530 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Nevertheless, we would it were otherwise, and believe it 
might be were all actuated by a right spirit. 
We missed from the list of those in attendance at the 
last annual gathering the names of some who always used 
to be there, and we regret their absence, knowing the cause 
to have been ill health, which, however, has proved only 
temporary. We are glad to see an infusion of new and 
younger blood in the Council, for we are all too prone to 
run into a course of mere routine, and the ruts at length 
become so deep that w 7 e cannot easily get out of them. 
We know that there is talent enough and to spare among 
the rising members of our profession, were they called upon 
to exert it; and we further believe that the older ones 
would be contented to see them do so, for soon they must 
leave their places to be filled by others, and it would be 
well if these were to become somewhat initiated in those 
duties that must devolve upon them in after life, if they be 
honest to the profession and actuated by a desire to 
promote its advancement. Nor should they forget that 
an individual responsibility rests upon them to accomplish 
more than those have done who have gone before them. 
We are earnest advocates for an open and candid expression 
of the feelings, the result of independent thought and con¬ 
sideration. Partisanship we eschew, believing it to be 
destructive of all true unity. Equally would we denounce 
and avoid the arena of disputation and controversy, if not 
carried on with courtesy, which is true wisdom. Differences 
of opinion we know ever will exist, but these need not be 
offensively expressed, nor will they be by those rightly 
educated. Difficulties, too, will be sure to present them¬ 
selves ; but there is a pleasure in contending with them, 
and in proportion to their strength and number so will be 
the triumph when they are overcome. Without a contest 
there can be no victorv. It has been said that “ all man- 
«/ 
kind seem to possess the combative faculty in a greater or 
less degree; and its difference in one man and another is 
perhaps one quite as much of kind as of degree. The 
occupation which a man pursues, or, in other words, the 
difficulties which he prefers to encounter, are quite as dis- 
