140 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 17, 1872- 
*** No notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions, Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
or publication, but as a guarantee of good faith . 
Provincial Education. 
Sir,—It is with no small amount of hesitation that I enter 
the lists on this question, knowing full well that it will receive 
thorough discussion at Brighton during the week. And I 
verily think that had not two of your last wrnek’s correspon¬ 
dents made certain statements in their letters, I should have 
been more than content to have held my peace upon the 
matter. 
Eor my own part, while fully recognizing the great im¬ 
portance of provincial education, I trust that the Council will 
not during the present financial year adopt any resolution for 
the furtherance of any scheme whatever. The subject is not 
yet ripe for settlement. Let the suggestion which has so ! 
frequently appeared in the pages of your Journal, and which 
is now adopted by Dr. Greenhow in liis able report, be carried 
out, namely, that it shall be compulsory for every youth to 
pass the “ Preliminary ” previous to his apprenticeship ; then 
we should obtain a revolution in provincial education, and 
one of a much more satisfactory and permanent character 
than that revolution which Mr. Pickering so eloquently advo¬ 
cates, and so complacently contemplates in his quixotic and 
impracticable details. Alter the lapse of a few years it would | 
then be quite time enough to consider what further was 
necessary, should the “individual effort ” of the educated ap¬ 
prentice of that period be not found sufficient. My firm 
opinion is that the scheme of Mr. Schacht, admirable as it is 
in theory, will fail in practice. 
One of the strongest reasons for provincial education, how¬ 
ever, is the assistance of those apprentices whose parents have 
not means sufficient to allow such apprentices to pursue their 
studies at Bloomsbury. To Mr. Schacht I would wish to con¬ 
vey my warmest thanks for having in his scheme so con¬ 
sidered the requirements of that class. Such suggestions can 
only emanate from a cultivated mind and a generous heart, 
and contrast mightily with the narrowness of the ideas ex¬ 
pressed by a ‘ Country Major Associate.’ The latter gentle¬ 
man is evidently one of those who, in their advocacy of 
certain crude notions of professional status, labour under the 
dismal hallucination that wrn are a profession, and that the 
public ought to see it. I wish that such as he could be made 
to see that we are rendered a laughing stock to our pro¬ 
fessional brethren by the presumption and ignorance dis¬ 
played in such correspondence as he has indulged in. But 
‘ Country Major Associate/ carries his views even beyond 
many of his compeers. He has such high and mighty notions 
of what he calls our “responsible profession” as to contem¬ 
plate with virtuous horror the admission of the sons of police¬ 
men, ostlers, etc., within the pale of the fold of the disciples 
of the late lamented Jacob Bell, and fears the disturbing in¬ 
fluence of such an accession upon the manes of our noble 
founder. I have yet to learn that pharmaceutical aptitude 
and commercial honour and integrity are to be sought for and 
found only within a certain social line of demarcation, the 
limits of which‘Country Major Associate,’in his own peculiar! 
wisdom, is alone to define. After this it wall scarcely surprise 
me to see added to our already strange advertisements, which 
specify stature and gentility, “ pedigree required, respecta¬ 
bility of collateral relatives absolutely necessary, any connec¬ 
tion with sweeps most undesirable.” 
Mr. Atkinson Pickering, with wonderful pertinacity, gives 
us further valuable information. Mr. Pickering must be 
aware that the country cannot be composed of Kingston - 
upon-Hulls. He must also possibly be aware that there are 
certain towns in the United Kingdom whose populations are 
exceedingly limited, but where, nevertheless, druggists may 
be found, although lectures may be unknown. I cannot com¬ 
prehend, therefore, why Mr. Pickering, whose liberal notions 
and proffers of assistance to his benighted and uneducated 
country brethren are notorious, would place such a tax upon 
“individual effort” as to exclude young men brought up in 
the last named class of towns from passing the Minor and 
Major without certificates of attendance at Mr. Pickering’s 
pet lectures. If Mr. Pickering’s scheme should ever be 
adopted, I may congratulate myself as being one born out of 
due time, having passed my examinations without having 
attended lectures either in the provinces or at Bloomsbury. 
A Country Pharmaceutical Chemist. 
August 12i th, 1872. 
Plucked for the Preliminary. 
Sir,—I am sure it is enough for me to tell you that I have- 
been unsuccessful in passing the Preliminary, to gain me your 
sympathy. How I failed I cannot say with certainty, but I 
have a suspicion -which I will presently disclose to you. Mean¬ 
while, I am determined to try again, and to this end I keep 
my Latin fresh in my mind by constant repetition of “ hie, 
hujus, huic, hunc, hoc,” etc., until my landlady thinks I aui 
poking fun at her; while in English I believe I have found 
a clue as to how many classes adverbs of time are divided into,, 
and I am not without hope that I shall soon obtain more 
correct information concerning the females upon which one 
of the questions at the last examination turned. 
But I am bad at figures; I always was, and, after recent 
experience, I am afraid I always shall be. Besides a natural 
inability to calculate, I labour under the disadvantage of 
having been taught an old-fashioned multiplication table 
commencing “ twice one are two.” 
Knowing my deficiency, you may guess, when I read their 
names in the Journal two months since,how I envied those gen¬ 
tlemen whose peculiar skill in figures fitted them for members- 
of the Pharmaceutical Society’s Einance Committee. When, 
therefore, I found in the J ournal last week that two of those 
gentlemen had been favouring the Council with some statistics, 
I thought—here is a chance to find out the system upon which 
modern arithmetic is based ! One of those gentlemen having 
stated that there were 5029 Pharmaceutical Chemists 
on the Register of whom only 2051 were members of the 
Society, I decided, my master having a copy of the 
Register, to find out how modern statistics were compiled. 
First I counted the number of pages,—roughly speaking 
about 30; next I counted the number of names i-n each 
page—average about 82. Thirty-times eighty-two, then, 
ought to give as a result something near to 5029. But, sir, 
upon the old system, it would not, and I am ashamed to tell 
you how far out the answer was. Then I marked the list off 
in tens and reckoned ten tens to a hundred. Wrong again! 
Next I counted the names one by one, and by the old system 
could only make it 2492, and I confess I was fairly puzzled. 
Suddenly I shouted “Eureka!” (I think that is the word), 
for it struck me that the other gentleman’s figures would 
throw some light upon the mystery. So as the first gentle¬ 
man had said there wrnre 12,000 chemists and druggists on 
the register, whilst there were only 2466 members of the- 
Society; and the second gentleman said that not one-twen¬ 
tieth of the chemists and druggists were members of the 
Society, I multiplied 2466 by 20, by the old system, and tried 
to obtain an answer under 12,000. But I couldn’t. So will 
you please give me your advice as to where I can get an arith¬ 
metic book based on the new system; or, if you cannot, 
please put the question in the Notes and Queries column. 
I want to go on for the Major, but I must get the Pre¬ 
liminary out of the way first, which I cannot hope to do- 
while I am so 
Perplexed. 
Manchester , August 14, 1872. (?) 
M. —We have no qualification for giving an answer upon 
the subject. 
C. J. Bell. —Hydrochloric acid is undoubtedly intended. 
J. L. W. —No; the Bill was withdrawn. 
JR. B. —Yes. 
Apprentice. —Apply to the Secretary at 17, Bloomsbury 
Square, for a copy of a pamphlet entitled “ Hints to 
Students.” 
Medicus. —Apply at Apothecaries’ Hall. 
Communications, Letters, etc., have been received from 
Mr. W. J. Williams, Mr. N. Chifney, Mr. J. R. Jackson, Mr. 
A. W. Gerrard, “ One who has Passed,” “ A Man,” 
“ Machaon,” “ T. Snooks,” C., J. L. 
In consequence of the pressure upon our space, consequent 
upon reporting the proceedings at Brighton this week, we are 
compelled to defer the publication of several communications - 
