TILE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 18, 1872. 
S3 G 
ances. I say there is no difficulty in the matter, and I 
aim sure the body of men we shall have in a few years 
will be a credit to us. 
Mr. Clarice : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—I desire 
To trouble the meeting with a few words ; because, 
•whilst the facts which Mr. Mackay has stated with re¬ 
gard to provincial schools are decidedly true, there is 
.something to be heard on the other side. I can give > 
:some information with regard to Leicester. We formed 
;an association for assistants and apprentices there, and 
for the last two or thi'ee years the increase has been steady; 
The average is from fourteen to fifteen every evening, j 
which I think remarkably good considering that in the | 
whole town there are not more than from forty-five 
to fifty. Thirty out of the whole fifty have joined 
the society. Again, at least as many young men as we 
•could expect in such a town have passed the examina¬ 
tions of the Pharmaceutical Society, including both the 
Preliminary and Major. And I take this opportunity of 
referring to a fact which shows the very bad working of 
the regulations with regard to grants to provincial asso¬ 
ciations. The Leicester Association had the pleasure of 
receiving a loan of £10 from the parent Society, but its 
reception was attended with far more trouble than it 
was worth. A great part of the money was expended 
in books, but such a number of letters had to be written 
to our esteemed Secretary that it caused so much annoy¬ 
ance that it was generally voted a nuisance. Now it is 
very evident that if the Pharmaceutical Society finds the 
money for the provincial grants, it should be spent in the 
very best way possible. None of us would like to see 
some works or materials bought by one association at 
25 per cent, less than was paid by another. The books 
purchased by the Leicester Association were bought at 
the published prices, less 25 per cent, discount; but the 
mother association out of a similar grant has paid the 
full price for the books. Such facts ought not to exist, 
and I thought it perhaps might do good to mention 
them. 
Mr. Berdoe (London): Sir,—I cannot allow this dis¬ 
cussion on provincial education to pass without uttering 
my protest, feeble though it be, against a great deal of 
the language I see used about the work apprentices and 
assistants are compelled to do. I constantly hear and 
read that the opening of the shop, sweeping out and 
cleaning it and so forth, are derogatory to the position of 
persons in a pharmaceutical establishment. But I main¬ 
tain that the work necessary to be done in a chemist’s 
shop is really of the most essential importance to the ac¬ 
quirement of business habits, carefulness, and scrupulous 
neatness and tidiness. I cannot tell you how indignant 
I feel when I read letters in the Journal from young 
men who complain that they are kept rolling pills and 
stirring ointments, and doing those thousand-and-one 
things necessary to be done. I am certain that the 
spirit which those remarks calls forth is very detri¬ 
mental to the best interests of the young men them¬ 
selves. I hope you will not consider me egotistic if I 
just refer to my own career. I was apprenticed in the 
country with one of the founders of the Society, and in 
.about two or three months my emyloyer said I had 
better connect myself with the Pharmaceutical Society 
£it once. My master did not liberate me from opening 
shop at the proper time and doing the necessary amount 
of brass cleaning and so forth. But he encouraged me to 
get up very early in the morning, go out botanizing, 
.and when the shop was shut he was very much annoyed 
if he saw me reading anything but scientific books. I 
may say here that I never found cleaning windows, 
cleaning brass plates, or washing bottles interfere with 
scientific education; in fact, I rather think one assists 
the other, and incline to the belief expressed in Dothc- 
boy’s Hall, that you may learn botany whilst weeding a 
garden. I used to get up early in the morning, and 
succeeded ultimately in passing examination as a phar¬ 
maceutical chemist. Therefore, I say that I totally ob¬ 
ject to the remarks which I constantly sec with reference 
to that subject; and if young men desire scientific edu¬ 
cation, they can get it without putting the Society to 
the expense of establishing in every little village a school 
of pharmacy. 
Mr. Schacht : Sir,—At the risk of being thought some¬ 
what intrusive upon this subject, I shall venture to say 
a word or two, as one seems to be a little challenged to 
suggest something for the consideration of the next 
Council in the way of a practical solution of the difficulty, 
which so clear a head as Mr. Mackay’s fails to see a way 
out of. It is a matter to me of excessive pleasure to find 
how general appears to be the feeling that this Society 
should do more than it has hitherto done for the cause 
of provincial education; and I desire to elicit some¬ 
thing like a general opinion upon the subject for the 
guidance of those who are to have the future conduct of 
the Society. The first thing to be made clear in one’s 
own mind is the general principle that should guide, the 
Society in the education of its members, and around 
which should ultimately group all its efforts. I would 
rather that there were no such question as provincial 
pharmaceutical education ; but, inasmuch as it is a sub¬ 
ject which has received a certain amount of practical 
elucidation at the hands of this Society, we must deal with 
it. The difficulty which seems to strike most of those 
who have thought upon the matter is, that whereas 
it seems to be granted on the one hand that the provinces 
have a perfect right to receive money aid from this So¬ 
ciety; on the other hand, it is seen that those who 
have the management of the funds of this Society should 
exercise the greatest care that none of it should be mis¬ 
applied. Therefore it is that we hear these very natural 
suggestions as to the difficulty of establishing and main¬ 
taining provincial schools, inasmuch as it appears to be 
somewhat unjust, when you are seeking for an abstract 
principle to guide you, that Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, and a 
few other groat centres only should be blessed with the 
privileges and advantages which we are striving to obtain 
out of the funds of the Society. Therefore, one seeks for 
some sort of plan which shall not be open, at any rate, to 
that worst of all possible charges—injustice. I can 
find but one solution, and that is a system which should 
simply grant aid for results; nothing in anticipa¬ 
tion of what may be done, but as an acknowledg¬ 
ment of what has been bone. It occurs to me that such 
a plan as that we have cut and dried for our adoption. 
It is the system adopted by the Government for aiding 
scientific education. I have been bold sometimes in ex¬ 
pressing my views upon this subject. I find that 1 have 
been misunderstood amongst my friends. My notion is 
not to do anything hastily, but adopt a plan which shall 
ultimately obtain throughout. But, in the meantime, I 
would not touch the processes which are going on in this 
school for a moment. It has worked good things in the 
past, and let us hope it will continue to do so. It would 
be a great pity to disturb all that is systematized in this 
establishment; but if we can get a system which shall 
simply pay for results, and it is foimd to work well, we 
can gradually bring this establishment into precisely 
the same system. It is scarcely necessary; it would be 
unwise to go into details; but any system adopted should 
be one that would foster the establishment of provincial 
schools by local effort, by some process similar to that 
adopted by the Science and Art Department of the State. 
Examinations should be yearly held in the three branches, 
materia medica, chemistry, and botany, or perhaps only 
two. All provincial schools should be recognized, and 
required to have a systematized process of teaching; and 
all those who passed should earn for the establishments 
in which they passed certain grants of money, to be 
handed over to the schools, and applied according to the 
wisdom of those who had instituted the schools. It should 
be given without grudge, without stint, and without 
control, because those who had the courage and gene¬ 
rosity to establish the schools could surely be trusted 
