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be detained for their final examination until April 1889. Thus the classes will
be changed only annually in future; it is not yet advisable to exclude entrance
of students during the course of the year, but in time no doubt it will be neces-
sary to decide that entrance shall be only in June.
3. Government has under consideration the appointment of a permanent
Board of Examiners referred to in my letters No. 515, dated 5th August 1887, and
No. 137, dated 9th February 1888. I am of opinion this will prove a very great
advantage as facilitating working of the examination machinery so long as we
have to maintain a special examining body. I trust in the not distant future
the Bombay University will show the other Universities of the British Empire
an example by confirming degrees in veterinary surgery and medicine to the
promotion of science and the advancement of the veterinary profession. With
all due respect to the examiners who have worked here during the past year,
and with full thanks to them for their zeal and efficiency, I am convinced that
occasionally they failed to understand expressions used by the candidates in
correctly answering questions and sometimes were unfavourably impressed with
behaviour which was simply due to nervousness but attributed to other causes.
Some of these examiners had had much experience of natives and of examining
them, but others were acting in their capacity for the first time. I in no way
complain of results, which were satisfactory, but a permanent Board will, I am
certain, prove much more efficient and practicable than a series of temporary
ones possibly could be. There is nothing more harassing to a teacher than to
see an unfavourable impression produced on an examiner by a student who
knows the answer to a question but expresses himself badly. This applies to an
extent to the written test but still more to the oral and practical ones, and it cer-
tainly renders examination of students, mostly natives, by examiners, mostly
Europeans, a matter of experience and tact as well as knowledge on the part of
the latter. A further argument is that it is necessary for the Board to know the
standard to which we can educate our students. Thus a Class A student has yet
another year to study physiology and must not be expected to have a very profound
knowledge of it at his first examination, and a Class B student, for the same
reason, must not be too severely tested in medicine and surgery. I am in hopes
that the average amount of knowledge conveyed to our students before they
become practitioners will equal that given in the British schools but differ
somewhat in adaptation to Indian practical needs, and I trust the latter fact
will be duly taken into consideration at the examinations. Doubtless our best
men will not equal the best European graduates, but they will not fall far short,
and the discrepancy will disappear with time and the still further development of
the College. There is every probability that some on graduation will proceed to
England to take the diploma of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons there.
I have not yet heard the result of my application to the Council of the Royal
College of Veterinary Surgeons for recognition of our institution any further
than that it is to be considered with the whole subject of Colonial registration
and affiliation at a meeting to be held shortly. While I am of opinion that it
will take some years to give native students the expertness in horse and cattle
handling which English boys generally acquire before they come up to College,
I have the pleasure to report that the senior class has made great progress in
this respect and, I think, will be found by the examining Board to have much
improved in smartness on going about a horse and bullock. The examination
subjects and routine as fixed by the College Committee seems to me from our
experience in 1887 a fair and sound test as to the efficiency of teaching in the
various subjects.
4. In my last report I showed that there were 64 students attending; the
number has now increased to 80, of whom some five are doubtful in regularity
of attendance and seriousness in work. This number has been arrived at by
prompt elimination of all non-attendants, unless some good excuse be given for
absence, and by admissions amounting to 19 in all out of 27 who actually passed
the Entrance Examination and were placed on the rolls. I trust Government
will approve my action in not exerting pressure in any way on the candidates for
graduation in veterinary science to get them to remain at the College after
entering. I consider that if a man has not his heart in the work the sooner he
goes to something else the better, and I further consider and impress on the