418 
EDITORIAL. 
covers the ground well, and whose views, we have no doub 
will prove thoroughly in accordance with those of all our rear 
ers, as well as accordant with the importance of the questic 
at issue. 
VETERINARY EDUCATION. 
When the United States Veterinary Association, representing the professi* 
in America, adopted an amendment to its by-laws specifying what it consider 
the minimum requirements which a school should possess to fit men for the prs| 
tice of veterinary medicine, and demanded that all applicants for membersh 
hereafter shall be graduates of schools possessing such requirements, we mil 
well say that no subject is of greater importance to the profession and to ti 
public than is that of veterinary education. 
Any veterinary surgeon who fails to do what he can to make his calling o:; 
of which he need not be ashamed, is false to his profession and to himself. V 
condemn a man to professional ostracism who covers his medicines with til 
secrecy of his pharmacy. We are much inclined to censure our fellows fj 
patenting a surgical appliance, yet can we expect else from men educated 
many of the schools which are being boomed to-day almost from the Atlantic 
the Pacific ? Certainly not. 
“As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined,” is a proverb as true in one wa 
of life as in another. When a body of men, with little or no capital, establish 
school, there is a prime consideration, either expressed or implied, of person 
gain at the expense of the profession. No man now has any moral or prof( 
sional right to encourage, directly or indirectly, a veterinary school unless t 
circumstances under which it is started are so exceptional as to place it, fro 
the beginning, upon a basis distinctly above any now in existence. 
The time has passed when it can be said that the demand is such that ai 
sort of a school, no matter what its requirements, should be encouraged. Tj 
much praise cannot be accorded to the pioneers in veterinary education, thouj 
for want of encouragement it were impossible for them to improve the curric 
lum, even to the extent which the teachers themselves considered to be nec( 
sary for even an elementary training. Some of us know that the better of t 
short-term schools were for many years a source of expense to their founders. 
We all know that the long term “three-year” schools now in existence ai 
and always have been, financial failures, and were they to depend upon t 
receipts from students they would be compelled to close their doors, or go in 
the “ mill business.” 
Fortunately, the long-term schools now in existence are not wholly depen 
ent upon the fees of students for their maintenance. Never was there a pi 
fessioDal school, and especially one in a profession so limited in its usefulness 
ours, which was a financial success, that was not, at the same time, a prof< 
sional failure. 
Our duty is very plain in this matter. We should encourage the long-teif 
schools now in existence, and should demand of every new comer that it ofl 
inducements as great, and except from geographical considerations, greater th 
any now in existence, for without these reasons it is too plainly evident that t : 
