168 
EDITORIAL. 
facts. As time lapses and circumstances alter, changes will 
doubtless occur in the way of progress and development, 
which will prove that the veterinary study of the present and 
of the future are two things quite distinct and different in 
their aim and accomplishment. Where will be the veterinary 
colleges which have been started, some as long ago as over 
thirty years, with others of later origin ? Some of them 
established by private enterprise, and others with official 
assistance—so to speak. Where will those be which, though 
legally organized and chartered, have been kept alive only by 
personal efforts and private financial aid ? 
A glance at what has been done so far, shows that at pres¬ 
ent but a single one of these schools has succeeded in releas¬ 
ing itself from the dangers which threaten the existence of 
schools sustained by private and personal enterprise, £ind this 
notable exception is the Montreal Veterinary School, which 
by its good fortune in finding shelter under the protecting 
wing of McGill University, has, to a great extent, obtained a 
contract of, if not assured immortality, at least of an existence 
as long as the university itself survives other schools, whether 
in the United States—as in New York, Illinois—or in Canada, 
none have as yet succeeded in drawing a similar prize. Irre¬ 
spective of what their standing may be ; without reference to 
the size of their classes, and notwithstanding the excellence 
of their reputation, they are all more or less exposed to the 
same danger, if not of a sudden collapse, at the least, of 
encountering very great embarrassments. Schools, like those 
of Philadelphia, of Boston, and of Cornel, or of such of the 
States that are directly connected with agricultural colleges, 
are not similarly exposed, their life depending on that of their 
reliable supporting institutions. 
Does it not then become the duty of the officers of those 
schools which are still obliged to trust to their own resources 
to take such active steps in the direction of an assured sup¬ 
port that the institutions they are governing shall be perma¬ 
nently protected from the possible calamity of failure to main¬ 
tain their existence ? The sooner the necessary steps are 
taken .the better. Practicable and simple at the beginning, 
