September 23, 1372.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
243 
and materia medica, as these should be studied by 
qualified and accomplished pharmacists in short 
courses of lectures with imperfect means of illustra¬ 
tion. It must not be understood, however, that I 
object to such lectures, which are often the only ones 
available; neither do I object to the use by stu¬ 
dents at a certain period of their studies, of short 
condensed treatises, sometimes called cram books; 
nor, under certain circumstances, to the services 
rendered by qualified tutors in guiding the pupil in 
the path he should pursue, and testing his know¬ 
ledge as he proceeds. It is not the use of these 
means that is justly subject to condemnation, but 
the abuse of them; and what I think should be 
particularly guarded against is that such teaching 
should be represented and considered as anything 
more than partial aids to the furtherance of a more 
comprehensive and complete system. I would not 
honour with the name of a school, for our purpose, | 
any establishment that was not provided with the 
means of giving complete and thorough instruction 
to pharmaceutical students. Let such schools be 
established wherever they can be maintained, or 
rather, I should say, wherever they can maintain 
themselves, in an active and efficient state. I see 
no reason why they should not be self-supporting 
and very good reasons why they should not be mere 
sucklings of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
Then, it may be asked, is the Pharmaceutical 
Society to be exonerated from all charge and re¬ 
sponsibility with regard to pharmaceutical education? 
I should be the last to make such a proposition. 
But tliis brings me to the consideration of the ques¬ 
tion, 
By whom and in what way should the education 
we require be provided ? 
With reference to this question it is important to 
notice that the contemplated education is not merely 
for the apprentices and pupils of members of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, but for all future practi¬ 
tioners in pharmacy, including the pupils of those, 
three-fourths of whom are unconnected until the 
Society. Neither is the education referred to the 
whole, but only a part, of that which is required for 
the qualification of a chemist and druggist. It is 
the part supplementary to that which for a money 
consideration is stipulated for in the apprenticeship 
or pupilage, which should, if it does not, always form 
the commencement of a complete pharmaceutical 
education. To the extent to which the knowledge 
obtained during apprenticeship is deficient, that 
which is supplied by class or school teaching must 
be capable of filling up what is wanted to complete 
the statutory qualification. One part of this educa¬ 
tion is as necessary as the other. The whole as in¬ 
dicated by the test examination is the guarantee of 
proficiency given to the public in return for exclusive 
privileges. 
It is no longer a question as to whether scientific 
knowledge is requisite or not. The time has been 
when it was not so, when all the druggist thought 
it necessary for him to do was to satisfy an imper¬ 
fectly informed public that he knew enough to enable 
him to supply them with what they wanted in his 
line of business. But that time is passed. En¬ 
lightened and disinterested members of the trade, 
desirous of elevating the position of their calling, 
and at the same time of furthering the interests of 
medicine and the safety and welfare of the public, 
initiated a new era in which a more complete educa¬ 
tion was provided. Hitherto the Pharmaceutical 
Society, with whom the proposition originated, has 
been almost exclusively chargeable for the establish¬ 
ment and maintenance of the supplementary educa¬ 
tion thus offered. It was a new and untried experi¬ 
ment in this country, the predicted advantages of 
which were disbelieved in by many, nay, by most, 
even of those immediately and directly interested in 
it. This education has been supplied at a merely 
nominal charge to those who have partaken of its 
benefits, the Society defraying the principal part of 
the expenses from its own resources. The circum¬ 
stances under which this system was first introduced 
rendered this mode of offering it at a discount the 
only one by which it was thought that a full and 
fair trial of it could be ensured. It has now been 
tried and approved. That which at the commence¬ 
ment was a speculative and not a popular system, is 
so far sanctioned and demanded by law, that without 
it the requirements of the law cannot be fulfilled. 
The education for a qualification to practice phar¬ 
macy, with its contingent expenses, is the premium 
imposed by Parliament upon the privileges it has 
conferred on those to whom the practice of pharmacy 
is entrusted. Parents who propose to train up their 
sons to this occupation have no more right to expect 
relief from the expense of the latter or supplementary 
part of the education than they have from that of 
apprenticeship itself. The Pharmaceutical Society 
has not yet been asked to subsidise apprentice fees, 
but hitherto it has to a great extent subsidised the 
supplementary education supplied in its own school, 
and it is now called upon to extend the same or some 
equivalent assistance to other schools. 
I agree with those who think that the subsidising 
of our schools, under existing circumstances, is not 
the method best calculated to ensure their main¬ 
tenance in a healthy, vigorous, efficient, and per¬ 
manent condition. 
I would not exonerate the society from all respon¬ 
sibility with reference to our school arrangements. 
The great and important educational work which 
the society originated, and by the accomplishment of 
which it has acquired a well-merited reputation, the 
real basis of its present power and influential posi¬ 
tion, will continue to claim from it the .fostering care 
of a parent. The society has obtained the means of 
making educational establishments independent, and 
it cannot confer a more important benefit upon them 
than by rendering those means available through 
the judicious exercise of its influence. 
The principal cause of weakness and dependence 
in our school arrangements is the insufficiency of 
the fees charged for lecture attendance. The practice 
of charging such low fees arose from a desire to 
encourage education and to extend as far as possible 
the influence of the means so laudably provided at 
the expense of promoters, not partakers, of these 
benefits. At one time pharmaceutical students had 
free admission to the lectures and even a bonus 
offered in addition, in the shape oi prizes. That was 
the time of hottest competition between the support¬ 
ers of ignorance and indifference on one hand, and 
a combination of good men seeking to improve the 
position prepared for their successors on the other 
hand. We have heard of competition between rival 
stage coaches, the proprietors of which have lowered 
the fares until at last they have carried their pas- 
