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EllITISH IHAKMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
aspiring to take place in their ranks, is a most important consideration to us. It is 
true that the Pharmaceutical Society has its classical examination, but it is a matter 
in which every individual pharmaceutist owes a duty to his neighbour. The pre¬ 
sent indiscriminate mode of taking apprentices and pupils saps the very foundation 
of the professional superstructure we desire to raise. If we consistently declined 
to take pupils below a certain age—made Virgil and Euclid our touchstones, 
and thereby left to pursue their proper avocations the half-educated shop-boys 
who offer themselves to us, and too often are accepted, we should soon rid our¬ 
selves of one great cause of the multitude of third-rate chemists’ shops which are 
established round us, and do so much injury to the legitimate pharmaceutist, 
compelling him to add all sorts of articles to his stock because he cannot make 
a living out of his proper calling. Parliament may perhaps, in its wisdom, some 
time give compulsory powers tending to this end; but meanwhile it is a matter 
in which we can, if we will, help ourselves and each other.” 
Let me reverse the picture, and insist on the strict ethical duty -we on our side 
owe to the apprentice. We expect a fair amount of education and general 
respectability, and yet it is well known that there is an increasing habit pre¬ 
vailing in large establishments of refusing apprentices altogether. 
They are driven, therefore, to houses of lesser standing, where both the pre¬ 
mium and the cheap services are a consideration. 
What should we do in pharmacy with regard to the future training of the 
apprentice ? I liave asked a question which I cannot answer, and I leave it for 
more experienced pharmaceutists to decide. 
Mr. Deane’s opinion is as follows :—“ There is much to be said on both sides 
of this difficult question. The experience of the Board of Examiners of the 
Pharmaceutical Society is that at least two-thirds of those who go up for the 
classical examination are very imperfectly educated both as regards Latin and 
the first rules of arithmetic as far as vulgar fractions. Yet they are not neces¬ 
sarily deficient. It is their misfortune, perhaps, that their friends have not been 
able to extend their education, and at the same time reserve a small fee to give 
with the boy as an apprentice. This class generally go to small shops, where 
they probably learn to be more industrious than scientific, and many of them 
ultimately make good, active, business-like assistants. The more educated few 
mostly have friends who can pay a fee of £200 or £300, and these get into 
houses of higher reputation ; their advantages are more supposed than real, for 
the knowledge only to be acquired by the routine drudgery of the business is 
likely to be despised. The really useful men of this more educated class are 
very few, and they either speedily enter into business for themselves, or, being 
dissatisfied with too small a remuneration, enter on more profitable and con¬ 
genial occupations.” 
Besides this general duty to our neighbour, there is the law of mutual 
accommodation. As regards the country I should be sorry to express any 
opinion, but I am afraid that the most lenient and rose-water observer would 
allow that some improvement might be made in this particular in what is called 
the metropolis. I have been ashamed of things that have come before my notice, 
and in my own person I have had my share in breaking the system of non- 
accommodation down. 
The law of mutual accommodation leads also to the refusal by remark or other¬ 
wise to take advantage of any mistake that may have occurred elsewhere. Those 
who have most business to transact will be the least likely to sin in this parti¬ 
cular : they best will know that it is a standing wonder, considering the multi¬ 
plicity of the engagements of the druggist, that so few mistakes should happen ; 
they also will know best that the most vigilant care, the highest exercise of skill, 
the aid of the most willing and accomplished assistants, cannot in all cases pro¬ 
vide immunity from accident. But there are a crowd of minor instances, palpable 
