420 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



delphia, but wliicli will produce au even more damaging failure in 

 Iowa. 



To every man who would faithfully serve his race and his pro- 

 fession, there are two paths open. The one is the beaten one, full 

 of weeds, crooked ways, and cross-fences, in the form of adhesion 

 to old ideas and old ways. We may select this and seek to make it 

 better, to clean up the rubbish and let in daylight, so that truth 

 and right may have an opportunity to develop. This path may be 

 likened to a man who would rebuild and remodel an old house, 

 which he finds entirely unsuited to his desires and to the times. 

 This is generally found to be a very costly method. In reference 

 to the establishment of veterinary schools in this countrj'-, fortu- 

 nately for us, no such necessity exists. The old, to be culled over, 

 is all to be found in the older countries. Why, then, should we 

 begin where they began, as these Iowa, Harvard, and Pennsylvania 

 authorities are about to do ? Why not first take time to " look be- 

 fore we leap," and only begin when we have found out not only 

 where they now are, and accepting the best of that, but, cleared from 

 all their rubbish, endeavor to start with those advancements toward 

 which the best Continental schools are tending as fast as their anti- 

 quated incumbrances will allow? This is the other plan, and the 

 only one which the people of this country should pursue. That I 

 am an idealist is willingly admitted, but that I am " visionary " is 

 about as wide from the mark as possible. Every man who desires 

 to lead, must not only of himself do the best he is capable of, but 

 he will never attain that point unless he has an ideal better which 

 he is constantly aiming at. Who ever heard of a person, endeavor- 

 ing to spring over a ditch, jumping for the immediate edge of the 

 opposite shore? Truth is always ideal; we seek it continually. 

 Having made one form our own, we turn our attention immediately 

 in search of another. She is ever before us. Her history is more 

 unwritten than written. Perfection is always before us. She is 

 tlie guiding star, without which the human race would soon sink into 

 barbarism again. The common ruts, if continually followed, lead 

 on to a seK-conceited nonentity, pomposity, and ignorance. They 

 are always blocked up with false ideas and musty superstitions. 

 Truth and perfection are the twin sisters to clear this maze away. 

 Truth and perfection are both extravagant, and by too many always 

 declared visionary, impi-acticable. Their apostles have been cursed, 

 hanged, and burned at the stake. They are the men who have made 

 us what we are ; their lives and works constitute the history of the 

 world. Buddha, Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Paul, Loyola, Luther, 



