71G OPENING OF SESSION AT ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
work, passed through the course with credit to themselves 
and their teachers : and that, consequently, given a moderate 
intelligence and the requisite amount of industry, you may 
certainly accomplish that which so many have done before 
you. 
The sources of information open to you are manifold, and 
let me try to impress the fact indelibly on your minds that 
it rests almost entirely with yourselves whether or not you 
profit by the advantages we have to offer you. If you will 
acquire the art of becoming patient listeners you will learn 
something from lectures, and if you will carefully use your 
ears, eyes, and hands, you will learn much in the dissecting 
room and laboratory. 
It is, however, in the quiet of your own rooms that the 
digestion and assimilation of your mental as well as your 
bodily food must necessarily take place. There it is, you 
must every evening carefully revise the notes of your day’s 
work and transcribe them to the <{ tablets of your memory.” 
There it is, you must read your text-books and thereby 
thoroughly comprehend the subjects of your previous day’s 
lectures which, in all probability, you will have only parti¬ 
ally understood in the theatre. 
Speaking of text-books reminds me of the fact that, until 
comparatively recently, the purely veterinary literature 
available to our pupils was of the most meagre and un¬ 
satisfactory description. Now, however, thanks to the 
labours of several industrious and able compilers and trans¬ 
lators, there are but few branches of the curriculum upon 
which the student is unable to obtain some reliable work. 
From what I have already stated, I think it will be evi¬ 
dent that with the facilities offered by the governors of this 
College and the literary productions at your command, your 
opportunities of gaining a sound and broad knowledge of 
your profession are far superior to those of your predecessors, 
and that to the want of application or of ordinary ability 
must be attributed the rejection in most cases of those who 
fail to pass the prescribed examinations. 
1 trust that the attainment of professional knowledge will 
always be your principal object. Still, there are other aims 
which, as professional men, are worthy of your careful con¬ 
sideration. The most important of these is general culture. 
You may be the most profound, the most expert, and the 
most experienced veterinarians, but unless you are also 
fairly versed in general literature, and in possession of those 
other attributes which society demands of every English 
gentleman, neither the veterinary nor any other profession 
