ADDRESS. 
537 
expect a law that will arbitrarily throttle non-graduates and 
give graduates a monopoly of veterinary patronage. The 
true source of monopoly is by proving our decided superi¬ 
ority over non-educated men, and the inability to show this 
superiority is possibly what causes some graduates to clamor 
for a law which will give them a legal monopoly over non¬ 
graduates, against whom they have striven without victory. 
It.is to be hoped that we will continue our efforts until we 
succeed in getting a reasonably good law, and there is no 
reason why we should not succeed soon if all work harmo¬ 
niously. But with or without a law, how are we to attain 
the position in our respective communities which each de¬ 
sires? 
In the first place, the veterinary surgeon needs to be a 
gentleman in all that the term implies, and by strict morality, 
sobriety and attention to business, refute the old idea that he 
may be anything except a gentleman. The veterinarian should 
be an earnest and conscientious student, carefully improving 
his limitless opportunities for clinical and post mortem study. 
He should also not only attend, but take an active part in our 
Association, submitting his own thoughts for the benefit of 
others, and freely asking advice from the Association on mat¬ 
ters which may seem puzzling to him. The study of stand¬ 
ard veterinary works should be kept up diligently, and possi¬ 
bly it is, but judging from investigations regarding the study 
of current veterinary literature as found in our veterinary 
journals, some grave apprehensions must be felt.. Veterinary 
journals form the medium for the dissemination of current 
veterinary thought, and it would seem that each thinking 
veterinarian would be a subscriber to some such journal, but 
it seems safe to hazard the opinion That less than twenty per 
cent, of the veterinarians of Illinois are subscribers to veteri¬ 
nary literature. 
Recent inquiries, with other objects in view, revealed the 
fact that out of more than one hundred regularly educated 
veterinarians in Illinois, only ten of them were subscribers to 
the only pretended exclusively veterinary journal in America, 
and to add to the surprise and pain, it was found that an 
