal Veterinary College prior 
to the obtainment of the Charter consist ? Why, in the 
fact that it was composed of teachers; and be it remem¬ 
bered, its decisions will bear the closest comparison with 
those arrived at bv the Board which succeeded it under the 
* 
provisions of the Charter. Let us not, however, be misun¬ 
derstood ; we are not advocating the system of a teacher de¬ 
ciding upon the merits of his own pupil by his vote. No; 
but rather contending that his being a teacher eminently fits 
him for being an examiner. Unless men can examine on 
the intricate details of any given subject, they are not quali¬ 
fied to sit in judgment on the knowledge of another. Inqui¬ 
ries into scientific acquirements do not consist of a fitful and 
capricious jumping from subject to subject, merely because 
the inquirer does not get from the inquired the exact reply 
he had expected. Wc have seen these things, and deeply 
regretted them. It is a system which has often led to the 
