PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY. 
01 
demands which are imperative ; but in addition, a debt of 
gratitude weighs upon you, an obligation to return in kind 
the benefits you have received from the labours of your 
predecessors and cotemporaries. I mean, that you should 
exert yourselves, so far as talent has been conferred, to still 
continue the improvement of your profession. I will not 
occupy your time by specifying the mode by which this can 
be accomplished. The means are known to you, or will in the 
course of your experience become familiar, but simply wish to 
impress the fact upon you, that at the present period an 
extensive field of research and observation is presented in 
the projected revision of our National Standard; a labour 
in which ail, who can do so, should engage, and thus ex- 
hibit by what close ties of fellowship we are united. 
The last requisite on which I shall insist is strict integrity. 
In every code of morals, the teaching is the same with re- 
ference to this point, and the advantages of honesty are ex- 
hibited as incentives to its practice. Whether from pagan 
or Christian writers, the language used cannot be mis- 
interpreted. The declaration of the Latin moralist and 
orator is "Itaque utilitas valuit propter honestatem, sine 
qua ne utilitas quidem esse potuisset and the great ex- 
pounder of the system, by which our conduct is professedly 
regulated, tells us most explicitly " to provide things 
honest in the sight of all men." and to "be in all things 
willing to live honestly." It would be but an insult to 
your moral principle, to intemperately urge upon you con- 
formity to such golden precepts ; but in discharging the task 
assigned me, I cannot do otherwise than regard you as sub- 
ject to the infirmities that appertain to human nature ; and 
if a deviation from the highest standard did not happen, 
such precepts might be regarded as superfluous. Temp- 
tation must occur to every one, and happy he who can 
resist it. To every mode by which a livelihood is made, 
the charge of deviation from the path of rectitude is appli- 
cable, and, unfortunately, with respect to pharmacy, is too 
well founded. 
