790 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 5, 1873. 
bodies as nearly perfect, and see no necessity for 
£; levelling-down,” to England and Ireland by passing 
under the roller of uniformity. They have no 
objection, however, to England and Ireland uniting 
on whatever basis of fusion they please, or for 
separately making conjoint Boards in either king¬ 
dom. Their policy is characteristically cunning. 
The higher standard of examination which such 
conjoint Boards would establish in England and 
Ireland, would scare all the less competent candidates 
into the hospitable arms of the northern schools, 
which would demand but half the diploma-fee of 
their rivals, and not quite so much preliminary and 
professional science. On petitioning the Government, 
however, to pass an enabling bill to bring about a 
conjoint scheme for England, the diplomacy of the 
northern contingent was frustrated,—the Govern¬ 
ment declining to introduce such an enabling bill. 
So while they gained in principle, they lost in 
profit. Cold water was thrown on conjoint schemes 
generally ; but the sacrifice of England and Ireland 
to that principle was a pleasure that was denied 
them. 
A tedious debate on the report of the Committee 
on the medical qualification of women, ended in the 
Committee being empowered to enter into communi¬ 
cation with any public institution, in which provision 
is made for the education and examination of women, 
as midwives, as dispensers, and as superintendents 
of nurses or of medical institutions, as well as to 
consider and report on how a register of all persons 
obtaining qualifications from such bodies might be 
kept, on conditions similar to those for registering 
medical and surgical diplomas. The discussion em¬ 
bodied not a little that is of interest to pharmacists, 
and we shall return to the subject next week. 
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST (?). 
The struggle for existence which, according to the 
fashionable scientific theory of the day, has shaped 
the career of all creatures, from governments to 
gooseberries in elusive, has many evils to answer for. 
Not that the survival of the fittest is so much to be 
regretted, as that sometimes circumstances have been 
so untoward as to allow—at least in the human 
melee —that which is not fittest to survive. The 
weakest, but not always the worst, have gone to the 
wall; for in the struggle deceit, cunning, and im¬ 
pudence have always been appreciable powers, not¬ 
withstanding that the greatest intellects in all ages 
of the world have been bent to the task of modifying 
and counteracting their influence. In this country 
we have arrived at a stage when an efficient examina¬ 
tion is looked upon theoretically as a panacea for all 
shams ; but there exists considerable difference of 
opinion as to what constitutes an efficient examina¬ 
tion. On the one hand prospective examinees re¬ 
monstrate piteously against examinations lasting two 
or three hours ; on the other a relentless examiner 
cries out, “ I want days ; I want weeks, before I 
should say that a man was fit to pass.” Moreover, 
no more is required from the man who has enjoved 
years of neglected opportunities, than from one who 
has made the most of as many months. Added to 
these elements of disturbance in the testing of shams 
is the introduction of the greatest sham of the whole, 
the system of studying a subject in order to meet the 
examiners’ questions rather than for its own sake, 
known popularly as “ cramming,” or as it has been 
termed u getting up to the boiling point ” in regard 
to the subjects of an examination. This phase of the 
competition between sham and anti-sham has recently 
been described by a writer in All the Year Round as 
follows :— 
“ The contest of the crammers and the examiners has 
been almost as interesting, and probably as arduous, as 
the perennial duel between ships and guns. Just as it is 
all but impossible to construct a lock which some other 
cunning artificer cannot pick, so it appears hopeless to 
devise a system of questions that shall test the sterling 
stuff of which competitors are made, without reference to 
the cut and-dried information with which they have been 
supplied. Change after change may be made, surprise after 
surprise attempted, but the ingenuity of the scholastic wire¬ 
pullers is equal to the occasion. The disgusted examiner, 
confident in his precautions, gradually recognizes the 
truth that he is not conversing with George Griffin, junior, 
but with Doctor or Mr. Varnish, M.A., who has a string 
of honorary capitals appended to the name that heads his 
prospectus, who speaks all languages, knows something of 
everything, and is growing rich apace by preparing young 
gentlemen for the civil and military service of their 
country. Mr. Griffin is there in the body, certainly, with 
his pink ears and heated forehead, and his preceptor is 
as undoubtedly absent, but, nevertheless, Mr. Examiner 
cannot but feel that all his well-meant efforts are as 
thoroughly baffled as if the young man were a medium, 
and Mr. Varnish held him under some as yet unknown 
mesmeric influence. There is no getting at the lad’s real 
brain, no finding out what he will be when he shall at no 
distant date have forgotten Varnish and all his works. 
As it is, that subtle instructor of youth has armed him at 
all points. He is a pattern pupil, and has absorbed 
exactly such information—and no more—as will help him 
well through the ordeal that lies before him. If caught 
tripping on one subject, he is comfortably bolstered up on 
all the rest, and as the defeated examiner grudgingly sends 
in his name at the top of the list, he is forced to acknow¬ 
ledge with a sigh that Varnish is a very clever fellow. 
So he is, but services like his are very costly luxuries, and 
if any class of men derive direct benefits from competi¬ 
tion, there is little doubt that Mr. Varnish and his compeers 
are of the number.” 
But magna^est veritas et prcevalebit, and with, 
the lapse of time tliis^difficulty may be overcome. 
In what way, it might be bootless to speculate ; but 
there is a country which is reported to have had a 
thousand years or more start of us in civilization, 
and it is interesting to find that these examinations 
are still an institution. We are indebted to the 
Illustrated London News for an account from its 
special correspondent of how these things are 
managed in China ; which has been printed on 
another page. Is this a foreshadowing of the finally 
surviving form of examination in this country ? 
Absit omen ! 
