THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST OF AUSTRALASIA 
Feb. 1st., 1880. 
10 
6bitoruil Hotcs. 
PROSPECTS OF CPIEMICAE TEACHING IN VICTORIA. 
Up till the present time the cliemical teaching and training to 
he had in Victoria have been of the most meagre. At the Uni- 
versity, the only theoretical chemistry taught consisted of a 
single course, called Medical Chemistry, because it was one of 
the subjects in the medical curriculum, and open only to 
medical students. The proper name of the course should have 
been Very Elementary Chemistry, for it was delivered to 
students who were assumed to have had no previous chemical 
teaching, and the ground it covered was not as wide as that 
contained in many a half-crown school text-book. A trifling 
course of qualitative analysis accompanied this, but was 
elevated to the dignity of a separate subject, under the name 
of Practical Chemistry. That is the whole tale told of the 
University chemical teaching, unless we take account of the 
twenty or thirty lectures on chemistry delivered by Professor 
M‘Coy in that marvellous fossil collection of lectures which 
constitute the single course of chemistry, mineralogy, and 
botany. These twenty lectures contain all the cliemistry that 
any non-medical student has been able to get access to in the 
University. There is something so ludicrously fatuous in the 
action of the University Council in permitting for so long a 
time two stich subjects as chemistry and botany to be served 
up in a single scientific liash, with a little mineralogy for gar- 
nish, that it seems almost absurd to be indignant ; but those 
who have the interests of science, especially of chemical 
science, at heart must feel that the council has very inade- 
quately discharged the duties of the important trust it has 
undertaken in directing the higher studies of the colony. 
However, quite recently, under the influence of internal ]n’es- 
sure and criticism, the council has been forced to do tardy 
justice to the science of chemistry in the University, and has 
arranged for a complete three years’ course worthy of the 
science and of an institution calling itself a inodern univer- 
sity. Along with the lectures are to go some proper courses 
of laboratory practice. The University already possesses a 
fair laboratory for general instruction ; but it will require to 
be extended and much better equipped before it is ready for 
advanced ^\ ork. For a month past the colonial press has 
contained advertisements for application from local candidates 
for the new professorship of chemistry. These are to be sent 
to England, and adjudicated upon along with the applications 
called for in England, by a board of experts. It is a matter 
for congratulation that the University has decided to call for 
applications in England, and not to continue the evil policy 
of appointing new professors merely from local candidates, 
and as the salary is to rise by steady increments from £750 to 
£1,‘200 a year, a good chemist ought to be secured. Of course, 
it is to be remembered that the best class of man, tlie enthu- 
siast and original researcher, is hard to tempt away from tlie 
splendidly equipped laboratories and libraries of Europe— 
from the privilege of personal communion witli his fellows, 
and the general scientific atmosphere, which to him is life ; 
but Australia does not seem to lie so much out of the world 
as it did fifteen years ago. What is wanted is a man that can 
organise and set in working order the new scheme — one who 
brings not only enthusiasm for his work, but that force of 
character that can communicate its enthusiasm to others, for 
what is lacking most in the students of Australian universities 
is enthusiasm in subjects for their own sakes, and not for the 
sake of passes and scholarships in them. With the advent of 
the new professor of chemistry and the new professor of 
biology, an influx of vitality is to be looked for on tlie scienti- 
fic side of the Melbourne University, and it will come none 
too soon. 
The action of the Phaimiaceutical Society in sending home 
for as high class a man as can be secured for the position of 
Director of the Melbourne College of Pharmacy, ought to 
result in decided benefit to pharmaceutical chemistry through- 
out the colonies. Hitherto, the arrangements for conducting 
the College of Pharmacy have been of an unmistakably make- 
shift cliaracter, and tlie aim of the work done there has been 
very little liigher than to secure a bare pass for the students 
at the Pharmacy Board examinations. It will certainly be 
unwise on the part of the Council of the Pharmaceutical 
Society if they insist on the directors conducting all the 
classes as hitherto. He should be allowed to specialise, and 
to that end should have assistance given him in some sub- 
jects, for otherwise the director will not he able to rise to a 
higher level than that of an expert coach. The Pharmaceuti- 
cal Society should aim at making the instruction given at the 
college not merely such as will give the students tlie bare 
legal qualification that is required, but will impress upon them 
the conviction that xiharmacy is a field of science in which tliere 
is abundance of room for original work. Of course, the average 
student, when he finally gets through and goes into business, 
finds quite sufiicient outlet for all his energies in the close 
duties of the shop. If the college turns him out a reliable 
dispenser, that is about as much as it can liope to do witli 
liiin ; hut with the choice spirits it is otherwise, as in every 
other walk of life there are the men that liave not only the 
energy to discharge faithfully the ordinary average duties of 
business, but possess a surplus, which they are prepared to 
devote to helping the world on ; and the truest service which 
the Society can do to Australian pharmacy is to give its ablest 
young men a respect and enthusiasm for their calling, which 
shall make them regard it not only as their business, but as a 
branch of science, to wliose advancement it is in their power 
to contribute. 
The teaching at the College of Pharmacy ought to be 
worked up to such a standard that if ever the idea of last 
year’s International Pliarmaceutical Congress is realised, and 
a common examinational standard adopted all over tlie world, 
with the degree of Doctor in Pharmacy conferred on all who 
reach it, colonial pharmaceutical students will not find the 
new regulations a hardsliip, and will, tlirough the quality and 
quantity of the work done by them, be as well entitled to the 
dignity of a degree as University students. But it is certainly 
not to be hoped that this can be accomplished if the teaching 
he all left in one man’s hands. If any one degree course at 
the University were all under one professor, very little value 
would be attached to any degrees conferred in it. 
Meanwhile, those who for years have felt depressed by the 
