November 2, 1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
340 
f wfetial fensactwits. 
NORTHAMPTON CHEMISTS’ ASSISTANTS AND 
APPRENTICES’ ASSOCIATION. 
The first meeting of the winter session of this associa¬ 
tion was held on October 7th, 1872. 
Mr. H. Masters, the President, announced that it had 
'been thought best to alter the name of the association, 
so that in future it would be called “ The Northampton 
.Pharmaceutical Association.” 
The first business was to arrange the different class 
nights (the class teachers had been previously elected by 
ballot), and after some discussion it was agreed that the 
chemistry class conducted by Mr. F. Branson should 
meet on Monday; materia medica, Mr. H. Lester, on 
Thursday; pharmacy, Mr. 0. Wallis, on Monday; 
botany and prescriptions, Mr. G. C. Druce, on Thurs¬ 
day. 
The President then requested the Secretary, Mr. 
Druce, to read the report of the Council for the year 
just completed:— 
“ The Council have much pleasure in placing this 
their first year’s report before the members. The satis¬ 
factory manner in which the association has been con- 
• ducted, the estimation in which it is held, and the posi¬ 
tion it has attained, tend to make it imperative upon all 
assistants and apprentices in Northampton to become 
connected with what must necessarily be to them a most 
.useful association. 
“ Classes have been held twice weekly during the 
winter, and once in the summer session, with, the Coun¬ 
cil are pleased to say, a much higher rate of attendance 
than many similar associations. The classes conducted 
have been chemistry, botany, materia medica, pharmacy, 
and during the summer, by the kind aid of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society, they have been enabled to add one on 
practical chemistry. The Council take this opportunity 
of thanking the class takers for the efficient manner in 
which they have carried out their onerous duties ; and 
give notice that they have under consideration a plan, 
which will be carried out if the funds permit, of giving 
prizes to the most successful candidates at the Christmas 
examinations. 
“ During the year two members have passed the Pre¬ 
liminary and one the Minor examination. The latter 
passed second in honours, and subsequently obtained the 
prize of books. 
“ The Council trust the members will make good use 
of the circulating library which has been recently 
formed. 
“ The Council offer their hearty thanks to the princi¬ 
pals for the very liberal aid which they have rendered 
the association since its commencement, and hope that 
the general conduct of the association has met with their 
approval; also for the numerous presents they have re¬ 
ceived from pharmacists in other towns. 
“ Finally, the Council, in closing what cannot but be 
considered a very satisfactory report, have great pleasure 
in announcing that the association will in future be self- 
supporting. The Council thank most warmly the mem¬ 
bers for the support and confidence reposed in them.” 
The balance sheet for the year showed an income of 
£31. 7s. Gd. (including a grant of £10 from the Pharma- 
■ ceutical Society), and an expenditure of £27. 175. 10|<7., 
leaving a balance in hand of £3. 95. 7 id. 
The following gentlemen form the Council for the 
► ensuing year:—President, Mr. H. J. Masters; Vice- 
President, Mr. C. Hester; Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. 
G. C. Druce; Messrs. J. Tutton, A. J. Lance and A. 
Thomas; Librarian, Mr. J. Cross; Assistant Secretary, 
Mr. E. H. Cooke ; Curator, Mr. Ctdbnall. 
The President then delivered an address, in which, 
. after thanking the members for the honour they had con¬ 
ferred upon him by again electing him as their President, 
- he described the progress the association had made in 
less than twelve months as most gratifying to all who 
were connected with it, especially to those who had been 
the chief workers in bringing it to the satisfactory posi¬ 
tion it had attained.. He said that arrangements would 
be made for nearly every member to fill some office, 
whereby each would feel that he was of use to the associa¬ 
tion as well as receiving benefit from it. He trusted the 
ensuing session would prove even a greater success than 
the past. He was happy to find that so long as them 
own resources were sufficient to supply the instruction 
required, so long would the association be self-supporting. 
But when it became necessary for them to have higher 
instruction, then of course they must look elsewhere 3 for 
aid, and that he hoped they would find in the arrange¬ 
ments made by the Parent Society, when it had settled 
the now important question of pharmaceutical education. 
With regard to that question, he thought if the sugges¬ 
tions recently made by Mr. T. B. Groves, of Weymouth, 
and ‘A Local Secretary’ in the Pharmaceutical 
Journal, “that every youth should pass the Preliminary 
before being bound an apprentice; that he should be 
compelled to pass the Minor before being allowed to 
dispense, and the Major before entering business on his 
own account,” were carried out, they would go far to 
raise the “status” of the trade, and he would be very 
glad to see them become law, although he himself 
would be affected by them. Another suggestion made 
by Mr. Groves he thought would be well for all parties 
if adopted; and that was, “ let every assistant at present 
employed in dispensing be compelled to pass either the 
Preliminary, Modified, or Minor examination.” The 
only objection to it that he could see was that Mr. 
Groves would give too long after the passing of the Act 
(two or three years), his own opinion being that any 
assistant, who is at present engaged in dispensing 
poisons, and could not pass either the Preliminary or 
Modified, or even the Minor by six months’ application, 
had better for his own sake and the public safety, give 
up pharmacy and take to some trade where physical 
abilities are at a greater premium than mental. He 
then commented upon Professor Attfield’s recently ex¬ 
pressed views concerning pharmaceutical education, in 
terms of general approval, and said that it appeared to 
him that, as the “ Minor” is now, only those who pass it 
in honours are worthy the title of chemists and druggists. 
He thought persons who could show that they had at¬ 
tended a recognized school for a certain period should be 
subjected to an entirely different examination to the one 
for those who could not do so, and, therefore, might be 
suspected of having been crammed. In reference to Pro¬ 
fessor Attfield’s remark, “ that the Bell Scholarships do 
good to all other professions except our own,” the speaker 
asked would it not then be making a great stride in the 
right direction, if the Pharmaceutical Society engaged 
some of the Bell scholars to lecture in the provinces at 
schools like their own, where they would be only too 
happy to receive them, and pay for the instruction as 
far as they could afford F One lecture a month only 
would greatly assist provincial schools, would not be 
putting the Society to a very great expense, and phar¬ 
macy would retain some of her best talent which would 
otherwise be lost; besides the schools paying part of the 
expenses that would by that plan be incurred. He 
believed every chemist employing an assistant would also 
help, so that the expense to the Pharmaceutical Society 
would be scarcely anything appreciable except in small 
towns. He could not agree with Professor Redwood 
that the interest of the public seems to demand that there 
should be to some extent a gradation of qualifications 
amongst chemists and druggists. Surely the interests of 
the public would be better considered if the hrw com¬ 
pelled every one who had a shop for the dispensing of 
medicines to possess abilities of a certain standard, and 
that should not, in his opinion, be less than the “ Major” 
qualification ; tliere would be then quite sufficient grada¬ 
tion in men’s natural abilities to suit the different conditions 
