40 



niimarried ; such unwholesome symptoms are usually most couspicuous 

 in institutions with the least merit. The preparation of an undergraduate 

 thesis may be a valuable item In the course if it is not so administered as 

 to waste the student's time, narrow his mind, and swell his head. 1 

 believe its most valuable feature is its compelling him to go to original 

 sources for information, namely, library worlc. Too many students gradu- 

 ate without this experience and with a knowledge of books limited to the 

 prescribed texts employed in the course. To choose a subject of real in- 

 terest to the i^tudeut and of suitably narrow scope, and to find out by 

 systematic search in the scie^itiflc .iournals all that is known about it, and 

 then to write an essay in which the information is carefully arranged and 

 well presented, is a task well worth the performance. 



It is entirely laudable for every institution to aim at ever higher 

 goals; not, however, by raising the entrance requirements beyond the reach 

 of its natural constituents to meet, even at the dictation of some self- 

 appointed board demanding uniformity under diverse conditions, and not by 

 changing the object of its training — there would not be any necessary gain 

 to the community at large should a school of pharmacy gradually become 

 a theological seminary or even a medical college; a school of pharmacy 

 is just as necessary as either of the others. 



It is perfectly natural for any teacher or group of teachers to aspire 

 to more advanced grades of work, but this should not be undertaken 

 unless the more elementary and fundamental work is adequately cared for. 

 We are suffering frcan too much iinil)ili()n of this kind; too many trade 

 schools attempt to lie technical colleges, and too many colleges attempt to 

 be universities, at the expense of their efflciency in their original equally 

 important field. Let us imagine that every grade school gradually intro- 

 duced more and more work of the high school, and thift every high school 

 gradually became a college, and that every college gave more and more of 

 its energies to graduate students: Or let us imagine that every institution 

 giving grammar school instruction attempted also to provide training 

 through the high school, college and university curriculum ! What a ridicu- 

 lous and inefficient educational system must result. Roughly speaking, for 

 every thousand grade schools we need about a hundred high schools, ten 

 colleges and technical schools, and one graduate university. 



Fortunaicly there is a supervision that prevents the transforniatiou of 

 grade schools into high schools, aud separates the work of the two as soon 



