232 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [September 16,1871. 
A youth of sixteen enters an establishment with this 
credential in his hand that he has received a liberal 
and classical education. Here then we start, and the 
goal at the end of the course is the Minor Examination 
of the Pharmaceutical Society. To enable a young man 
to acquit himself satisfactorily at that ordeal should be 
our aim; and in making this statement, we take it for 
granted the other qualifications which go to make a first- 
class business-man are not overlooked, namely, method, 
order, punctuality, address, etc. 
In the closing remarks of this paper, we desire to 
avoid everything savouring of uncharitableness towards 
a body of men deserving the highest respect; we refer to 
the great body of our provincial brethren. These men 
are for the most part conducting their businesses with 
credit and success, but, not having possessed in their 
early days the advantages now so readily procurable, 
they are willing to confess their inability to impart the 
requisite knowledge with which to approach the ‘Minor.’ 
What is the remedy for this state of affairs ? 
Bloomsbury Square is not available in the provinces ; 
local schools are few and far between; in fact, they are 
wellnigh out of our calculation; invaluable as centres of 
light, where their influence is felt, they but make the 
darkness beyond more visible. That something at once 
must and ought to be done, the large proportion of 
rejected candidates at our examinations painfully attests. 
We have attempted the diagnosis of the disease, and 
ask the remedy; as a humble contribution to the same, 
we suggest that wherever there are some half-dozen 
young men in a town needing and seeking instruction in 
pharmacy, that is, the general course of reading suggested 
hy the Minor Examination, they club together, during 
the winter months engage a room, and respectfully 
. solicit the direction of the most able pharmacist in the 
place to guide their studies. Further, that the Council 
of the Pharmaceutical Society foster provincial educa¬ 
tion with their recognition and active sympathy ; that 
competent men in country towns be urged to undertake 
this work, that class books be suggested, small cases of 
apparatus for the study of analysis be granted on loan, 
and the results of such labours find their recognition in 
the pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal. 
Salisbury , July 5, 1871. 
The Chairman said this was a subject on which the 
whole afternoon would hardly be long enough to hear 
those, most capable of giving an opinion. Instead of 
entering into the subject himself, he would rather hear 
the opinion of others, such as his friend Mr. Deane. 
With regard to the question of education, he might re¬ 
mark that the questions now put to their apprentices 
were so easy that he would be surprised if a lad could 
not answer them. It had been stated as an objection, 
that if they gave the lads so much time for learning as 
some desired, they would not do enough of work. If 
they gave them a proper amount of study with their 
proper amount. of business, he thought they ought to 
see that they did their work. He himself was appren¬ 
ticed in a locality in which he was made to do drudgery, 
but which, he was thankful to say, he was obliged to 
learn. In his time of day they had no holidays. He 
began at half-past six o’clock in the morning, and left 
off at eleven at night. These were the hours, and he had 
no holidays, Sunday or Saturday. When he went to 
Bath.he was astonished when his master offered him a 
fortnight’s holidays. His own young men had an hour 
in the morning to themselves, and he had a good deal 
more work done than if he did not let them out. He 
recollected when he was ordered to do a great many 
things which lads nowadays would consider beneath 
them, and would not do. The force of example went a 
good deal further than anything he could tell them. 
One of his young men had seen him night after night at 
the microscope, and this young man might at first have 
.thought that he was a very stupid fellow; but by-and- 
by he came to take an interest in the matter, and be¬ 
came as good a microscopist as there was in England. 
A good deal depended on the way in which they treated 
their young men. If they told them they must do such- 
and-such a thing, they would not enter into it with the 
same heart as if they had been persuaded to do it. He 
thought the paper was one of very great importance. 
Mr. Deane said his experience was much the same as 
that of Mr. Stoddart; but he considered that the altered 
conditions of the times rendered the responsibility of 
taking apprentices much greater than it was thirty or 
forty years since. 
Mr. Schacht said the subject immediately before the 
meeting was one he felt scarcely competent to speak 
about. It was this conviction that had hitherto kept 
him silent upon this one section of the subject he had so 
much at heart, pharmaceutical education. Ho candidly 
admitted he (lid not know how to meet it, it was beset 
with so many difiiculties. In the first place a master, 
merely because he was a pharmacist, was expected to 
possess that great and special gift, the ability to guide 
and direct the moral training of a youth at the most 
critical period of his whole life. To add to his difficulty, 
it might be quite possible that two entirely opposite 
characters became his charges at the same time. It was 
also expected of him, not only that he should be a good 
pharmacist, but also that he should possess the qualities 
of a good schoolmaster, and that, contrary to general 
experience, he should be as well able to teach as to 
learn. These were some of the difficulties of the case, 
and the only solution that suggested itself consisted in 
the separation of some of these duties. If instead of it 
being the habit and rule that masters should receive 
youths into their houses as well as receive them into 
their businesses, an arrangement could be made wdiereby 
the youths’ boarding and lodging could be done elsewhere, 
one great difficulty would be removed, and the master 
would be absolved from the charge of the moral training 
of his apprentices; and then it might be possible that 
some of the best houses w r ho now, because of their dis¬ 
inclination to accept this charge, decline to take appren¬ 
tices, would willingly offer their excellent professional 
opportunities. Again, as to the best method by 'which 
an apprentice could gain the scientific knowledge requi¬ 
site to make him a good pharmacist, it seemed to him 
• better that he should look for this outside his master’s 
shop. It appeared almost too much to expect that the 
same man should be at once a good retail trader and an 
instructor in chemistry and botany. He did not mean 
that he could not help his pupil, but that he could 
scarcely be expected systematically to teach science; 
and all desultory work might as well be left alone. 
Would it not be better that during the time the appren¬ 
tice was fulfilling his duties in the shop, certain portions 
of the day should be devoted to attending professional 
lectures, and some encouraging help given him in appro¬ 
priating what he there heard ? Speaking collectively, he 
thought the direction of their efforts should be to de- 
velope such a system of scientific education, away from 
the shop, as to make it unnecessary for the master to 
undertake that duty himself. The establishment of pro¬ 
vincial centres with such classes as portions of their 
system was, he thought, the best means to this end ; and 
he was glad to find the observations of previous speakers 
tend so distinctly in that direction. 
Mr. M ackay (Edinburgh) said that Mr. Schacht had 
referred to what occurred to the minds of the pharmacists 
in Scotland, as a very strange mode of procedure in 
binding apprentices throughout England. He washed 
to bring before the meeting the fact that in the whole 
of Scotland, as far as he was aw r are,—and he knew the 
arrangements of the pharmacists throughout the coimtry 
very well,—he did not think there was a single case 
where a premium w r as paid and wdiere a youth was 
boarded and taught his business. The very reverse 
was the case; and his object was to impress on the 
