276 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 5, 1872, 
examine for yourselves, and not to take everything 
for granted that you hear. You will quickly find 
that what you once thought a distasteful task, 
becomes a delightful pleasure. 
A good criterion that you are becoming acquainted 
with your studies, is the conviction that you yet 
know but little in the broad field before you, and 
become cautious of the many pitfalls that await 
those who in their foolish pride think they know 
all. 
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring : 
For scanty draughts intoxicate the brain, 
But drinking largely sobers us again.” 
You will all have many difficulties and trials 
to surmount, but then they will be counterbalanced 
by many commensurate privileges. You are like a 
traveller in a strange country, and surrounded by 
innumerable objects of beauty and interest. Now 
stopped by some deep crevasse or rapid stream, now 
by some steep ascent or slippery rock. Sometimes 
the flora of some exquisite glade or the fauna of an 
extensive forest will arrest the attention. Would 
an enthusiastic naturalist, do you think, be daunted 
by such difficulties, or turned back by such ob¬ 
stacles ? Decidedly not. On the contrary, he would 
be only stimulated to make more strenuous efforts 
to fill his vasculum, or complete his collection. 
So is it with you, who are in the midst of 
equally fascinating objects, though you do not 
notice them from the before-mentioned familiarity. 
The exquisite tracery of a slice of sarsaparilla, 
liquorice, or calumba, the wonderful optical powers 
of morphia and quinine, or the extraordinary struc¬ 
ture of a mustard seed, a lupulinic gland, or the 
under side of a matico leaf, are only a few of the 
many examples that with the assistance of a com¬ 
mon lens must astonish the most careless. Many 
of the most charming experiments that were ever 
exhibited by Faraday or Tyndall may be shown any 
day in a druggist’s shop. Not many months ago I 
showed to a London optician the spectra of lobelia, 
digitalis, liyoscyamus, and cannabis, when he was 
struck with admiration, and declared he had never 
before seen anything half so beautiful, and asked if 
I would tell him how they were prepared. My 
young friends, need I remind you that the answer 
to his inquiry was a reference to your old acquaint¬ 
ance, the British Pharmacopoeia ? 
May I stop here to remark to my brother phar¬ 
macists how much good a master may do his pupil, 
if he would point out some of these wayside objects, 
and encourage an esprit de corps , instead of exacting 
the veritable pound of flesh, as is too commonly 
the rule ? By so doing the pupil would often ran¬ 
sack the materia medica with an eager zest, in -1 
stead of a dogged resignation to what is thought 
an irksome duty. As Mr. Kingsley says, “ A walk J 
without an object, unless in the most novel and 
lovely scenery, is a poor exercise, and as a recrea¬ 
tion utterly nil. If we wish to do our children any 
good, we must give them an object in every walk. 
We can teach them to find wonders in every insect, 
sublimity in every hedgerow, and by teaching them 
to make full use of the limited sphere in which they 
now are, to make them faithful in a few tilings, that 
they may be fit hereafter to be rulers over many.” 
But I think I hear some of you ask me if there 
can be much sublimity or many wonders in the rows 
of bottles with which you are so well acquainted. 
Stop a moment and consider. Use your observing- 
powers, and invest a little money in that good edu¬ 
cational assistant, a moderate microscope, and by 
its aid look again at these absurdly common things. 
What do you see ? Why many, if not all of these 
common drugs and chemicals, would fill a large 
cabinet with exquisite slides. Look, for instance, at 
the remains of former ages in the prepared chalk 
or the pretty button-like crystals in the carbonate 
of magnesia, the beautiful seeds of liyoscyamus,. 
colcliicum, linseed or poppy, the rapliidian rosettes 
snugly placed in their little cells in the rhubarb, 
podophyllum or squill, the restless little nematoids 
on the vinegar tap, or the elegant fungus that grows 
and fructifies in the solution of emetic tartar. Time 
would fail me in anything like an attempt to describe- 
the wonders contained in our bottles and drawers. 
There is one warning that I am desirous to im¬ 
press upon you with great earnestness, namely, the 
incalculable advantage of a systematic arrangement 
of your studies. I speak from experience when I 
say that a loose, indiscriminate manner of study is 
so much time lost. If you have ever so extensive a 
library, and dip at random into your Attfield, Bent¬ 
ley, Lindley, Fownes, and Hoyle, you will make a 
terrible mistake, and totally put a stop to profitable- 
study. Should any of you attempt to pursue so 
erroneous a course, however industrious you may 
be, you will feel extremely uncomfortable when you 
have to face the Board of Examiners. You will re¬ 
semble the poor fellows in the tower of Babel, so 
quaintly described by an old poet:— 
“‘ Bring me,’ quotli one, c a trowel quickly, quick!’ 
One brings him up a hammer. ‘ Hew tBis brick ’ 
Another bids : and then they cleave a tree. 
‘ Make fast this rope,’ and then they let it flee. 
One calls for planks, another mortar lacks : 
They bear the first a stone, the last an axe. 
Thus crossly cross’d they prate and point in vain— 
What one had made, another mars again. 
These masons then, seeing the storm arrived, 
Forsake their purpose, and, like frantic fools, 
Scatter their stuff, and tumble down their tools.” 
A method I have always found to work extremely 
well is to draw up a tabular arrangement according 
to circumstances. Botany for one day, chemistry 
for another, materia medica for the third, and stick 
to it. If you are prevented from enjoying the half- 
hour allotted to Bentley, pass it over and work with 
Attfield on the appointed day, but never upset the 
arrangement. Use every spare five minutes. You 
will never know till you try what a large amount of' 
work can be performed hi a few odd moments. Do 
not think because you cannot have a couple of hours 
at a time that you are, therefore, debarred from 
study. Where there is a will there is also a way. 
Not one of your predecessors ever had the advan¬ 
tages you possess, the books you have, or the class 
instruction now offered. 
A great outcry is now being made for provincial 
education ; but is there so much need for that extra 
machinery that many would have you believe ? My 
own experience leads me to doubt it. Every master 
ought at any rate to be able to direct Iris pupil how 
to study, and then generally it must be the pupil’s 
own fault if he do not succeed. One man may take* 
a horse to a pond, but not all the energies of fifty can 
compel him to drink. But work with a firm deter¬ 
mination to win, and then you will have no appre¬ 
hension when you have to meet those gentlemen 
who form the Board of Examiners. I believe that 
