\ 
coggeshall's  valedictory  address.  201 
ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  GRADUATES  OF  THE  COLLEGE 
OF  PHARMACY  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORtf,  BY  THE  PRESI- 
DENT, MR.  GEORGE  D.  COGGESHALL,  AT  THE  STATED  MEET- 
ING, MARCH  16,  1854. 
At  the  close  of  his  address,  on  motion,  the  President  was  requested  to  furnish 
the  Secretary  with  copies,  to  be  offered  for  publication  in  the  New  York  and  in 
the  American  Journals  of  Pharmacy. 
By  order, 
F.  A.  Hegeman,  Secretary. 
Gentlemen  Graduates  of  this  College, — 
It  is  a  pleasure  to  congratulate  you  upon  the  successful  issue 
of  your  term  of  study,  and  we  have  invited  you  to  meet  with  us 
this  evening,  that  we  may  present  you  with  the  Diploma  according 
to  prescribed  form.  Your  connexion  with  the  College  as  students 
closes  with  this  ceremony,  and  the  full  responsibility  of  accredited 
professional  standing  from  this  time  devolves  upon  you.  We  trust 
that  this  Diploma  will  be  so  regarded  by  you,  and  that  it  may 
never  suffer  reproach  through  neglect  or  dereliction  from  duty  on 
your  part. 
It  is  an  appropriate  custom,  on  occasions  like  the  present,  to 
unite  with  our  congratulations  on  past  success  some  considerations 
upon  the  duties  of  future  professional  life.  And  it  is  not  only  an 
appropriate,  but  a  wholesome  custom  ;  for  such  is  the  relaxing 
influence  of  habit  upon  the  mind,  that  it  is  good  for  us  all,  at  suc- 
cessive points  of  our  progress,  to  improve  occasions  which  most 
naturally  arrest  our  serious  attention,  and  claim  an  earnest  recon- 
sideration of  our  duties  in  the  community.  Surely  this,  if  rightly 
estimated,  is  to  us  a  proper  time  for  reflection,  when  we  are  giving 
our  official  sanction  to  practice  as  Pharmaceutists  to  young  men 
whose  relation  to  us  as  students  is  thus  closed,  whose  praiseworthy 
application  to  the  early  study  of  their  profession  gives  fair  promise, 
as  we  hope,  of  honorable  distinction  in  the  future  practice  of  it. 
The  business  of  an  Apothecary,  which  you  are  hereafter  to  pur- 
sue, is  of  a  two-fold  character.  It  is  not  only  that  of  a  shop- 
keeper, in  the  ordinary  sense,  and  in  which  you  are  bound  by  the 
ordinary  rules  of  fair  dealing  with  your  customers  ;  it  comprises 
also  the  cares,  the  duties,  the  full  accountability  and  the  preroga- 
tives of  a  most  important  profession.    "To  buy  and  sell  and  get 
