ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE A. V. C.-ITS HISTORY. 
165 
the great majority of you are young, ambitious, strong and untram¬ 
meled, you must labor with unceasing ardor, for, I tell you, were 
you to give half the earnest labor to your work that we give to 
idle and fruitless hopes and contemplations, the sum of our labors 
would be greatly enlarged. JEconorny of time is the great problem 
for us all, for he who well plans the seasons of labor has much 
time for recreation and true enjoyment, and strongly would I have 
you remember that a portion of your times belongs to the work 
of your college parent; do not forget her interests, serve them in 
every way, have your people know of your school, watch the pro¬ 
gress of your fellow acquaintances, and when one leans toward the 
profession as a calling, see for him that he starts right, and when 
another turns toward it who is unfitted for its labors, try and 
turn his attention away from it, for I assure you we have too 
much dead wood already. Examine yourselves daily in what way 
you are particularly adapted for leading parts of the work and not 
what you would best like or which seems the nicest. If it is in 
physiological work, draw around you all the means for pursuing 
it in a thorough manner; if it is in the line of original researches 
of therapeutics, give a good portion of your time persistently to 
it; if it is in the solving of the many doubts and uncertainties of 
our contagious diseases, seek every opportunity of enlarging your 
knowledge in that direction, for in this field there is the widest 
room for practical knowledge and experimentation; if the work 
is the enlarging of veterinary intelligence and general history, 
identify yourselves with all movements and associates that shall 
make you and us more powerful and useful, and the sum total of 
a year’s labor will be ten years progress of our noble calling. 
Again I say, daily compute your time, and the more you do 
the more you will find yourselves able to do. Few men ever 
suffer from too great an amount of brain-work. It is the trans¬ 
gressing of the laws of nature in the manner and mode of their 
work, that breaks them down physically. 
Another great danger peculiarly prevalent among professional 
men is the tendency to become narrow in one’s ideas and work, 
so that too few men of our day can see beyond their own horizon. 
Extend your knowledge in every way, broaden your ideas and in- 
