IHE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



141 



I 



sion of pharmacy or else that in the 300 years 

 that have expired since this was written, phar- 

 macy has made gigantic strides. 



"I do remember an Apothecary, 



And hereabouts he dwells, which late I noted 



In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows. 



Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, 



Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; 



And in his needy shop a tortoise hung. 



An alligator stufF'd, and other skins 



Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves 



A beggarly account of empty boxes. 



Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds. 



Remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses, 



Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show^. 



Noting this penury, to myself I said — 



And if a man did need a poison now. 



Whose seal is present death in Mantua, 



Here lives a caitiff wretch wouM sell it him." 



After rousing the worthy Apothecary, who 

 you will remember is represented in the play in 

 a manner that illustrates the meaning of the 

 lines, and having bargained with him for the 

 poison that he is after, and the Apothecary hav- 

 ing refused it through fear of the law, Romeo 

 again addresses him : 



"Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness. 

 And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, 

 Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, 

 Contempt and beggary hang on thy back. 

 The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law; 

 The world affords no law to make thee rich ; 

 Then be not poor, but break it and take this." 



Can you imagine a condition of pharmacy 

 that would justify any such description as this 

 given by Shakespeare ? Look at the Faculty of 

 the College of Pharmacy of the City of New 

 York. Can you find in any one of these gentle- 

 men any evidence of this lank, lean, miserable 

 caitiff wretch ? Surely the future of the College 

 of Pharmacy of the City of New York with the 

 newly elected President, Mr. Kemp should keep 

 it entirely free from any such reproach as this. 

 But compare the present place in which the 

 Apothecary does business with that of Shakes- 

 peare's time. Where is that tortoise hanging 

 now ? Where are those skins of other fishes, 

 those empty boxes, the penury of it all? Why 

 to-day the Apothecary's shop is the palace of 

 trade. It is the most respectable place into 

 which we can go, and it has other attractions so 

 great and so numerous that they are almost im- 

 possible to resist. If you do not believe this, try 

 some night to take a young lady out to walk and 

 get her by a drug store, if you can, without buy- 

 ing something. But great as have been the 

 strides in the last three centuries of the business 

 of the Apothecary and the change that is in 

 his shop, greater still, if we may believe that 

 Shakespeare told the truth, is the change in 



the condition and the character of the man. 

 Romeo's "caitiff wretch" has so developed 

 that he has become one of the most potent 

 factors in the advancement of the world. 

 The Apothecary to-day stands in the first rank 

 of business, of commerce, as he does in the first 

 ranks of science. His enterprise has moved busi- 

 ness into existence that means millions upon 

 millions of money. The culling of simples has 

 changed into the compounding of medicines, 

 and in commerce, with all its dependent scources 

 there is no greater factor to-day than the com- 

 pounding of medicines. Not only this but the 

 result of his study, the result of his endeavor, 

 the result of his science has enabled the 

 physician to make life more pleasurable be- 

 cause it has removed the probabilities of 

 death; because it has removed in many in- 

 stances the possibility of pain to the human 

 race. There is no nobler calling than that of 

 the man who elects to spend his life that his fel- 

 low men may be healed. The Apothecary to-day 

 is the Good Samaritan of the universe. The 

 variegated lights that shine from his shop win- 

 dows are the beacons that light the sick and the 

 afflicted to hope and to health. Members of the 

 Graduating Class, I congratulate you upon the 

 avocation you have chosen. There is no nobler, 

 no better. Gentlemen of the Faculty, I con- 

 gratulate you upon the showing that you make 

 to-night in this Graduating Class. 



For sixty-six years the College of Pharmacy 

 has stood and it has progressed constantly, for 

 to-night this class is the largest that has ever been 

 graduated from this college (applause), and not 

 the least, not the least feature that is pleasure- 

 able to me as a citizen of New York, is the fact 

 that in this class to-night are two young women 

 who have taken the full course and passed the 

 final examinations and now hold in their hands 

 the degrees to which they are entitled. (Ap- 

 plause. ) It is one of the proudest things in 

 the whole history of this college that for thirty 

 years it has thrown open its doors and given to 

 women the right to do such things as men do 

 rightly (applause); that it has acknowledged 

 the principle that whatever a man may do and 

 do rightly, that too a woman may do. Of 

 course, young ladies, when I make this state- 

 ment I have a mental reservation that men do 

 not wear bloomers. (Applause). I do not know 

 under the regime of the New Woman what we 

 may come to, but if my bloomers are cut I am 

 not aware of it. 



Members of the Graduating Class : I be- 

 lieve that it is customary on occasions like this 



