April, 1918 C. U. C. P. ALUMNI JOURNAL 57 



Opening the Alumni Annual Reports by chance at the year 1881, we find that 

 at that commencement "an excellent portrait of the late Dr. William Neergaard 

 was presented to the College by the graduating class." Whether the address of 

 the evening in behalf of the Faculty by Douglas Campbell, Esq. aimed in thought 

 at any connection with this portrait I do not know, but somehow, a sentence in it 

 seems to me most appropriate to the impression the face makes upon one : 



"Each of you, who lives an upright honorable business life, serves to build 

 up the sentiment, which makes the existence of knaves unbearable. lago ex- 

 plained his hatred of Cassio, in saying — 



'He hath a daily beauty in his life, 

 That makes me ugly.' " 



In this address we also read : 



"Fifty years ago the pharmacists of New York resolved to do something to 

 elevate their profession. Something was sadly needed. Anyone was considered 

 fit to deal out drugs, no special training was required, it was a trade, to dignify it 

 by a higher name would have excited ridicule. They concluded to raise it from 

 below . . . That meant the education of the young men who were coming for- 

 ward." 



It was a fine, helpful address, though it is not to my purpose to make further 

 quotations. But Wm. F. Neergaard, who had not neglected the preliminaries of a 

 thoroughly good education, as the type of books which he possessed indicates, 

 must have helped this movement on to a good extent. 



It has been pleasing to set out on the top shelf of the showcase two or three 

 relics of New York pharmacy before 1881 that reveal intellectual or artistic traits 

 that certainly must have contributed some impulse to this upward movement. 

 Who of us who looked through the Loan Exhibition last spring has forgotten the 

 beautiful Flemish mortar in Dr. Eraser's choice collection, with its graceful border 

 of dancing cupids! This charming specimen of the bell maker's art purports to 

 have been brought over to adorn the first drugstore in New York. And I believe 

 it. For the Flemish mortar set forth here in our showcase from the old Massey 

 drugstore is hardly inferior in beauty with its spirited hunting scene for adorn- 

 ment. 



Near by are a Danish translation of a manual on surgery with the autograph 

 of the elder Neergaard across the title-page, and a neatly kept notebook of Wil- 

 liam Neergaard, Jr. on a course in pharmacy by Dr. E. R. Squibb, in 1871, and 

 from the same drugstore a pair of scoops, polished and beautifully marked, which 

 were made from the two halves of a cow's horn, and which have been much ad- 

 mired by visiting pharmacists as quite unusual, but peculiarly well adapted for 

 taking up and measuring out powders. 



Library hours, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and from 3 to 5, afternoons, except on 

 Saturdays. 



