236 
EDITORIAL. 
They have been impressed as well by the public appreciation 
of the merits of the scientific veterinarian, who has forged 
forward until by the very force of his qualifications and his 
manifest benefit to humanity through the domestic animals he 
now occupies positions of trust and confidence in national, 
state, county and municipal governments. And the profes¬ 
sion as a whole has steadily endeavored to make itself more 
worthy of this appreciation of its merits; and scarcely a year 
has passed when some act is not recorded to make the educa¬ 
tional standard higher, and the requirements for obtaining it 
more stringent—to the end that better men have sought to 
become members of it, and their education has been broad¬ 
ened and made more thorough. Every school has gradually 
and voluntarily added to its curriculum, and most of them 
have lengthened the course of attendance by one-third. To 
tighten the lines upon those schools which still adhere to a 
short course the National Association has refused her fellow¬ 
ship to their graduates. 
The Empire State has always lighted the way to every 
important advancement, and the profession of the country 
looks to her for any new departure for the good of all. And 
she, ever restless for some new step that will carry the profes¬ 
sion forward, has recently taken a most important action of a 
legislative nature, whereby the legalizing of new graduates 
from the various colleges is to be taken out of the hands of 
their faculties and placed in the custody of the Board of 
Regents of the State of New York, who will appoint an Exam¬ 
ining Board of Veterinarians selected from prominent prac¬ 
titioners, who will perform their services in a perfectly disin¬ 
terested and unbiased manner. It was thought by this means 
that all suspicion of favoritism or commiseration for unfortu¬ 
nate circumstances would be avoided; that the different col¬ 
leges, spurred by competition, would strive harder to give 
her pupils a more thorough training, and that in this way it 
would redound to the good of the whole profession of veter¬ 
inary medicine. 
This law has been passed and signed by the Governor. 
Whether the spirit of the statute, as understood or meant by * 
