SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
567 
ted to practice in the city or possess well appointed hospitals. 
The result is that the conditions under which the undergradu¬ 
ate sees practice done at the colleges are very different from the 
conditions under which he must do practice if he is to succeed. 
In no line of business is there a greater need for developing 
a high type of that American characteristic of adaptability than 
in veterinary practice as it exists in this country at the present 
time. But as matriculate and graduate standards have been 
raised there has been a greater tendency for those better edu¬ 
cated but frequently less familiar with rural conditions, hence 
less practical to enter the profession. Therefore the greater rea¬ 
son and necessity for more attention to the practical business 
side of veterinary education. There are too many teachers in 
our veterinary colleges who never had any experience in gen¬ 
eral, unaided, independent veterinary practice of any sort, and 
too many others whose experience has been one-sided, although 
perhaps extensive. 
However, I think I see a more potent cause of the inability 
of the graduate of the^present to adapt himself to the conditions 
of country practice than any of those yet mentioned. There 
has sprung up in recent years, especially among the more 
prominent members of the profession, a blind, unreasoning wor¬ 
ship of all things European, especially German ; American facts 
and methods and American investigators and literature fail to 
command the interest or respect of these great men, but Ger¬ 
man literature and investigator are followed and worshipped 
with a blind fatuity which would be ludicrous were it not 
fraught with serious consequences that imperil the future prog¬ 
ress of the profession. There are men who believe that there 
is culture in understanding the causes of the Trojan war, but 
none in learning the causes of the (recent) war in China. Just 
so with a large number of prominent American veterinarians. 
They appear to think a knowledge of German practice and 
literature the sine qua non of veterinary education and exhibit 
the greatest contempt for American methods adapted to Ameri¬ 
can conditions and needs. In all they say or do we are con¬ 
stantly reminded of the fact that the Germans do this or that, 
or that this or that particular practice or method is wrong be¬ 
cause the Germans don’t do it that way. Many of them do not 
even read American literature, or if they read it, entirely dis¬ 
credit it, as evidenced by the fact that I read from the pen of 
one of these that anthrax is rare in this country but common in 
Europe. My friends, Drs. Dalrymple of Louisiana, and Robert 
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