2 
EDITORIAL. 
and usefulness that no one section can control its policies and 
no coterie of men its influence. These associations are formed 
for the mutual improvement of their members and the advance¬ 
ment of the science with which they are associated, and by 
their powerful influence they have gradually enslaved public 
respect and sympathy. Every sign points to a period of profes¬ 
sional prosperity, not only in profitable employment for its 
members, but in the permanent establishment of the profession 
in this country, not simply in its diversified relations to the 
general public as physicians to dumb creatures, but as guard¬ 
ians of the health of our citizens and the wealth of the nation 
as sanitarians. We believe that the appreciation of the impor¬ 
tance and merits of the profession is in direct ratio to its own 
worthiness, and we believe that its own advancement is as rapid 
as is consistent with its solid implantation as an advanced 
science. Its true advocates do not seek that meteoric bound 
which partakes of the character of a “ boom,” and lacks that 
fundamental and profound principle of permanent and universal 
progress—that steady and gradual ascension which accompanies 
all enduring institutions. 
That the Review has felt it its duty to call a halt in the 
mushroom legislation in the Empire State is based upon this 
very principle of a healthy though gradual growth. No one 
with sound reasoning will judge it possible to lift the standard 
of preparatory education from the merest rudiments to the 
equivalent of a four-year high school course at one time. We 
do not wish to be understood as meaning that such a consum¬ 
mation is not devoutly to be wished, but we believe the surest 
method of reaching that goal is to do so carefully, gradually, 
but certainly, with just consideration for the welfare of the pro¬ 
fession and its collateral interests. We have not achieved suf¬ 
ficient years nor attainments to place ourselves in the same po¬ 
sition with some other sciences which have struggled along for 
hundreds of years, and those who seek to do so place us in a 
false light. We will get there in very much less time than it 
has taken them, but to jump from the lowest round of the ladder 
