366 
EDITORIAL. 
quently the Comitia held that if he would not work in 
his State Association, he would not be likely to prove an 
earnest laborer in the national body. It seems not improba¬ 
ble that in the near future an applicant for membership will 
need be an active worker in good standing in some local or 
state Veterinary Association (in localities where such are avail¬ 
able) before he can hope to become a member of the U. S. V. 
M. A. 
Such a course warmly commends itself to those who have 
the best interests of the profession and our Association at 
heart. Any veterinarian who cannot or will not do effec¬ 
tive work in the local Association will generally prove of 
minor value to the national organization. In some cases there 
may be local difficulties, but these generally yield to an ear¬ 
nest desire to benefit the profession. 
Probably the most important and far-reaching proposition 
ever placed before the U. S. V. M. A. was originated in the 
Comitia Minora by an informal discussion upon the desirable 
requirements for admission to membership, and took definite 
form in the open meeting, and we believe represented the 
unamimous wishes of the Comitia, in a motion by Dr. R. Mc¬ 
Lean to the effect that hereafter all applicants for member¬ 
ship, except those now graduated or matriculated, must be 
graduates from colleges requiring not less than three annual 
sessions of no less than six months each, exclusively devoted 
to the study of veterinary science, and that said colleges shall 
have a corp of not less than four distinctively veterinary in¬ 
structors. We find here some of the chief reforms embodied 
which have been long urged in Association meetings, in the 
veterinary press and in other ways by many of the best friends 
of the profession. A special college committee has been in 
existence in this Association for some years, has written some 
and talked much. The committee is now left practically with¬ 
out a field for work, and has consequently been discharged. 
The day for “ talk ” has well nigh expired, and a distinct, 
clear cut, hard proposition is before us for action, and no op¬ 
portunity for retreat has been reserved. 
The battle must be fought, it should be won. It will be a 
