758 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
parting information, upon the various departments connected 
with your studies. The comparison of facts thus made will 
he deeply impressed on the mind, and constitute a valuable 
preparation for your ultimate examination. Moreover the 
Association, rightfully employed, will train you to habits of 
definite and gentlemanlike speech, and thus educate you in 
public address, which is a very important power for every 
man to possess in some degree. Lastly, the Association is a 
free and pleasant occasion of reunion between you and your 
professors. Your career as veterinary surgeons is stimulated 
to usefulness and excellence by more motives than success in 
private practice and the obtainment of that status in civil life 
for which by your education you are fitted, and by your 
conduct it is to be hoped you will all zealously aspire to, as 
the army also opens its doors to you, and admits you into its 
ranks as commissioned officers; and it affords me no little 
gratification to be able to state that the services of the vete¬ 
rinary surgeons in the army have many times been acknow¬ 
ledged and extolled by persons high in authority. The prin¬ 
cipal veterinary surgeon to the army, J. Wilkinson, Esq., 
who I am proud to see has this day honoured us with his 
presence, will, I doubt not, one day, on your acquitting your¬ 
selves to the satisfaction of his court of examiners, be pleased 
to enrol the names of many of you as candidates for that 
branch of the service over which he so ably presides. I may 
here be permitted to state, as a proof of Avhat worth will 
attain to in our profession, that Mr. Wilkinson has recently 
been unanimously elected a governor of this institution. 
As students, you have many incentives to carry you 
forward in the path of your studies. There is the Coleman 
prize, for which you have the opportunity of competing, con¬ 
sisting of a silver medal, a bronze medal, and a certificate of 
merit, which is awarded for the best answers in w r riting to 
questions submitted to you by each of the professors. The 
Governors of the College have, moreover, determined to give a 
prize for the highest proficiency in Cattle pathology; and the 
Veterinary Medical Association offers prizes for the best 
anatomical preparation, and for the best essay on a subject to 
be determined by the Council. 
At the end of the second session there will be a general 
examination by all the professors, for passing those who 
desire to present themselves before the Boyal College of 
Veterinary Surgeons as candidates for examination. Bear in 
mind, gentlemen, that these days of examination will inevitably 
come, but if you have acted upon the advice I have tendered, 
you will without fear at the last, and without “ cramming/'’ 
