EDITORIAL. 
327 
EDITORIAL. 
VETERINARY EDUCATION. 
When in our last number of the Review we presented our sugges¬ 
tions to the Hon. Acting Commissioner of Agriculture concerning the 
propriety of applying to Congress for an appropriation for a governmental 
Veterinary Institute in Washington or some large city, where practical 
as well as theoretical advantages would be found, we were not aware 
that the same advice was given by other Veterinarians. The November 
number of the Country Gentleman contained from Prof. James Law a 
long article terminating with the same proposition, a portion of which 
we reprint to-day with the permission of the author. After some lengthy 
remarks upon the attempts made in Boston and Philadelphia, Professor 
Law alludes to similar ones made by other members of the profession 
in a sharp, severe, but truthful manner, and then giving the requisite 
for a Veterinary School, he closes up by pointing out, as we did, the 
necessity for action on the part of the general government. 
Having been engaged in the teaching of veterinary medicine in 
• Cornell University since its opening, Professor Law acknowledges the 
errors of such doing and, as in everything, he does it in the manly 
manner of one who fully realizes the injury done by such work—and he 
will give us credit for being the first to have pointed out to him the 
result of that form of teaching. No, agricultural students cannot re¬ 
ceive in an agricultural school the education that good veterinarians 
ought to have, and good as the efforts of the teachers may have been, 
the result cannot but be the same, viz.: the turning out of so many men 
scarcely better than empirics. In our estimation veterinary chairs in 
agricultural schools ought not, cannot cover the whole curriculum of 
medical studies required for a veterinarian. Zootechny may be taught 
there, some common, general rules of practice may be lectured upon, but 
that is all—and it is very gratifying to us to see Professor J. Law take 
the standard he has assumed in his letter to the Country Gentleman. 
Still we fear that his call to governmental assistance, like ours, will 
receive but little attention, and with that prospect in view, we take this 
opportunity to make another suggestion with hope that it may find 
better appreciation. 
Some time ago a rumor found its way to the papers that the Board 
of Trustees of Cornell University were considering the propriety of 
establishing a medical department in the City of New York—to open a 
