THE ALUMNI JOURNAL, 



137 



QUERY No. 2.— SHOULD PHARflACEUTICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS DIVIDE TIME 



BETWEEN THE SCHOOL AND THE SHOP?* 



By prof. OSCAR OLDBERG. 



TOURING the entire period of his college 

 *-^ courses, the student should, if possi- 

 ble, devote his whole time and attention to 

 his studies, to the exclusion of all other 

 occupations — first, because, within cer- 

 tain limits, he can accomplish twice as 

 much in two hours as in one, and, 

 secondly, because his work as a student 

 will be much more effective when his 

 mind is free from all other cares and 

 duties than when certain days and hours 

 belong to his employer and all his study- 

 ing must be done when he is not on duty 

 at the store. 



Pharmaceutical college students who 

 work in drug stores while at college, do 

 so, with rare exceptions, solely for the 

 sake of wages they are able to earn to 

 pay their expenses. But any student, 

 who, by reason of limited means, finds it 

 necessary to earn a part of his expenses 

 by rendering any kind of service for 

 wages, must, of course, at the same time, 

 submit to a corresponding loss of time 

 in his school work. He cannot eat his 

 apple and save it too. Necessity may 

 compel him to submit to this loss if he 

 is unable to attend college at all in any 

 other way ; but it a costly method, for it 

 is evident that all of the time he devotes 

 to wage-earning must be made up by 

 proportionately lengthening his college 

 attendance, his attention is diverted from 

 his studies even when he is not on duty 

 at the store, and the colleges of pharmacy 

 bear testimony in their annual announce- 

 ments that the wages paid to students 

 are small. As a matter of fact the stu- 

 dents in attendance at any college of 

 pharmacy can, as a rule, earn no more 



*Read at the 42d Annual Meeting of the American 

 Pharmaceutical Association, Sept., 1894. 



than the cost of their room and meals, 

 and the wages they earn are, of course, 

 in inverse proportion to the amount of 

 school work they are required to do. 



President Bliot ot Harvard University 

 stated in a recent address that students 

 attending universities and colleges ought 

 to devote ten hours daily to their studies. 

 This opinion is in accord with the pre- 

 vailing custom in all educational institu- 

 tions, pharmaceutical as well as others, 

 which are not conducted on the assump- 

 tion that their students must be given sUflfi- 

 cient time unoccupied by studies to enable 

 them to earn their living during the same 

 time which they devote to their education. 



Colleges or schools of pharmacy so 

 managed that the students can earn their 

 expenses by employment in drug stores 

 throughout the school sessions exist only 

 in America. 



I have heard and seen the opinion ex- 

 pressed that pharmaceutical college 

 students make more thorough progress 

 in their studies when they divide their 

 time between the college and the store. 

 It is claimed that continuous employ- 

 ment in the shop during the entire col- 

 lege course affords valuable aid to the 

 student, because, it is said, he can then 

 from day to day find opportunities to ap- 

 ply or verify what he learns in the lecture 

 room, etc. One teacher has, in a letter 

 to me, expressed such earnest convictions 

 in that direction that I am led to believe 

 that he would prefer a system of phar- 

 maceutical education which actually re- 

 quires the student to alternate from day 

 to day between the college and the shop. 

 But such a system, in order to be of any 

 value, must provide that the student is 



