NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
C13 
conducting, it may be, a good provincial business in all its admixture and variety of 
operations, we feel that our patrician brethren are not in a position to understand our 
case. Undoubtedly pharmacy should have our first and best love. The arrangements 
in regard to the dispensing should ensure accuracy and efficiency; the repute of the 
principal for ability and a thorough acquaintance with his calling should be such as to 
command the confidence of the public; but, unless the public will obligingly swallow 
as much physic as will maintain his status and repay him for his educational outlay, he 
is compelled to “ go in ” for the Sunday trade. It is true the need for this admixture 
is not so great in a good thriving agricultural district, cattle medicines in all their 
variety forming an important and legitimate source of income. Granted that it is de¬ 
sirable to raise the educational standard of pharmaceutists, and present a lofty ideal to 
their imagination, it is none the less true that the majority are called upon to spend 
their lives in attention to matters which the proprietors of select pharmacies would 
deem infra dig . Whilst discoursing on this head of pharmaceutical ethics, I cannot but 
express the fear that we have far more to apprehend in the future from the reduction of 
prices through excessive competition. I am quite aware this is a matter beyond the 
reach of legislation, for this very reason ought the voice of condemnation to be strong 
and clear through those media we possess for expressing the same. 3. Mr. Giles refers 
“to the unsatisfactory position of apprenticeship.” That the difficulty exists there can 
be no doubt. First-class houses increasingly decline the responsibility, and youths are 
remitted too often for their training to establishments unable to furnish either knowledge 
or discipline. The cause or causes for this state of things shall form (with your per¬ 
mission) the subject of another communication. One word as to the remedy, and I 
have done. That the term of apprenticeship might with advantage be reduced to 
three years, I have no doubt. In that case, however, it would be highly desirable a 
youth should have a thoroughly liberal and prolonged school education, and not com¬ 
mence his business training until he had reached his sixteenth or seventeenth year. 
Graver obstacles stand in the way of Mr. Giles’ second suggestion. I refer to non¬ 
residence in the house of business. Out-door apprenticeship, for the most part, would 
be practicable only in those instances where the youth had his home in the same town. 
Two objections present themselves, viz. the cost of such arrangements, and the want of 
that moral influence and supervision which every thoughtful man would consider in 
placing out his son. With the first of these difficulties your correspondent deals. I do 
not think it would be so readily met as he supposes, unless we draw our apprentices 
from a wealthy class in society. And then, as to the moral culture of our youth, this 
is a question of primary importance to every employer. That the consciousness of 
responsibility in this particular exists, and existing, deters many competent men from 
taking apprentices, will be readily admitted. Still, it is a responsibility which must be 
accepted by some one whilst human nature remains what it is. A lad of seventeen in 
lodgings, away from all controlling influences, when the hours of business have closed, 
is not likely to mature into the assistant your advertising sheet reveals is still in request. 
—I am, yours truly, S. R. Atkins, Salisbury , March 11, 1869. 
TheModified Examination .—To theEditors of the Pharmaceutical Journal,—As by'vir¬ 
tue of the “ Pharmacy Act,” all assistants who are twenty-one years of age are compelled 
to pass the Modified Examination, and all apprentices and assistants under twenty-one 
must necessarily pass the Minor, perhaps you will not consider it out of place if I say 
a few words upon the subject of examination. And firstly, touching the Modified 
Examination, 1 think the majority of assistants will grant that it is particularly 
simple and easy, which every young man laying claim to an acquaintance with the 
business of a Chemist and Druggist, ought to pass with ease; yet it is with some 
surprise that we find a number of those who go up for this Modified Examination, fail 
to pass. Consequently we are led to ask, How a young man who has attained the age of 
twenty-one has been employing his valuable time that at the end of his apprenticeship he 
is not able to distinguish and name even the commonest pharmaceutical drugs? What 
a deplorable condition for a young man to be placed in ! But now the day has dawned, 
the candles of night are burning low, and the sun is just beginning to dawn, and will 
soon shine out gloriously, dispersing the clouds which now hang over the minds of 
those who ought, by virtue of their profession, to be educated men. In all study it is 
of the utmost importance to know what to study and how to study, for without first being 
