274 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
There was considerable discussion as to the policy of requir¬ 
ing a fee from non-graduates who desired to be examined, and 
Mr. Daniels, of the United States Veterinary Journal, who was 
present at the convention, urged strongly that if the lines of the 
society were drawn too tight, so as to exclude existing non¬ 
graduate practitioners, no bill would be obtained from the 
Legislature to protect the veterinary profession, owing to the 
small number of members forming the State Veterinary Asso¬ 
ciation. 
I may say, in reference to the above argument, that at present 
there are few, if any, of the State Legislatures which will, at 
present, pass a law giving qualified veterinarians the exclusive 
right to practice their profession, as they are not numerous 
enough to make such a request with any show of justice; but to 
overcome this obstacle by adopting into the profession a large 
number of non-graduate practitioners, would be a most ruinous 
policy. It will be necessary for the veterinarians of each State 
to wait until they are in a position to ask for a protective law, 
and it would be a very injudicious policy to ask for such a law too 
soon, as it would be courting certain defeat. The status of the 
veterinary profession is at present low enough, and to those who 
have even a short experience as veterinary practitioners, it will be 
plain that it would become very much lower, by adopting into 
the profession a large number of veterinary practitioners who 
have received no professional education, and would also place the 
State veterinary societies in the position of competitors of the 
veterinary schools. I may state that there does not appear to be 
any objection to the admission of non-graduate veterinarians to 
the State societies, provided they are men of good education, 
general and professional, but I think that veterinarians of such 
a stamp are by no means numerous, and they would not swell to 
a great extent the ranks of the profession. 
Some misconception exists in this country in reference to 
recent legislation by the British Parliament, tending to protect 
qualified or educated veterinarians in the practice of their pro¬ 
fession. According to the recent Act of Parliament, a number 
of existing practitioners who have been in practice for at least 
