October 5,1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
27 
I suppose that all of you are anxiously looking 
forward to the time when, in after life, you will 
realize the results of the present careful teaching 
and training. 
Proper food is as indispensably necessary for our 
minds as for our bodies; and the quality of that 
food will as surely determine the future develop¬ 
ment of the one as of the other. If you are content 
to feed your mental lives with worthless literature, 
you will most assuredly enervate your powers of 
thought and judgment; but, on the contrary, if 
strengthened by appropriate reading and a judicious 
selection of all that is valuable and useful, you 
cannot avoid ensuring a vigorous intellect. It will 
enable you to hold your own among your fellow- 
men, to arrive at the decision of difficult points 
which will often arise in your daily occupation, and 
perhaps to guide your brother pharmacists through 
many a labyrinth which would otherwise end in a 
disastrous failure. 
Everything in this life if neglected will naturally 
retrograde and decline into sterility and desuetude. 
God lias given us minds, and intrusted them to our 
care, and if we do not cultivate them, and thereby 
widen the sphere of thought, we most assuredly 
neglect a very solemn duty, and prove ourselves 
unworthy of the gift. 
Not one of you is born to live alone, or for your¬ 
selves only; nor can you, whether you wish it or 
not, avoid making some impression on your com¬ 
panions, either for good or evil. I suppose the 
great majority of pharmacists are obliged to work 
hard for their daily bread, and to supply the 
common necessaries of life for those who are near 
and dear to them. Experience has repeatedly 
proved that the much-coveted competence—if such 
a tiling be possible for a druggist—will be attained 
in proportion to the perseverance and to the intel¬ 
ligence evinced by the skill and knowledge of our 
craft. 
Education is very often confounded with teaching, 
and the error is as great as it is popular. Educa¬ 
tion is a final result, that is only obtained from a 
certain amount of labour, especially if facilitated 
by faithful and able teachers; but do not deceive 
yourselves hi this matter, for it is possible for you 
to have at your command the most competent pro¬ 
fessors the world can produce, and yet fail in 
gaining the least advantage. And why ? Because 
their instructions have not been accompanied by 
your own individual efforts. You must build your 
own edifice, and no one else can do it for you; and 
as with a material building, it is indispensable that 
you go to a proper quarry, hew the stone with a 
practised hand, and gradually place layer upon 
layer, according to a preconceived plan; so it is 
with your educational structure. The old saying 
that “ what a man sows, that shall he also reap,” 
applies exactly to your case ; and just in proportion 
do the labour bestowed, and the quality of the seed 
sown, so will the harvest be. There will be no 
harvest if the seed be not properly sown. 
If we were able to obtain the result of every 
clay’s work, we should be surprised to ifcid how large 
-a proportion of that work is accomplished by men 
whose hours of study are in the midst of apparently 
uncongenial occupations, and who can only make 
use of a few precious half hours, and those, per¬ 
haps, taken from their periods of rest. Nay, more, 
•I believe the man who is occupied the most with 
daily labour, is the one who does the most towards 
the completion of his own education and the good 
of his fellow-men. Faraday, William Allen, 
Miller, and Stephenson were bright examples of 
those who never could be accused of wasting a 
single spare moment. 
One great, if not the greatest reason why so few 
shine out from the general mass, is the want of 
observing power. One of the first things a pharma¬ 
ceutical student has to learn, is to make proper 
use of his eyes. This elementary lesson, I am 
sadly afraid, is too frequently omitted from the cur¬ 
riculum of many an eminent professor. A teacher 
cannot be too simple or too practical. When once 
the eye is trained, the slightest deviation from the 
ordinary course instantly arrests the pharmacist, 
and calls forth the “why and whereforeinquiry 
into every-day occurrences, which are passed by 
unheeded, simply because they are so familiar. I 
will give you an illustration or two of what I mean. 
Most of you, and many thousands more, who have 
studied chemistry, have made hydrogen gas by 
dissolving a piece of zinc in diluted sulphuric acid, 
and have seen the sediment that remains in the 
solution of zinc. How invariably has this bit of 
dirt been thrown away as not worth a moment’s 
consideration, or without the slightest idea of in¬ 
quiring what it was ? Nevertheless, nine years ago, 
l)rs. Reich and Richter found this insignificant¬ 
looking sediment contained the new element, Indium, 
especially when the zinc came from the Freiberg 
mines. 
Another still more remarkable instance occurred 
in the case of Thallium. For many years past, the 
waste dust had been collecting in the flues of vitriol 
factories without attracting attention, till Mr. Crookes 
chanced to examine it, when, to his utter astonish¬ 
ment, he found it to contain no less than the 
twelfth part of its weight of this curious metal; 
another new element unique in its properties, both 
optically and chemically. As you know, i f s spec¬ 
trum differs from that of every other body, by a 
magnificent green band when ignited, and exhibiting 
the most perfect example of monochromatic light 
yet discovered. 
Nor is there any occasion for you to go to the 
sulphuric acid manufactoiy for your material. If 
you will examine the bismuth, the chloride of zinc, 
or the hydrochloric acid on your shelves, you will 
most likely find this extraordinary body to be 
present in sufficient quantity to develope its spectral 
phenomena. 
How many hundreds of mixtures have been dis¬ 
pensed with quinine, but how few of you have, per¬ 
haps, asked for the explanation of that grand fluores¬ 
cence that always makes its appearance, or supposed 
you were looking at one of the most marvellous 
displays of force that chemical physics has ever 
striven to elucidate ? When, however, the eye has 
been trained to notice the many reactions that occur 
daily in our pharmacies, the aptitude for education 
is wonderfully increased. 
Is it not to be feared that the tuition in most of 
our schools and colleges is too exclusively based on 
the reasoning and not on the perceptive powers of 
the mind ? If so, the inference must be, that tlm 
knowledge acquired will be theoretical instead of 
: practical, the library being too much employed and 
the laboratory too little. I would, therefore, my 
friends, sincerely urge you to experimentalize, to 
