272 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
customed to dispense, indeed, time was when they alone were properly quali¬ 
fied for the purpose ; and, for the state of things we desire, we must rely on 
the change that is gradually taking place in medical education, which tends 
more and more towards physiology and therapeutics, and concerns itself less 
and less with pharmacy and materia medica. 
On the other hand we may fairly claim from the medical profession equal 
consideration, since we like themselves are but servants of the public, whose 
ideas of right and wrong, in respect to medical advice can only be reformed 
by a sort of educational process. Most of all it is for us to show that practice 
in those branches of medical science to which we are specially devoted may 
safely be left in our hands, and in the mutual confidence thus established, 
the ground for jealousy will soon disappear. 
The importance of these ethical considerations, read in the light of our new 
responsibilities, must be my apology for their introduction here, and the ex¬ 
pression, however imperfectly, of the views I have endeavoured to bring before 
you, enables me with lighter mind to approach the main object of my address. 
To you, gentlemen, who are assembled to-night as your commencement of 
student-life in this Institution, I speak on behalf of those who watch over its 
affairs, and in their name I bid you welcome—not in the mere formal expression 
of words prompted by a distant courtesj^, but as to younger brethren in the 
same vocation, with the hearty grasp of new-found fellowship. We have in this 
relationship an almost equal interest with yourselves that you should reap the 
uttermost advantage, intellectual and social, from your connection with this 
School. You are met together here under widely differing circumstances, 
but with the same general object, that object being systematic study . I use 
the word systematic because it expresses the chief value of the sort of study 
you are about to engage in, and represents precisely the quality which most 
of you have not hitherto been able to attain. It is too often the case that 
the period of life which you are now entering upon is the only one in which 
general systematic study is possible. We may—nay, if we do rightly, we 
must—ever remain students ; but the quest of knowledge, especially of scien¬ 
tific knowledge, during the intervals of business or in the moments spared 
from professional toil, is beset with difficulties, and the results obtained are 
of themselves fragmentary and unconnected. It is in after life that the 
man who has done his elementary work well and systematically reaps its 
full advantage ; for he has ready a framework, more or less elaborate, in 
which each new truth finds a natural place. Possibly there is not one of 
you who has not an acquaintance with a number of facts in chemistry, materia 
medica, pharmacy, and even in botany; facts partially acquired by reading, 
but more by casual, I had almost said by accidental, observation, whilst en¬ 
gaged in the practical duties of the laboratory or the dispensing counter. 
These are of but little value, from their want of connection, and inspire their 
possessor with no confidence so long as they are held with the unavoidable 
consciousness of the extent of the unknown by which they are surrounded 
and separated. The human mind, in respect to any particular department of 
knowledge, may be likened at the outset to a blank map of a country on 
which even the outline is but dimly traced, and its relation to surrounding 
states ill-defined. If we scatter a few landmarks over its surface to represent 
the items of knowledge obtained by the casual observation I have alluded 
to, we reflect the condition preceding systematic study. The object is then 
to cover the ground with these landmarks as completely as time and oppor¬ 
tunity permit, and what is even more important, to lay down those principles 
which, like high-roads, not only mark the way to the points that have been 
determined, but also show the connection between them. The facts you 
have already gathered may not even be your starting-point, but if-not, you 
