THE  PHARMACEUTIST  AS  A  MERCHANT.  199 
I  believe  it  true  that  the  discouragements  are  greater  to  the 
beginner  in  Pharmacy  as  a  business,  than  in  many  other  pur- 
suits, because  the  demand  for  the  products  of  our  skill  is  limited 
in  comparison  with  that  for  most  great  staples  of  trade  which 
busy  the  business  talents  of  the  mass  of  our  fellow-men  ;  more- 
over, a  community  take  to  a  new  Pharmaceutist  shyly  and 
slowly,  confiding  in  him  only  as  they  come  to  know  him. 
Choose,  then,  Pharmacy  as  a  business  in  the  profound  con- 
viction that  you  were  born  for  it,  and  not  take  it  up  on  trial  to 
be  thrown  aside  for  some  other.  Are  you  hopeful?  So  much 
the  happier  will  you  be,  for  anticipation  of  success  is  about 
equal  to  its  reality. 
Don't  try  and  stand  alone  until  you  have  reaped  the  benefit 
of  an  aprehticeship  with  some  experienced  and  successful  pre- 
ceptor, during  which  you  have  enriched  your  mind  by  reading, 
study  and  schooling  in  Pharmacy,  and  acquired  those  business 
ways  and  habits  which  have  led  him,  whose  example  you  study, 
to  success.  This  preliminary  education  is  of  such  vital  import- 
ance that  the  want  of  it  can  never  be  compensated  by  the  slowly 
accumulated  experience  of  an  active  life  of  years.  I  know  of 
many  young  men  who,  after  a  stay  of  one  or  two  years  in  a 
subordinate  position  in  a  drug  store,  have  started  in  business 
full  fledged,  in  their  own  belief,  as  capable  and  experienced 
Pharmaceutists;  such  gravitate  naturally  to  the  position  in 
which  they  properly  belong  among  merchants,  remain  incapa- 
ble and  become  obscure. 
We  all  know  this  hasty  tendency  is  peculiar  to  American 
youth ;  ambitious  to  reach  the  goal  of  future  hopes,  it  leaves 
the  formation  of  correct  business  habits  to  the  chance  of  com- 
ing years  ;  this  it  is  that  crowds  our  cities  and  towns  with  so 
many  ignorant  druggists — men  who  pick  up  the  business  of 
Pharmacy  as  they  would  that  of  selling  Yankee  notions,  live 
and  succeed  in  a  small  way,  or  fail  ingloriously ;  in  either  event, 
blissfully  ignorant  of  the  capabilities  of  the  art  in  whose  bor- 
ders they  have  to  tread. 
After  a  varied  experience  of  twenty  years  in  Pharmacy,  I 
am  possessed  of  the  strongest  conviction  that  a  rigid  adherence 
to  principles  of  integrity,  to  honor  and  to  truth,  in  conducting 
our  business,  is  most  surely  conducive  to  its  success ;  therefore, 
