194 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[September 7, 1872. 
time to do what has been done. It took 30 years to esta¬ 
blish Bloomsbury Square properly. But look at the 
gentlemen on the platform. Two-thirds of them were 
students at Bloomsbury Square, and you tell me that 
the examination was not strict enough. The regulations 
put down in the paper could be made so strict that nine 
men out of ten could not pass them. I have had a good 
man y gentlemen pass through my hands. I have had 
some who are in this room now; and I would ask them 
whether, although I was tolerably good-natured, if I 
•did not at the same time give them quite as much as 
they wished to have. But to come back to Bloomsbury 
Square and compulsory education. It is said that Blooms¬ 
bury has done nothing to make education compulsory. 
»Vhy> Bloomsbury has done the only thing that could 
•make education compulsory. Bloomsbury passed your 
Act of 1868; and without that Act pharmaceutical 
education never would have been compulsory. That Act 
compels examination; examination enforces education. 
How can a man be examined, with a hope of success 
if he is not educated F But there is also another point 
which should be borne in mind. Our Professor 
quotes our examination, and he compares it with the 
examination. and the rules of the examiners of the 
other scientific bodies—the Colleges of Physicians and 
feurgeons. But then he forgets this one circumstance: 
that the examinations of physicians and suro-eons 
have been compulsory more than half a century, 
whereas ours have been compulsory only for four years ; 
therefore, you should not compare our regulations 
. fkeir regulations. And then there is another point 
which you must bear in mind. Although the Act could 
render the examination compulsory, the Act could not 
alter the character of the men or boys who were already 
in the business. . There are men in the business who 
had these boys in their care previously; and there 
must be time allowed to work out all that. We 
are all agreed about the Preliminary; and I have 
no doubt that that will come as a matter of course. But 
when we speak cf the Minor examination, I believe that 
in a tew years, and a very few years, too, the youths will 
nome up from their apprenticeship in a condition to pass 
that examination. Their masters, or the gentlemen 
taking apprentices, will improve with the times ; and if 
iney cannot give them all the information necessary, thev 
will give them all that they can, and they will advise 
them to go to other sources to finish their education, and 
.? fhe extra,knowledge which is necessary to pass 
^ J V . or * ^ ° u w iP thus get in time good practical men 
ol business, who have learnt the practical part of their 
business m the shops and not at the lectures. I will not 
trespass on your time any longer, gentlemen, because I 
hid not intend to occupy it in any way whatever. I 
approve of Mr. Reynolds’s scheme with the amendment 
which the Council added to it at the end of the session. I 
also appsove, to a.certain extent, of Mr. Schacht’s scheme. 
I do not care which system you adopt. You might even 
employ both systems so long as you adopt something 
which will help young men to get qualified ; but if you 
attempt to supply the education which the parents should 
give m the first instance, and the master in the second, 
it will be a failure. 
Mr. M. Carteighe said: I fancy that Mr. Haselden 
has been somewhat hard upon Professor Attfield, be- 
eause he has. to some extent misinterpreted him, but 
at the same time I must honestly say that the tone of 
this communication and the strong language used justify 
some of ns in thinking that it merits strong condemna¬ 
tion ; but the real question in Professor Attfield’s paper 
is, assuming cram to exist, can it be prevented ? He 
states so positively throughout that cram does exist, 
that 1 presume we must take his ipse dixit for it. His 
statements read to me so superlative and so innocent 
- a n--i r o y - began to . wo . nder whether there be cram 
in Uvil Service examinations—whether there be cram 
an other departments of the State—whether indeed there 
be cram at South Kensington about which Dr. Foster 
can tell us anything. The fact is that cram has been 
rampant ever since examinations have been in existence. 
You cannot get rid of it, but the Professor has very 
kindly educated us to day as to the best way of reducing it 
to a minimum. Well, he has initiated three propositions. 
The first is Preliminary examinations. Well, we have had 
them for some time. The next is a certificate that the 
candidates have been for four years with a duly regis¬ 
tered chemist and druggist. AVell, I apprehend that this 
suggestion has occurred to many over and over again. 
If there, be one defect in our examinations that is just 
the crucial one. We do not insist upon that particular 
practical knowledge which represents, after all, the 
summum magnum of our examinations. Examinations at 
the best can only be tests of a certain amoimt of know¬ 
ledge, and if we were to extend the time from twenty 
minutes to two hours, it would be impossible for any 
professor, be he Professor Attfield or Professor Tait, to 
state precisely that man’s value in the science in which 
he was being examined. You must take a certain amount 
of knowledge for granted on the facts before you, and 
it is quite possible that in some cases, nay even in many 
cases, you may be mistaken ; but in all examinations of 
this kind, there is always a large margin allowed for ner¬ 
vousness and irritability of temper either on the part of 
the examiner, or. on the part of the candidate. Well, 
now we may admit, as I said before, that there is cram, 
although I am not at all prepared to admit a large part 
of what is here written without the evidence which 
should have been brought forward to convince us that 
the Board has been passing inefficient men for so long a 
time. But as the Professor’s object is one which we all 
have at heart, that is, to make the examination as useful 
as possible,itis not worth while to cavil about the evidence. 
The remedy is the point to which we come, and that 
remedy is obtaining a certificate of having been four years 
with a duly registered chemist and druggist, and of having- 
attended certain lectures. Well, as regards the first, 
the certificate from the chemist and druggist. Perhaps 
Professor Attfield is not aware that this subject has been 
discussed over and over again both at the Council table 
and at the Board of Examiners, and that resolutions 
have been proposed and submitted that arrangements to 
that effect should be carried out. The Board have sent 
up recommendations to the Council on more than one 
occasion, and as lately as last year they sent up a state¬ 
ment that it would strengthen their hands very much 
if. they could get certificates from chemists and drug¬ 
gists that a candidate had been engaged for four years in 
daily preparing himself and accustoming himself to the 
routine of his business. But there have been difficul¬ 
ties in the way. Now if the Professor’s paper should 
help us to get over them he will, in my judg¬ 
ment, be amply rewarded. Besides the four years, 
the Board desired to insist upon every candidate’s being 
20 or 21 years of age. Well, as a matter of expe¬ 
diency, the Council gave us to understand, although I do 
not. believe , any resolution was passed that it is not 
desirable to insist upon a four years’ certificate or a fixed 
age. The age is very important, because the cram 
which I have found is that which is obtained as the 
candidates pass through the Society's own laboratory. 
We have found it among those young men who have 
tolerably well-to-do parents or guardians, and who go 
to a shop for six months, get rather above it, and are 
then sent to the School of Pharmacy. These young men 
come to us very fair chemists and botanists, but they 
kno w next to nothing about the particular part of the 
business by which we gain our daily bread, and they fail 
to pass. We are ordered by the Act under which we 
conduct our examinations to examine in half-a-dozen 
subjects, but I presume the Professor alludes more par¬ 
ticularly to chemistry. I repeat that we have found 
the cram to be most rampant in those young men, 
otherwise brilliant, who have never been in a shop for any 
