March. 15, 1873 ] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
731 
Cjje pjarutiratital Journal. 
-♦-- 
SATURDAY, MARCH 15 , 1873 . 
Communications for this Journal, and boohs for review,etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square, W . C . 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London , W. Envelopes indorsed u Fharm. Journ.” 
EDUCATION AND EXAMINATION. 
If the Board of Examiners or the Council of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society required any extra-pharmaceuti¬ 
cal support for their proposition that after a stated 
date candidates must present a certain amount of evi¬ 
dence of education in pharmacy before entering for 
examination, that support would be found in the 
arguments by which the portion of the Irish Uni¬ 
versity Education Bill relating to uncontrolled exa¬ 
mination has been assailed during the recent Par¬ 
liamentary debates. In a speech on the Address to 
the Throne on the opening night of the Session, and 
therefore before the Bill was presented to the House 
of Commons, the eminent leader of the Opposition, 
touching on the forthcoming measure, and the con¬ 
flicting interests of “ the advancement of learning” 
and the “ rights of conscience,” hoped that the solu¬ 
tion ofthe problem might not turn out to be the 
sacrifice of a famous and learned University in order 
to substitute for it the mere mechanical mediocrity of 
an examining board. Abundant justification for this 
remark was apparent when the Bill was read a first 
time. A new university was to be established which 
should absorb that of Dublin as well as the Queen’s, 
Trinity and other colleges, and which should examine 
all comers, no matter where educated or where “pre¬ 
pared.” It is true a professoriate was to be or¬ 
ganized, but attendance at the classes was to be in¬ 
cumbent on no one. This portion of the Bill has 
met with opposition in all directions. Even the 
Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, as a prominent 
member of the Government, was bound to defend 
the Bill, admitted that a teaching and examining 
university was a very superior tiling to a merely ex¬ 
amining university; that the character of a university 
was greatly influenced by its teaching as well as by 
its examinations; and that the Government in bring¬ 
ing forward the measure had fully recognized that 
fact by endeavouring to make the University of 
Dublin a teaching as well as an examining body. 
Here, by the way, is encouragement for those who 
maintain that our own Society should continue its 
educating as well as its examining functions as 
hitherto, or at least adopt some means of prevent¬ 
ing the substitution of ‘‘cram” for education. 
Such a course seems more than ever necessary at 
the present time, when the successful preparation,. 
a different thing from the education, of candidates 
for our examinations is becoming quite a popular 
calling. The Member for Dublin, in giving a quali¬ 
fied support to the Bill, recapitulated the old reasons 
for admitting all persons, wherever educated, to 
degrees if they possessed the requisite qualifications, 
but he threw no light on the question as to how qua¬ 
lification could be thoroughly tested; alluded to 
former immoral means of obtaining certificates of 
attendance at college, a practice which has since been 
checked, and went over the well-worn argument that 
a teaching as well as an educating body would bo 
open to the suspicion that its examinations might 
be characterized by partiality. The Member for 
Galway, who spoke immediately afterwards, consi¬ 
dered, however, that this portion of the Bill, 
would lead to cramming; and in answer to the 
remark that University men had recourse to private 
tuition, said there was a vast difference between a 
careful course of academic study, supplemented by 
the occasional assistance of private tuition, and that, 
unmitigated and desultory cramming which the Bill 
would encourage. The Times, also, which unques¬ 
tionably reflects current opinions on public matters 
of importance, treated that part of the Bill enact¬ 
ing that a student may matriculate and graduate 
without attending any lectures or pursuing any 
academical course anywhere, as one which would 
discourage teaching and encourage “ cram,” and 
considered that the excision of this provision from 
the Bill was essential to the maintenance of higher 
education in Ireland. “ Every academic body, in 
Ireland, in a word, condemns the proposal, and any 
pretence to treat it as essential would justify an 
instant rejection of the Bill. . . . The true course 
of academic reform in Ireland is to maintain and 
improve its two existing Universities as teaching 
bodies, differing in their apparatus and form of teach¬ 
ing just as Oxford and Cambridge differ, but agree¬ 
ing in this—that education, and not mere cramming,, 
shall be the necessary condition of entering for an 
examination.” 
The second reading of the Bill has been negatived,, 
as our readers already know, but there can be no 
question that had it gone to committee, its embodi¬ 
ment of the free-trade principle in education would 
have been rejected by an overwhelming majority. 
That a candidate for our own examinations shall be 
twenty-one years of age, and shall give trustworthy 
evidence of having been engaged in practically 
acquiring knowledge in pharmacy for a space of three, 
years, are recommendations that come from our 
Board of Examiners with all the force of reason and 
common-sense. The mere testing of a youth s power 
of memory, even though a considerable amount of 
t hri ft be spent over a candidate by an examiner, is a 
system imported from China, where it has been in 
