666 
• EDITORIAL. 
inary colleges as to discourage them and break their enthusi¬ 
asm, and when this has been accomplished their greatest factor 
for good has been destroyed. 
Three years ago the matriculant requirement to enter a vete¬ 
rinary college in New York State was the satisfactory exhibi¬ 
tion of the possession of a good common English education, ac¬ 
companied by evidences of good moral character. When the 
colleges placed themselves under the Regents, who, at first 
made a moderate and reasonable demand of proficiency, the 
number of students decreased about one-third, but, as a period 
of unprecedented financial and commercial depression had 
settled upon the country, their requirements could not be 
charged solely with the deflection ; when their demands reached 
twenty-four counts a still greater slump occurred, though stu¬ 
dents seemed willing to risk their fates for the sake of greater 
proficiency ; but when the Regents stepped forward for the ses¬ 
sion of 1897-98 and asked young men seeking a knowledge of 
medical, dental, and veterinary sciences to put up forty-eight 
counts, including subjects totally irrelevant to the professions 
they essayed to enter, they balked, retreated, and departed for 
other States, whose laws are more in keeping with progress and 
common sense, and where higher education is attained by steps 
and not by flights. 
The effect of the drain upon the colleges is not so apparent 
this year as it will be next, nor the next, because all have those 
in attendance who entered under the lesser requirement ; but 
when they have been graduated, when the classes consist only 
of those who have matriculated under the forty-eight counts, 
little else than empty benches will greet the eyes of the facul¬ 
ties. If publication were made to-day of the actual number of 
students enrolled under the latest demand of the Regents, we 
fear that even that body of sanguinary gentlemen would be 
aghast at the ruin they have wrought to the once far-famed 
medical schools of the Excelsior State. If the men who have 
formulated the forty-eight counts can explain what proficiency 
in a veterinary student they hope to enhance by requiring him 
