September 24, 1870.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
253 
nities of the apprentices of the period, though happily 
contradicted by many bright examples, is, I believe, 
broadly true. Now this system, whilst it swells the 
ranks of pharmaceutical chemists, and adds to the funds 
of the Pharmaceutical Society, is not conducive to our 
real progress. We must remember that the knowledge 
which will he useful to a man is not that which he pos¬ 
sesses on an examination day, hut that which he retains 
afterwards. I think we may take it as a proven fact 
that very few apprentices do, or even can, qualify them¬ 
selves during their term. The range of studies has be¬ 
come so wide that very much must he done either before 
or after, and the advantages of doing it first appear to 
me many and great. A hoy who had received sound 
elementary instruction in chemistry, botany and materia 
medica before entei'ing upon his apprenticeship would he 
to a great extent self-dependent; it would then he 
entirely his own fault if he did not find daily opportuni¬ 
ties of applying and increasing his knowledge; work 
which would have been mere irksome drudgery to him 
would he interesting and instructive, because he would 
find in it the application of principles and laws with 
which he had previously become familiar. 
The next question is, how is this knowledge to he 
given ? I think by the establishment of special techni¬ 
cal schools for hoys intending to become pharmacists. 
Mr. Schacht has estimated the number of young men 
entering the business annually as 1693. Is it too much 
to expect that a sufficiently large proportion of these to 
support the experiment would he able and willing to do 
so ? The laboratories at Bloomsbury Square are over¬ 
flowing; there is no lack of students now ready to 
spend money for knowledge which they would have 
found doubly useful if obtained earlier. There is reason 
to believe that our body will be recruited from a weal¬ 
thier class than hitherto. A considerable sum will, in 
most cases, have to be expended one way or another, 
earlier or later, on the scientific education of the chemist 
if he is to attain, or, at any rate, to maintain a position, 
and I think the earlier in his career some of it is in¬ 
vested the better. Moreover, I am disposed to believe 
that some such plan as I propose would be in the end 
cheaper as well as better. A pupil having spent twelve 
months in this technical school would be a much more 
useful, or at least less troublesome, appendage to most 
businesses than the apprentice of to-day. Possibly some 
of the leading firms might be willing to take him at a 
more moderate premium. At the end of a three years’ 
indenture he should pass the Minor with honours, and 
would then be certainly able to command higher remu¬ 
neration than most men who have been four years in the 
business can now do. 
I do not propose any detailed scheme, but make this 
suggestion in the hope that some of you may be able and 
willing to help its elaboration. The course of instruction 
should be elementary, but thoroughly sound, the main ob¬ 
ject being to set up signposts, warranted, as Mr. Ince 
says, to point in the right direction. When the appren¬ 
tice sets up his own, they too commonly direct him by 
supposed short cuts, which lead him into all sorts of 
tangled difficulties. The teachers in the various depart¬ 
ments should be men of real ability and experience. I 
have not much faith in the educating power of the “ cer¬ 
tificated science teacher,” who is now ubiquitous. Much 
as we may respect a young man who, in addition to the 
practice of some honest handicraft, such as shoemaking, 
lectures on chemistry, botany, and one or two other 
branches of natural science, to the mechanics and arti¬ 
sans of his neighbourhood, we may doubt if he is the 
most suitable person to influence boys better educated in 
ordinary subjects than himself. It is generally admitted 
that a thorough master of a science is required to impart 
quickly and accurately the rudiments of his subject, and 
these are what we want. 
The establishment should possess a good museum of 
drugs and a garden of medicinal plants, and should be 
under the direction of a thoroughly practical pharmacist. 
How much might be learned by a boy in such a school 
in, say, twelve months! It should give him such an im¬ 
petus as would last whilst he lived. How interesting to 
him would be the occasional half-hour’s stroll in the 
country, for he should know much of physiological and 
something of systematic botany by that time! He would 
pursue his studies with the signposts full in view; and 
would he make a less successful business man for the 
scientific bias he had received P I think not. The ac¬ 
quirement of business tact would be just as necessary, 
but none the more difficult. Amongst the minor advan¬ 
tages to be derived from this proposed year’s training 
may be mentioned the bond of fellowship which would 
be formed between kindred spirits, and which, thus early 
established, would greatly tend to the diffusion of phar¬ 
maceutical knowledge and the furtherance of the objects 
aimed at by our own Conference. 
If the introduction of this subject brings about a dis¬ 
cussion from which any more practical conclusions shall 
be derived, I have not wasted your time this morning. 
The discussion on this paper was postponed until the 
next day, when the subject of Pharmaceutical Education 
in the Provinces was to be brought before the Conference 
at the suggestion of the Council of the Pharmaceutical 
Society. 
The meeting then adjourned at 12.30. 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE¬ 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 
Meeting at Liverpool. 
Professor Huxley’s inauguration of this scientific par¬ 
liament has gone off with considerable eclat and with 
general satisfaction. Abstaining from that general re¬ 
trospective representation of achieved scientific progress, 
which is so attractive to a man of comprehensive attain¬ 
ments- and acute perception, the President has this year 
confined his address to one special subject. In doing so 
he has probably been influenced by the fact that the 
subject chosen is one possessing such stupendous interest 
as to command attention in any case, while it was certain 
to do so when treated of by Professor Huxley. The 
scientific problem of the origin of life has always attracted 
the consideration of a certain class of philosophic in¬ 
quirers, and at intervals it has given rise to the enuncia¬ 
tion of doctrines that excited violent controversy. 
Quite recently, experiments conducted by Dr. Bastian 
have again brought this subject to the front, and those 
who are familiar with Professor Huxley’s general views 
or scientific labours will not wonder that he should have 
selected the germ theory and the correlative question of 
spontaneous generation as the theme for his inaugural 
address. Starting with the statement that as a matter 
of every-day experience it is difficult to prevent articles 
of food and similar materials from becoming mouldy; 
that fruit, apparently sound, often contains grubs at the 
core ; that meat, left to itself, is apt to putrefy and swarm 
with maggots,—Professor Huxley reminded his audience 
that from the ancients down to the seventeenth century, 
there was a belief in the proposition that life may and 
does originate in that which has no life. 
But this was merely a belief; it did not rest on any 
scientific foundation, and Francesco Redi was the first 
to subject the observations of ordinary experience to 
scientific criticism. He pointed out that though mag¬ 
gots make their appearance in flesh and similar mate¬ 
rials exposed to the air, that was not the case if the flesh 
was put into a jar covered over with fine gauze, while 
putrefaction took place just the same. He inferred 
hence that maggots were not generated by the act of 
putrefaction, and that the cause of their formation was 
something which was kept away by the gauze. He 
showed, moreover, that something to be the eggs depo- 
