remember, were in a way really schools-schools of instruction. The sessions, for the first two years, were held in the Laboratory, and the Doctor and his assistants gave us all instruction in chemistry and biology. The use and the usefulness of this school of instruction became at once apparent; it struck a responsive chord in our hearts here in Vermont. It was watched with interest by the states immediately about us. In a very short timewithin a year or so-it was copied by a good many states in this countryhow many I do not know. It was commented on favorably by a great many who were present at these schools on various occasions, and they have been profuse in their praise of the movement which we instituted.

Perhaps it is superfluous for me to say anything about the advantages that this school holds for us who are engaged in this work. These advantages are not confined to the technical instruction which we get. For the State Board of Health has made an effort to get men of national reputations, who are acknowledged authority in their several departments to speak before you each year, and the technical instruction which we have received has been of the highest order; but the recognition of the value of good water supplies, perfect sewage systems, and thorough and complete registration of vital statistics, the safeguarding of public buildings, and the control of epidemic diseases, has not been the sole fruit of these schools. I think I am perfectly safe in saying that the best part of the instructionthe best part of the results that have come from these schools of health officers-has been derived from getting the health officers together, and from leading the health officers to think that there is something for them to think about besides their own local jurisdictions, their own municipalities, or their own towns. We have all learned here that we are citizens, not only of Rutland, of Burlington, of St. Johnsbury, of Woodstock, and of other towns, but that we are also citizens of the state of Vermont, and have more or less to do with promoting the physical welfare of the whole state. No town can build a Chinese Wall around its limits and say: "We will take care of what we have, and it is nobody's business how many nuisances we have, or what we have in the way of contagious diseases," no more than this state can build barriers around its limits, and say that "We will have all the smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, etc., we want, and it is no one's else concern." It is the concern of all our neighbors in the state when smallpox or diphtheria, or some other contagious disease occurs in our town or city; it is their concern, because it is quite sure to spread beyond our limits. It is exactly the same principles that we apply to the management of our town affairs. A man may claim the privilege of having all the contagious diseases mentioned on his premises, but so long as they do not invade his neighbor's, it is nobody's business. It is your business, you know; so it is the business of the state, when any town is this state is infected, or is supporting a nuisance of any kind, just as much as it would be the business of this country as a whole should the state of Vermont become infected with smallpox or yellow fever, or the plague.

So I say we have learned-all of us-at these schools, the lesson of

neighborliness-that the state of Vermont is larger and more to be considered than any one town in the state, or any one official.

We see a great deal now in print in regard to properly advertising our rural state as a place of resort for summer residents. There is no one way in which Vermont or any other state can so profitably advertise its inducements as a summer resort as by showing to the people in the cities-people who are going on their vacations-that we look after our sanitary conditions. The average man of the city is not careless in regard to where he goes and takes his family, as regard these matters; he goes away to escape business and hard work and nervous prostration, but he does not go where he will run into something worse, and the people in the large cities are looking for healthy places in which to spend their vacations. The urban press cautions its readers- "Look out where you go this summer, and don't bring back typhoid fever, or cholera, or measles, or whooping cough." The best advertisement that we can give Vermont as a summer resort is to go before the public in the larger cities with statistics that will show that the number of cases of diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, and all these infectious diseases, is way down. That is what we are doing and must do to make Vermont a popular summer resort. Pure air, pleasant scenery, and a good hotel are helps, but good sanitation is growing in importance in the eyes of our city friends every year.

This school is a state institution, We are here at the public expense. It is our duty-every one of us to come here, and to get out of these schools all the good we possibly can, and we should carry back with us a certain amount of information and intelligence on these subjects which we should spread, and so become centres of knowledge in every town in this state. The public of the state of Vermont is with us-the majority of the people-the common people of the state are supporting this school, and I believe would regret to see it discontinued.

It is for us health officers to justify the confidence that has been placed in us, in putting in our hands the means for doing things along these lines, and this school, above everything, is designed for just that end.

ADDRESS OF RT. REV. JOHN S. MICHAUD,

BISHOP OF BURLINGTON.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:-I am sorry that the governor is not here to meet you; as a civil member of the government of Vermont he would no doubt have great pleasure in speaking to you. The bishop will have to speak for the governor; he will address you a few words.

I did not take pains to write on any particular subject, but I did think we would have something of a Burlington audience that I might address

--I suppose my fellow citizens thought the school was exclusively for the health officers and did not wish to force themselves upon the meeting.

The health officer-as Dr. Caverly has stated-is a state officer, and as I have understood, has considerable authority. I hope he has authority to come out and to strike Burlington hard. It is demanded of Burlington that its water supply must be purified, and we citizens of Burlington thank you health officers for so dictating, because if there is anything that is good for us to have, it is pure water.

Vermont is well supplied by springs, by rivulets, by rivers; its hills are dotted on all sides with pure water. I remember the good old bishop of Burlington, whenever he used to send a priest out to Underhill-one of our back districts-always used to say to him: “You will find excellent water there." That is what we want-pure water.

I would like to talk to you to-night, just as the inspiration of the moment dictates, and I think it is the same history for the other towns in the state. I was born here in Burlington sixty-two years ago; I have passed my boyhood, my manhood time, many years of priesthood, and as bishop. You are welcome to the Queen City-I represent it to-night; the mayor is not here, so I represent the city to-night. It is a beautiful city-we call it the Queen City. A great artist passed through this town once and said that all villages in New England were beautiful, but that Burlington surpassed them all-it is a picture in a frame. I love Burlington, its roads, its buildings, its institutions, its walks, its trees-I almost imagine that the road, and the sidewalk, and the curbing speak to me.

I remember when we had our water supply in Burlington from wells and cisterns. Then we had a system of bringing water in barrels; a good many Canadians used to go out with horses and carts with barrels to bring water to the inhabitants of the city. Then Burlington got the aqueduct. It was disputed whether to bring the water by power or by gravity. The taxpayers were persuaded to have a power system, and a power station was instituted on the lake shore. There was no purer water than the lake water then. When a boy I used to work in the lumber mill, and as I stopped to rest for my dinner, I used to take a dipper-a quart dipper-and dip it into the lake, and drink it off, and I grew strong and waxed well, for the water was good and pure.

Then the aqueduct was started, and they built for economy, of cement, and pipes of sheet iron were inserted; the mains were small; the people were poor, and they made use of it. The city grew, and kept on growing, and finally they had to change this system, and the water also changed from pure lake water, to water contaminated with sewerage from Montpelier, from Waterbury, from the Fort, from the hill, from Winooski, and the question now is: What shall we do in regard to our water supply?

I do not wish to dictate, but I wish to give an opinion. We must change the system of water. There is some talk of trying filtration; these things work well for a while, and in the end, we will have to change the system. New Yorkers are thinking of coming clear up to Lake George-a distance of

almost two hundred miles to get their water supply. The city of Boston has taken whole towns, appropriated residences and farms and farmhouses, and made square miles of reservoir and installed filters, in order to have pure water. Burlington must in time follow in their footsteps. Let them go out into Hinesburgh, clear out to Hinesburgh Pond, and if the pond is muddy at the bottom, clean it out, and give us good healthy water as long as the hills last.

I was down in Asheville, North Carolina, this spring. We have not a fair idea of the southern people. We think they are slow and unprogressive. Asheville is a city of about 16,000 inhabitants; it has good pure water, their system is taken from mountain springs, something like fifteen miles away. I used to drink four or five tumblerfuls every evening after supper. We of the north, with our progressive, energetic ways can do as much as they do. We have money, which they have not; we have energy which they have not, and we should do as well as they, and far better.

When I was quite a young man, during the first years of my priesthood, I was called upon to see a patient sick of smallpox, and when I got there, I found seventeen down with the disease. The town authorities had bought a farmhouse and made it into a pesthouse. I went down, and had to stay there, giving spiritual consolation, for something over an hour. I saw the health officer when I got outside; I had asked his permission before going in. The old doctor himself came down with smallpox.

There was one thing the people of Newport, where I was then stationed, could not understand. When it came to the destruction of clothing-particularly furs-they asked me what they should do, should they destroy their furs. I said, certainly, destroy them, burn them up. They made a big bonfire and burned all their clothing, furs, and so forth, and the people of the neighborhood cried out: "Father Michaud is going to give us all the smallpox, he's burning up all the furs and smallpox clothing, and the smoke is coming over here." They did not understand that fire destroyed germs. There was need of a school of this kind to educate the people of Vermont up to the point of taking care of themselves and their neighbors.

I am proud of the health officer who enforces the laws placed in his hands. We want the health officers to strike hard; carry out what they are appointed to do, no matter who are hurt, rich or poor. We know from experience that typhoid fever and diphtheria break out in the families of the rich rather than in the poor cabins, because their plumbing has often been done at the lowest prices-done by the man who took the contract at the smallest prices-who put in poor material. And their houses are often smelling with coal gas, smelling with sewer gas and other gases, closed up, no ventilation, windows tight, and the air therein being contaminated. So that you health officers must make no distinction, you must be prompt, you must strike, and strike hard; strike to be felt at the proper time, because you have to protect the people of your own towns against its own dangers and from contagion coming from neighboring towns.

I feel that I am talking to doctors. They are a class of men whose sen

sibilities are blunted; they are meeting disease at all times; they are meeting death itself, and they continue to fight against it when they know themselves in their own heart and soul that a person is gone. There is a question with our Catholic people as to who should be called first, the priest or the doctor. I remember once driving from Wells River to St. Johnsbury, a distance of twenty-two miles; we left Wells River at about 12 o'clock, and when we got within about ten miles of St. Johnsbury, we caught up with someone driving along ahead of us. I asked the driver who that was, and he replied that that was the doctor, and I said to him, "We must get ahead of the doctor," and we whipped up our horse, and we got into St. Johnsbury ahead of the doctor!

It was during that same visit at St. Johnsbury, at a meeting held in that village-centennial year-that I made a remark that has been rather famous throughout the state. I was called upon to speak, I was then a young man, there must have been an audience of five thousand people. The chairman introduced me, and I started off by saying, "I am half French, half Irish, and all Yankee," and I think it is a hard thing for any person born in Vermont to be anything but a good whole-souled, hardy Yankee.

The doctor is a brave man, the profession is one of danger. I admire their vocation, they are called by God; they are called to be the salvation of the people.

Of course the intelligent part of the community must read, and do read more or less of what is being published in the papers; we read what is in the papers in regard to the preservation of our health and that of the community. I read the other day about how the health officers down in Pennsylvania have been trying to stamp out some kind of an epidemic; they have passed a resolution to the effect that all doctors must shave, must go with smooth faces, because they argue that the hair of the face is one of the greatest conductors of disease. You come in contact with disease, and you go out to other patients, and perhaps spread the contagion in that way.

Then most of you know, some of the very poor seem to have a fear of fresh air. You go into a sick room in a poor family, and you will find the door closed, the windows down, and if you make bold enough to open a window to get a little air, some member of the family will almost immediately say, "Oh, my, there is a draft"-that will be certain death to the patient. So you see what you must do; you must be courageous, and, if there is any chance of ventilation possible, you must see that ventilation must be given. The health officers do not do this, because I do not believe they have authority to go into a room in a man's private castle, but as you as doctors can do it.

Now, I hope you will pardon me if I have said anything not proper to be said; and I hope that you, as health officers, will bring your influence into operation and tell us what is right to do, and we will obey.

Dr. Caverly.

One of the best friends, I might say, that a good cause can have is the