IN THE FUTURE. 
503 
for writers; therefore a few words in the other direction may not be altogether 
out of season. Youth is more prone to pleasure than work, can better appre¬ 
ciate the enjoyment of a game of cricket or football, than the possible advan¬ 
tages to be gained in the future by present work and study, and it is a fact and 
no wonder, that as a rule, the young require some inducement to study, either 
by hope of reward, dread of punishment, or the good example of those who have 
the management of them ; that there is a difference in teachers as well as pupils 
none will venture to deny. One man brings his pupils on while they drag after 
another; one by his own love for the work, and a happy way of making it look 
like pleasure, creates a feeling similar to his own, a relish for the task, whilst 
another can scarcely keep alive the dying embers. Turning to a matter more 
immediately interesting, is it not equally so in business, and do not masters and 
apprentices afford a parallel case? perhaps I ought to write proprietors and 
pupils. Now the subject which I am desirous of considering has always ap¬ 
peared to me a very important and serious one, and at this particular juncture 
more than usually so : whenever any one takes a youth into his establishment 
to be taught the art and mystery of his business, it is a most serious responsi¬ 
bility that he incurs. He undertakes to give him such instruction as will 
enable him at some future day to carry on business for himself or others, and 
not simply to buy and sell, but to the best of his abilities to carry it on success¬ 
fully ; if the consideration of this were important when no actual standard of 
qualification was required, how much more so must it be now that examination 
is compulsory, and much, and how much, of a young man’s future depends 
upon the manner in which the ordeal is passed ? I feel that I am treading 
upon delicate ground, and I do it with all deference towards those who are my 
seniors in many respects; but in asking for the future, it is almost impossible 
to steer clear of the past. Have masters hitherto felt, and do they now feel, 
to the fullest extent what is due from them to their apprentices, to the youths 
whom they have taken into their homes, and with whom they have received 
a money consideration ? I see before me visions of many ghosts taking the 
shape of questions and answers which reply freely and loudly, No ! I am not 
about to enter upon the oft-repeated subject of early closing, and hours set 
apart for study, but rather upon some of the realities—the every-day dry reali¬ 
ties—of life in the pharmaceutist’s establishment. 
It would be out of character if it should be said that a master ought to teach 
his apprentice orthography, arithmetic, and Latin; but would it not be well if 
before taking him into a business where a knowledge of these is essential, he 
ascertained that he possessed at least as much of each as was requisite, and in 
after days encouraged him in keeping it up. It could scarcely be expected that 
he would teach him chemistry from a scientific point of view, but he might 
urge the necessity of being able to recognize specimens, of becoming acquainted, 
theoretically at least, with the pharmacopoeia processes, and, practically where 
possible, explain to him the certain changes, for chemistry deals in facts which 
occur in simple decompositions, and the ordinary tests for distinguishing good 
from bad. Again, amongst the drugs, such as roots, barks, fruits, gums, resins, 
etc., he might so instruct him during four or five years that he would know 
almost any of them by sight, and from this, the desire for a more intimate 
knowledge would arise ; hence the question of habitats and natural orders 
would follow, leading on to the most interesting subject of botany, in which 
the recognition of the ordinary indigenous or commonly cultivated medicinal 
plants would naturally become a matter of inquiry, passing to elementary struc¬ 
ture, organs of nutrition, and parts of a flower; and thus would spring up a 
lasting and enduring spirit of inquiry, and the industrious, painstaking, know¬ 
ledge-loving youth would be led on to read and extend his fund of information 
until at last the instructor may find that he must rub up to keep pace with the 
rising generation. 
