308 
FREDERICK A. LYONS 
it is the same. In it, as in others, truth must be pursued for its 
own sake, and not entirely as a means. The practical results may 
not for a time be obvious, but they will inevitably follow. At 
once, a twofold result is accomplished, for the science is advanced 
to its proper station of dignity. 
But the question arises, how is this condition to be brought 
about? Sow is the science to be cultivated in this way? I he 
answer is plain. It devolves entirely upon those who enter upon 
its study. It behooves that they should be actuated by the true 
scientific spirit, that they should be fully impressed with the 
requirements necessary for the pursuit of scientific investigation 
in general, and with what veterinary science, regarded in its pro¬ 
per light, demands in particular for its especial study. When 
those who practice it are animated by these sentiments, then will 
it proudly take its true station. Then will veterinary science and 
veterinarians receive the honor due to the position which the} 
ought to occupy. 
As these requirements are so important, so vital in their na¬ 
ture, perhaps it would not be amiss, as briefly as possibly, to point 
them out. 
In the first place, then, a preliminary good education is of 
prime necessity. The mind should be already trained to collect 
habits of reasoning. It is not so much the amount of knowledge 
that has been acquired in a previous course of study, though cer¬ 
tainly the more the better, as it is the character of the mental 
discipline that has been obtained, the habit of mind that has been 
unconsciously formed. Would you ask a person to sit down to 
the piano and play a composition of Beethoven, who had not been 
thoroughly drilled in the proper use of his fingers ? Then would it 
not be as futile to expect a person to follow closely and understand 
such a line of reasoning as would be required, for instance, in ex- 
plaing the result of a particular valvular lesion of the heart, 
whose mind was not accustomed to such close trains of thought. 
Scientific methods must be thoroughly familiar before the facts 
which are their results can be duly appreciated. But these methods 
require for their apprehension a certain amount of mental culture. 
Not because they are, in their nature, different from the methods 
