934 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 24, 187?. 
voured to create a love of study, and had furnished the 
means of study to those under his charge, his greatest 
difficulty had been to create a taste for it ; and until that 
demand was made, and until the young men pressed for¬ 
ward, determined to utilize the opportunities already at 
their command, he could not be surprised that the Council 
hesitated before spending muqji of the Society’s money in 
that way. 
Mr. Randall (Southampton), said, he would only make 
a remark on two points : First, with regard to the 
country lecture question. There were two ways in which 
lectures might be viewed. Young men might want 
lectures in order to have nice scientific recreation, or 
they might want them for the purpose of real study, with 
a view to their approaching examination. He did not 
think it was the business of the Council to do more than 
give very small grants, at least, for lectures for mere 
scientific amusement, not because they were not im¬ 
portant, but because that was not real education. 
Then, considering the matter with regard to lectures 
which could be so prepared as to qualify those who 
attended them, and studied afterwards for passing 
their examination, he contended that except in very 
large places such courses could not be given with any 
reasonable amount of assistance from the Society. He 
thought so, but they must look to schools where there were 
other things to be done as well, such as the school which 
existed in London, and in some universities. In his own 
locality there was the Hartley Institution, which was 
well known to all. Up to the present time they had 
there a gentleman, formerly a professor of chemistry at 
Birmingham, who was an exceedingly good teacher, and 
he gave a series of lectures. He generally had several 
assistants wishing to pass the Minor examination, and 
they had not been young men who objected to study ; 
but the} 7 did not attend these lectures, simply because 
the scope of them was not what they wanted, and they 
found they could spend their time better in reading and 
working hard at home. He did not mean to say but what 
if there had been a course of lectures extending over 
three months, they might not have found benefit from 
them, but when the lectures were given in short courses, 
as a general rule young men would find they could spend 
the time better at home. One gentleman had suggested 
the publication of the professors’ lectures, but he presumed 
those lectures consisted principally in reading from their 
hand-books, and making explanations of the experiments 
as they went along ; at any rate that was his experience 
when he attended a course of seven months’ lectures by 
Professor Graham at University College, and that was not 
at all the sort of thing which could be expected to be pub¬ 
lished. With regard to the Preliminary examination, he 
would say this : the Council was necessarily a little 
cautious in advancing, especially unless they were clearly 
given to understand by the members at large that they were 
desired to go faster,—he did believe that if Preliminary 
examination were not increased in difficulty, it would be 
found very soon that, excepting the Latin, boys of about 
the fourth standard of the elementary schools would be 
able to pass it with very little difficulty. Now it was not 
desirable that such lads should be introduced into the 
business, but unless this was to be the result, they must 
be exceedingly careful as to the sort of examination 
required. In these primary schools the boys were con¬ 
stantly being inspected and examined by the Government 
officer, and the master’s salary depended to a considerable 
extent on whether they passed or not ; they were kept 
constantly up to the mark. Unfortunately there was 
nothing of that sort in the schools above that grade, to which 
their scholars must go, because they wanted to learn Latin, 
and therefore he believed it to be a fact that in the ele¬ 
mentary schools the teaching as far as it went was far 
more thorough than that given in what might be called 
the lower classical schools. It was very necessary there¬ 
fore that the examination should be rendered more exact 
in the matter of English and arithmetic. The examina¬ 
tion in Latin also he contended was much too slight,—it 
was scarcely a test at all. This did not at all touch the 
question of educating boys so highly that they would be 
above going into the business, but they must insist on a 
more thorough knowledge of English and the elements of 
mathematics being taught, and if they did so he believed 
they would not have so many failures, and he hoped there¬ 
fore the Council would pull up a little in that direction ; 
not so as to increase the expense of education, but to let 
the schoolmasters know that they should teach more 
thoroughly the subjects they professed to teach. 
Mr. Wheeler (London) said, that, at a previous meet¬ 
ing, he had brought forward the question of the illegality 
of associations of traders dispensing prescriptions, and he 
understood from the Council that if the matter were left 
in their hands, something should be done. As it was not 
referred to in the Report, he should like to ask if anything- 
had been done, and whether it was within their know¬ 
ledge that prescriptions were actually dispensed at the 
Civil Service Stores in the Haymarket, containing Scheele’s 
prussic acid. 
The President said, the question had been under con¬ 
sideration, and he himself took a very prominent part in 
bringing it forward ; but he was not supported to an ap¬ 
preciable extent by chemists outside, or by the members 
of the Council, to carry on any action against these stores. 
Otherwise, he should have done so very willingly. He 
believed that if any action was to be taken, there must 
be a more decided feeling manifested by the trade at 
large, so that it should be done in their names, rather 
than in that of the Council. 
Mr. Sutton (Norwich) wished to add one word on the 
question of provincial education. He said they had a 
little association at Norwich, carried on amongst the 
assistants themselves, which was commenced with the 
help of two or three of the principal chemists, and a small 
grant from the Society. The difficulty was, to know how 
to apply it ; and that was the difficulty in which the 
Council often felt themselves ; they did not know how to 
help these provincial societies to the best advantage, 
though they were perfectly willing to do so if they could. 
His experience of young men was, that they came and 
said they did not want to go through a very extensive 
course of materia medica, botany, and chemistry, but only 
to learn just enough to squeeze through the examination. 
It therefore came to this : How could you possibly help 
people who would not help themselves ? 
Mr. Flux (the Solicitor), said he had been asked to say 
something with regard to the prosecution of offenders, 
with a special reference to the remarks made by 
Mr. Mumby. He believed he knew something of the 
case to which that gentleman referred, and in that case, 
as in nearly all others, the difficulty was to get satisfactory 
evidence. It must be borne in mind that any proceed¬ 
ings were proceedings for penalties, and they must have 
proof strictissimus. In that case he believed they had no 
inconsiderable difficulty in getting to direct evidence ; 
but he believed, though he could not speak distinctly from 
memory, that evidence was now obtained, and ; if so, there 
would be very little delay in prosecuting it with effect. But 
in the latter part of Mr. Mumby’s observations he alluded 
to the cause of the great difficulty which the Council 
had in dealing with these matters. Those who brought 
forward cases of this sort, in nearly every case stipulated 
that their names were in no way to be disclosed ; the 
result was that they in London had put into their hands a 
case, perhaps 100 or 200 miles distant, and none of the 
local gentlemen connected with the Society would be 
identified with it. He did the best he could, but to show 
the difficulties in the way, he might mention that he 
lately had placed in his hands what was said to be a class 
of cases in a large manufacturing town in the north. No 
local gentleman would give any assistance at all, so 
thinking he would act as economically as possible, he 
wrote to the chief constable of the county, pointed out 
that it was a public grievance, and a matter which the 
