VETERINARY EDUCATION. 
89 
sistence of those at the head of that school to prevent all pro¬ 
gress, to continue a course so inefficient and detrimental to the best 
interests of the science, compels me to state facts which can be 
supported by the best of testimony, in the hope that public opinion will 
induce them to make those changes which have been privately urged 
upon the Principal by his best friends for many years, and for the non- 
compliance in which the only excuse given is the fear of losing a few 
students from their classes. 
History is said to reproduce itself, and in a small way we find a 
reproduction of Coleman’s conduct in retarding the progress of the 
profession through illiberal motives, without the slight counterbalancing 
high tone which Coleman strived to give it. 
That Professor Smith is capable of raising the educational status of 
his school to its proper requirements no one who knows him will doubt, 
and the liberality and willingness of the medical gentlemen of Toronto 
to extend to him an enthusiastic co-operation leaves him no excuse for 
not doing so is also well known. The necessity for an extension of the 
curriculum has been frequently urged on him by professional friends— 
former students and experienced agriculturists. Professor Liautard, 
as Principal of the American Veterinary College, and the writer as 
Principal of Montreal Veterinary College, have both urged, privately, 
on Professor Smith the necessity for improvement in his course and 
length of study, asking him to meet us for the purpose of making the 
necessary improvements in all the colleges, but in each case with a re¬ 
fusal to do anything whatever, giving the writer distinctly to understand 
that he would do nothing whatever that would risk lessening the num¬ 
ber of paying pupils, the interests of the profession as a profession being 
to him a secondary matter. 
It now remains to be seen whether public opinion will induce the 
Toronto School to adopt a standard of education corresponding to the 
importance of the science in relation to the great stock interests of Can¬ 
ada and the United States, or whether students will be attracted by the 
number of graduates sent out by the school, without any reference to 
the standing of the school as an educational institution. 
The Montreal Veterinary College was established in 1866 on the 
removal of the writer to that city, under even greater disadvantages 
than at Toronto, owing to Montreal, and the Province in which it is 
situated, being a French settlement, except from the city itself, where 
the English language is spoken by nearly half of the population ; but 
few pupils could be expected from that Province unless the lectures 
