767 
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. 
In tendering its first Report since the Pharmacy Act of 1868 came fully into 
operation, your Council has great pleasure in congratulating the Society upon 
its social and financial advancement, and the general approval by the trade and 
the public with which the new state of things inaugurated by the Pharmacy 
Act has been received. 
The financial statement shows a large increase of members, whose sub¬ 
scriptions have considerably augmented the revenue of the Society. 
Your Council notes with satisfaction that, during the past year, the sum of 
£4066.10s. has been invested in the Government funds to the credit of the Gene¬ 
ral Account; that a further sum of £1000 remained on deposit with the bankers; 
still leaving a balance in December in the Treasurer’s hands of nearly £1000. 
It is a matter of congratulation that a large number of those who have been 
registered as Chemists and Druggists have joined the Society as Members. 
But perhaps the most promising feature is the great addition to the roll of 
Registered Apprentices and Associates, whose alliance with the Society must 
tend to the practical advancement of the body ; they are the earnest of the 
future. The crowding of the laboratory and lecture-hall is most encouraging 
to the prospect of the progress of pharmacy. 
While regarding this progressive work with so much satisfaction, it seems 
scarcely necessary to point out that it could not be accomplished without in¬ 
creased cost; but your Council considers that the outlay on this head has been 
well expended. The call for further accommodation in the educational depart¬ 
ment has been carefully answered by your Council ; extra benches have been 
fitted for students, including proper arrangements for the prosecution of ana¬ 
lytical study, and a third teacher provided in the laboratory. No less than 
ninety students have entered to the chemical lectures, ninety-three to the bota¬ 
nical, and ninety-six to the laboratory course. 
Education has been, from the commencement, one of the most prominent 
objects of the Society’s care, and during the past year a desire for its acquire¬ 
ment has progressed even beyond the most sanguine hopes of former times. 
As a consequence of the increase in the number of persons seeking admission 
to the Register, by what may be called the natural channel, and from the provi¬ 
sion of the Act, which permitted a modified examination for assistants of three 
years’ standing, the labours of the Board of Examiners have been very greatly 
increased. It is due to the members of this Board to say that they have shown 
a devotion to their work worthy of all praise. 
Greatly increased responsibilities having fallen upon the Board, in consequence 
of the new conditions imposed by the Pharmacy Act, it was found necessary to 
review and amend the regulations. 
Primarily the test of a liberal education presented itself as a matter of para¬ 
mount importance. The Bye-Laws requiring that, in future, the Preliminary, 
or Matriculation Examination, should form a necessary precursor to the Minor 
and Major Examinations, it became a question how this Preliminary Examination 
should be conducted so as to cause the least possible inconvenience to candidates 
resident throughout the provinces, and still ensure a general uniformity in the 
examinations 5 hence the arrangement of a written examination, under the super¬ 
vision of the Local Secretaries, on the principle of the Local University and 
Science Schools Examinations. 
The operation of this new arrangement, so far as it has gone, lias proved 
most satisfactory, and your Council congratulates the Board of Examiners upon 
the highly practical test it has thus established of the fitness of young men 
entering the profession to take up the great principles of the science of phar- 
