EDITORIAL. 
93 
Department of the Michigan University, has taken the following de¬ 
cisions : The first, which will necessarily bring in the study of the pro¬ 
fession a better class of men, better educated students, is that by which 
all applicants for matriculation will be required to present a certificate 
of collegiate or academic studies, or to submit himself to a preliminary 
examination ; second, which establishes graded education, thus oblige 
ing the student to devote his whole attention to some special branches, 
instead of cramming every subject at once, and to prepare himself for 
an examination at the end of the Session; and the third, the require¬ 
ment of attendance to three full courses of lectures, being divided into 
a Winter and a Spring Session, the first of five months, the second of six 
weeks. 
These alterations do not mean perfection. For one whose course of 
studies were of four sessions of over ten months each, we know too well 
that eighteen months are insufficient to obtain the qualifications which 
the diplomas say the graduate possesses; but one must recollect that the 
American Veterinary College is chartered under peculiar laws, and that 
it cannot yet impose whatever good their desire may be. All over our 
continent our medical colleges, with the exception of two, carry on 
their curriculum with only two full courses of lectures. Therefore, in 
initiating the three new decisions, the American Veterinary College takes 
a step forward* amongst the first of the Medical Colleges in the United 
States—first of the Veterinary Schools of this continent. 
Now for the other objections made by our esteemed friend. He 
says: “Again, the oral and practical examination being by the Profes¬ 
sors of each department of instruction , is certainly not to be recommended, 
nor will the public accept its results as being as reliable as if they were 
examined by an outside and impartial Board of Examiners , unconnected 
with the College .” 
To this we might simply answer, as we did some time ago when the 
same objection was sluringly made against the faculty of the College, 
that this is the mode of examination of many other Veterinary institu¬ 
tions in Europe, and of all our Medical Colleges in America; but, 
besides, why should they not be reliable ? We do not make the faculty 
of these schools the insult to suppose that, because they are the teachers, 
they must necessarily be indulgent, and willing to grant their diplomas 
to unworthy candidates. If so, cannot examiners be supposed to act 
wrong also ? A Board of Examiners is appointed to the English, and 
perhaps also to a few other European schools, but we have yet to learn 
that a diploma is not as fully appreciated by the public, because it has 
