August 24,1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
153 
denounce is the insidious and wicked process I have de¬ 
tailed ; the thing which flourishes under the Pharmacy 
Act as it never before flourished, or can flourish in any other 
Court of Examiners—the thing which if not uprooted, or 
even if allowed to continue in its present stage of deve¬ 
lopment, will render provincial schools unnecessary, and 
your central school the partial success that it has. been 
made by the attendance hitherto ot a few admirable 
pupils annually. ^ . 
A few admirable pupils annually. Yes, pharmaceutical 
education is not yet swamped by superficiality or 
crushed by cram, (food men, most of them pupils ol the 
Society’s School of Pharmacy, still present themselves 
before the Board of Examiners as in the years before 
1868. This is nearly all I can say for Pharmaceutical 
Education—Present. I regret to have to say so much 
of pharmaceutical cramming, but I could not say less. , 
I can assure my readers, especially those who, with 
the great mass of the public, erroneously consider exa¬ 
mination to be the panacea for all ignorance, that I have j 
understated the case as regards cramming. I presume 
no one will doubt the existence of the evil who observes 
what is going on around him, and if he doubts the ex- 
tent let him ascertain how many teachers pointedly 
question their pupils as to what each has been asked by 
the Board of Examiners, and how many pupils alto¬ 
gether such teachers have had during, for instance, the 
past session. 
Pharmaceutical Education .— Future. 
Discussion on the future of pharmaceutical education 
will be facilitated by a consideration of the causes 
which have reduced it to its present low position. The 
statement has been made that the standard ot the Minor 
examination has not been altered; that the Major, if 
changed at all, has been improved ; that the examiners 
are mostly those who sat before 1868. Why should 
cram be more rife now than ever \ Why does cram 
flourish at all ? 
As to the standard of examinations, I maintain that 
it has been lowered enormously, The examination 
which the collective wisdom of the leading pharmacists 
of the country had devised as that best fitted to test the 
capacity and capabilities of an assistant in pharmacy, 
and which always with the same object in view, had 
been altered and improved and made more practical 
from time to time during nearly thirty years, is sud¬ 
denly so lowered en masse as to be the examination for 
testing the capacity and capabilities of a principalin phar¬ 
macy, while the assistant is no longer asked to pass 
an examination specially devised for men of his own class. 
The examination originally designed as the minimum 
gauge or measure of a man’s fitness to conduct business 
on his own account (the Major) must now logically be 
considered as indicating that he is somewhat above his 
business or better than he need be, a distinction so 
lightly valued that very few more aspire to it now than 
under the old voluntary system of examination. . Of 
course no one pays the founders of the Pharmaceutical 
Society such an equivocal compliment as is implied in 
this state of things ; on the contrary, I presume that 
every one considers that the old standards were 
wisely chosen and strengthened, and that when the 
present period of expediency and transition has passed, 
the old positions will be regained. If this be the policy 
of the Society it has my concurrence ; I quite approve 
of the tactics by which the Pharmacy Act of 1868 was 
obtained. I point to the fact that the education formerly 
only good enough for assistants is now considered good 
enough for masters, as one that refutes the statement 
concerning the non-alteration in the standards of exa¬ 
mination, and as one that could not do otherwise than 
damage the cause of pharmaceutical education. 
Again, in the days of voluntary examination educa¬ 
tion was the chief object; examination was considered 
only as a test of the possession of education, and the 
passing of the “Minor” was only an incident in the 
student’s career. Now, except by.the few, examination 
is regarded as the end and education the means. N ot 
only° have education and examination changed places 
in general estimation, but while examination has kept 
its place, education has been forced from above to below 
—it has lost two places. Looking to the depression of 
the examination standard that I have already spoken, 
education has been thrust to a very low position indeed. 
Cram now flourishes in pharmacy to a greater extent 
than it did prior to 1868, simply because the. demand 
for it under a compulsory system of examination .is so 
great that its development on a. grand scale is highly 
remunerative. "Why cram flourishes at ail at any exa¬ 
mination is because examiners are but human and exa¬ 
mination at its best a most imperfect machine for ascer- 
tainin 0- the nature and amount of a man s kno.v ledge. 
Why it flourishes to a tenfold extent at our examinations 
as compared with any other in England or. the Conti¬ 
nent—and it does so—is because our Examining Board 
does not possess either of. the guarantees against it 
possessed by other Examining Boards. In all Europe 
there is no system of examination so litiblc to dbu.se ds 
our own. It is not exactly like any other, but ap¬ 
proaches in character most nearly to those of the Lon¬ 
don University and the Medical Corporations. It 
resembles the general system of the London University 
(that is, excluding the examinations foi degrees in medi¬ 
cine) to the extent of being conducted on principles 
similar to those by which free-trade is go veined.. A 
candidate at either board is not asked where he obtained 
his knowledge. The assumption acted on is. that biam- 
power can be accurately measured by examination, and 
that if possessed to the requisite extent its source is 
immaterial. But at the London University a candidate 
is liable to be taken over a large area, by a special exa¬ 
miner in each subject, the most eminent man as re¬ 
gards his subject that the kingdom can furnish. Even 
under these circumstances the time allowed to this 
examiner for viva [voce examination of .his candidate, 
though as long as practicable, is quite insufficient, to 
allow of the whole "area being traversed, hence a just 
decision cannot be given with certainty, lhus an en¬ 
trance for cram is provided, for it is not brain-power 
that is measured so much as memory, or the faculty 
of storing facts. But at the pharmaceutical examina¬ 
tions the area embraced by any one. subject is not large,, 
the examiner in any one subject is not, and it is un¬ 
necessary that he should be, the most eminent as re¬ 
gards that subject that the country can produce, and 
the time given to examination m any one subject is 
quite insufficient for thoroughly traversing even e 
limited area, nor would it be sufficient it doub e ic 
present length. Thus even the imperfect guarantee 
against excessive cramming which obtains at the on- 
don University is not possessed by our own Board 
Next, our examinations resemble those of the Golle e 
of Physicians, College of Surgeons and Apothecaries 
Hall, 'in so far as they are conducted b> lollop ers of 
the same profession or calling as that which the can¬ 
didate aspires to enter. But these boards possess a 
guarantee against cramming, which, though not-pcso , 
is of great power and value and is whollj wantm 0 at 
Bloomsbury Square. Every candidate must produce evi¬ 
dence that he has had the opportunity of beingpro- 
nerlv educated at a recognized school tor tour j ears, as 
well as in preliminary matters, and inasmuch as more- 
Urai ninety per cent, ’of the candidates have, for obvious 
reasons, taken all the advantage they 
opportunities, cramming is reduced to 
proportions compared to the position occupied by edu. 
cation. This supplement to examination u.also^ re 
quired by nearly all the phannacentical exammmg 
boards on the Continent, I repeat that our examrn 
tions, as at present organized especially thef ^ n01 ’^ d 
courage the rank growth of the noisome thing termed 
