November 11,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
399 
*** No notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
The Preliminary Examination. 
Sir,—On looking over the Journal of last Saturday, I am 
much surprised to find that your correspondent “ Spes ” has 
fallen into an error in his analysis of the candidates. In re¬ 
ferring to this town, he says 3 candidates presented them¬ 
selves, and the 3 failed to pass. This is not correct; and I 
hasten to inform “ Spes ” that two out of the three candidates 
did pass the examination, and received the Society’s certificates 
to that effect. Doubtless “ Spes” has fallen into the same 
error in his analysis of the other towns and cities, con- 
■quently his remarks cannot be relied upon. I may as well 
inform “Spes” that the two candidates’ names were in the 
Journal of the 21st as follows :— 
William Powell Watkins Blackwood. 
William Davies Trecynon. 
In justice to the above-named successful candidates I hope, 
Sir, you will insert this contradiction. 
T. W. Evans, Chemist, 
Local Secretary to the Pharmaceutical Society. 
Aberdare, November 6th, 1871. 
Sir,—The letter of “ Spes ” on the last Preliminary exami¬ 
nation gives some startling statistics; a further analysis of 
the list may be curious, if not instructive. 
Examinations were held in 101 towns, with a total of 222 
•candidates; the percentage of failures, in round numbers, 
was as follows — 
No. of 
Percent¬ 
No. of 
candi¬ 
age of 
towns. 
dates. 
Passes. 
Failures. 
failures. 
Total.101 
222 
140 
82 
37p.c. 
London .... 1 
30 
9 
21 
70 
Country .... 100 
192 
131 
61 
32 
11 towns, “ Spes ” . 11 
44 
6 
38 
87 
Other country towns 89 
148 
125 
23 
17 
I give the figures for what they are worth; in some re¬ 
spects they are humiliating enough. I do not think, how¬ 
ever, we can draw any very definite conclusions from them, 
for lack of other materials and standards of comparison. 
It would be interesting to know what proportion of those 
plucked were fresh from school, and how many had been in 
the trade for possibly years, also what percentage of failures 
is found in the Cambridge and Oxford, London and Durham, 
Civil Service and other examinations. May there not also 
be some truth in the statement of Mr. Snell (Lond. Univ.), 
that the examination of the Society is behind the age, and 
that injustice is done to the candidates? 
I should be sorry to palliate our own shortcomings by 
reference to the failings of others; it would not be wise to do 
so; but if the impression gains ground that 'the ordeal 
through which our apprentices have to pass is too severe the 
effect will be injurious, and man} 1 - promising young men will 
be deterred from entering the trade. If our failures are not 
greatly in excess of what, under the circumstances, might be 
expected,—and I do not think they are in the aggregate,— 
we may take heart, and urge our young men to increased 
efforts to pas3 creditably. At present the trade is in a tran¬ 
sition condition, and some time must necessarily elapse before 
we are equal to the new order of things. 
If some such plan as that named by Mr. Ince was generally 
adopted, failure in the Preliminary would be reduced to a 
minimum. I could myself furnish several instances where 
young men, acting on my advice, have put themselves for 
three or four months under special instruction for a few hours 
weekly before going in for the Preliminary, not one of whom 
failed to pass. 
I would suggest that, in future, you add a column to the 
Preliminary, showing the number of passes in each town; it 
would add much interest to the list, and show whether the 
same towns are constantly weak. 
Null, November 7th, 1871. James Baynes. 
* It will be seen that, although the figures are correct in 
the aggregate, the details, being founded upon “ Spes’ ” letter, 
are incorrect. 
Sir,—I am saddened but not surprised at the large per¬ 
centage of candidates ‘'plucked” at the recent Preliminary 
examination. 
Allow me, Sir, to re-enforce the argument which consti¬ 
tuted the keystone of the position assumed in the paper on 
the apprenticeship question I had the honour of reading at 
Edinburgh, namely, that the Preliminary examination, or 
its equivalent, should be passed prior to apprenticeship com¬ 
mencing. 
Want of time at the July meeting prevented, I know, 
several gentlemen from speaking, who were prepared to have 
discussed the subject, with the view specially of enforcing 
this particular point. 
In papers on Provincial Education that have subsequently 
appeared in the Journal, the question has been casually re¬ 
ferred to, and I am gratified by observing in the current 
number a more positive and distinct reference to it in the 
interesting paper on North German Pharmacy, by my friend 
Mr. Greenish. 
Feeling strongly on the matter, I am convinced that the 
attention of our body must be yet more emphatically directed 
to it. I have letters now lying before me, from widely sepa¬ 
rated parts of England, stating the evil to be as rife as ever. 
Most imperfectly educated youths are being taken by men 
possessing neither the time nor the requisite qualifications to 
grind up their pupils for the Preliminary. 
I am credibly informed that in some cases neither parents 
nor pupils are previously made acquainted with the compulsory 
tests of pharmacy, before deciding on the future calling of life. 
Let the public thoroughly understand that the successful 
passing the test of a liberal education, in the form of one of 
the prescribed examinations, is a sine qua non, to enter the 
vestibule of pharmacy. 
Let our brethren distinctly understand that they sin 
against their own interests in accepting educational re¬ 
sponsibilities they ought not to be saddled with, and one im¬ 
portant step will have been secured towards that goal 
enlightened pharmacists are aiming at, and which our char¬ 
tered status, together with the demands of society, render im¬ 
perative. S. R. Atkins. 
Market Place, Salisbury, November 7th, 1871. 
Sir,—I shall be glad if you will allow me to correct an 
error (anatural one I admit) in the statistics of “Spes,” in 
the Journal for November 4th. He gives a list of twelve 
towns at which 74 candidates presented themselves for the 
last Preliminary, and finding only 15 names to the credit of 
those towns in the list of successful candidates, concludes 
that all the rest have failed, and says that such an unfavour¬ 
able result reflects discredit on those towns. It would be so, 
if his conclusions were correct, but he has fallen into error by 
supposing that all the candidates resided in the towns in 
which they were examined. This is not the case. In Man¬ 
chester, for instance, 4 only of the candidates reside in its 
neighbourhood, the others residing at Bolton, Burnley, Bury, 
Huddersfield and Rawtenstall. Three of these were suc¬ 
cessful, and their names appear in the list to the credit of 
their respective towns; so that there were 6 successful candi¬ 
dates out of the 9, instead of 3, as given by “ Spes,” and only 
1 unsuccessful candidate from Manchester proper, instead of 6. 
The same remarks apply to the other towns, although I do 
not know the exact numbers. 
I have been enabled to examine a correct table of the re¬ 
sults in those twelve towns selected by “ Spes,” in which I 
found that the successful candidates number 38, instead of 15, 
and the failures 36, instead of 59,—bad enough indeed, but 
still showing that the large towns do not furnish such a 
proportion as he supposes. 
As the reputation of Manchester candidates has previously 
suffered in a similar way from the same cause, I send a state¬ 
ment of the numbers who have presented themselves here at 
the last six examinations, with the results, as follows:— 
Date. 
Candi¬ 
dates. 
Passed. 
Failed. 
Strangers 
Passed. 
Failed. 
June 20,1870. . 
. 3 
3 
0 
0 
0 
October 3, 1870 . 
. 11 
11 
0 
2 
0 
January 2, 1871 . 
. 16 
12 
4 
1 
0 
April 3, 1871 . . 
. 12 
4 
8 
0 
0 
July 3, 1871 . . 
. 14 
12 
2 
3 
1 
October 10, 1871 
. 9 
6 
3 
3 
2 
65 
48 
17 
9 
3 
