EDITORIAL. 
365 
membership or some equivalent for superannuated members. 
Many of the pioneer veterinarians of America, a number of 
whom were present at the birth of our Association, are now 
showing marked effects of age, and are not readily able to at¬ 
tend our meetings, and assume responsibilities in its labor. 
It would be a well deserved mark of esteem and source of 
gratification to these venerable men, and a credit to the Asso¬ 
ciation they assisted to create, to.confer upon them something 
akin to honorary membership, releasing them from responsi¬ 
bilities and duties, yet leaving them heartily free to enjoy any 
pleasures they might realize by attending our meetings and 
commingling with its members. 
The Comitia Minora departed considerably from its tradi¬ 
tions in the scrutiny exercised in recommending applicants 
for membership, with the result that more applicants were 
rejected probably than at any other meeting in the history of 
the Association—a procedure not likely to injure the Associ¬ 
ation. 
The new application blank formally adopted at this meet¬ 
ing makes it incumbent for all applicants to make application 
in regular form over their own signatures, thus relieving the 
Association and members of the profession from the annoying 
and disagreeable process of electing to membership veterina¬ 
rians whose names have been casually proposed by a member, 
without the knowledge or consent of the candidate, and later 
of being compelled to ignominiously “ drop ” the name of 
such unconscious members for non-payment of dues. More 
important, however, is the growing care with which the gen¬ 
eral character of intending members is examined, with regard 
to fitness and earnestness as members, and a very decided 
tendency to place the responsibility for the character of ap¬ 
plicants upon the State or local Veterinary Associations. 
So well marked is this tendency that it is generally under¬ 
stood that the Comitia Minora recommended the rejection of 
one candidate upon the sole ground of having for some time 
been a pseudo-member of a State Veterinary Association, in 
the work of which, although repeatedly importuned, he had 
refused or neglected to take any active part. Conse- 
