192 
EDITORIAL. 
regards the number of the class, and that of its graduates, catalogues of 
whom are subjoined. The medical profession in their annual association 
appear to have awakened to the importance of having Pharmacy conducted 
by persons fitted for [the businsss by practical and theoretical education. 
Where no law exists to compel qualification, the only influence that can be 
brought to bear is public opinion. The first action of the public voice is 
generally in favor of the man who appeals most strongely to the eye by his 
extensive show, or to the pocket by cheapness of price: but experience is a 
rough and impartial teacher, and has to a considerable extent convinced the 
medicine-buying public of the fact that it requires the possession of something 
more than colored bottles, a few drugs, and the implements for dispensing them, 
to constitute a pharmaceutist worthy of his responsible position. Physicians 
also are becoming more and more impressed with the truth that their suc- 
cess as practitioners depends largely on the ability and conscienciousness of 
the apothecary. To these two influences, therefore, viz : the sense of self- 
preservation in the people, and the demand for efficient co-operation from 
the practitioner, acting in unison, we look more for real pharmaceutical 
reforms than to the enactments of Legislatures. 
In looking over the class we find several gentlemen who are engaged in 
business, and who, seeing the importance of are gular pharmaceutical edu- 
cation, have availed themselves of the advantages of our school at the sacri- 
fice of considerable inconvenience. This is a favorable indication, and is a 
proof that with a proper spirit, the existing as well as the rising pharma- 
ceutical body may be improved. 
There are apothecaries who scout the idea of any benefit being derived 
from education beyond the precincts of the shop ; who consider pharmacy 
solely as a practical art, requiring no study but what is picked up in the 
busy career of an apprenticeship. They argue that boys get their heads- 
filled with impracticable notions which interfere with the, to them, true prin- 
ciples of practice. Drugs which have heretofore been dispensed without a 
question as to value, are condemned by these juniors as unfit for dispensing, 
and practices to which long usage has given its sanction, are ex- 
posed as incompatible with the just principles that should regulate the 
conduct of the apothecary toward the physician and the public. Such are 
some of the lecture-acquired notions condemned by the opponents of phar- 
maceutical education. We have known the whole character of a dispensing 
establishment changed by the silent influence of apprentices stimulated 
by a wholesome ambition to excel, and sustained by just principles of action, 
in spite of the antiquated notions of their employers, who, with whatever 
sacrifice of self-importance, yielded to a course which trial proved to 
advance their pecuniary interests, whilst it increased their reputation. 
Mere lectures will not make apothecaries, but oral instruction properly 
illustrated by experiments and diagrams, when addressed to earnest young 
men or boys engaged in the daily routine of the shop, is productive of the 
