366 
Entrance  Requirements. 
/  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      August,  1904. 
pharmacy  for  life,  to  do  so  with  the  foregone  conclusion  that  a  course 
in  a  school  of  pharmacy  was  a  necessary  condition.  At  the  present 
time  there  are  thousands  of  young  men  in  drug  stores  who  have 
never  been  to  a  school  of  pharmacy  and  have  no  intention  of  going 
there.  It  is  for  us  to  bring  about  a  condition  of  things  that  will 
make  a  pharmacy  course  essential,  not  necessarily  by  legal  enact- 
ment, as  in  New  York,  though  that  is  desirable,  but  from  the  force 
of  universal  sentiment.  In  medicine  the  man  who  essays  to  practice 
without  a  college  diploma  is  regarded,  not  only  by  graduates  in  medi- 
cine, but  by  the  public,  as  a  quack.  In  dentistry  it  is  rapidly  becom- 
ing so,  and,  likewise,  in  the  practice  of  law  ;  yet,  it  is  not  many 
years  since  our  large  cities  had  great  numbers  of  men  practising  all 
three  of  these  professions  without  a  college  education.  In  dentistry 
in  particular  the  change  has  been  brought  about  with  wonderful 
rapidity,  and  it  has  come  because  the  public  has  realized  that  the 
graduates  in  that  profession  were  the  best  men.  It  is  for  the  lead- 
ers of  pharmacy  to  bring  about  a  like  amelioration  in  the  ranks  of 
our  own  profession,  but  we  cannot  do  it  by  sending  into  the  world 
illiterate,  half-educated  graduates,  whose  general  attainments  are  but 
little  superior  to  those  of  the  ungraduated.  Let  it  be  generally 
known  that  the  holder  of  a  diploma  in  pharmacy  is,  firstly,  a  man 
of  general  culture  and,  secondly,  a  man  of  good  pharmaceutical 
education,  and  pharmacy  will  be  respected  by  the  public  far  more 
than  it  is  now. 
Specifically,  what  steps  should  be  taken  at  this  time  to  bring 
about  a  consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  wished?  Assuming  that 
the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  should  commit  itself  to  an 
expression  of  opinion  in  favor  of  a  definite  plan  whereby,  at  certain 
dates,  the  minimum  qualification  for  entrance  should  be,  firstly,  one 
year;  secondly,  two  years;  and,  thirdly,  graduation  from  a  high 
school ;  and,  assuming  that  the  Conference  of  Pharmaceutical  Facul- 
ties should  also  endorse  the  same  plan,  there  would  be  such  a  large 
proportion  of  the  best  schools  acting  upon  this  procedure,  that  the 
effect  upon  other  schools  that  held  out  against  it  would  be  that  they 
would  quickly  take  second  rank  in  the  esteem  of  pharmacists ;  and 
when  a  college  once  gets  relegated  to  a  second-  or  third-rate  posi- 
tion among  its  competitors,  its  days  as  a  successful  financial  institu- 
tion are  numbered.  Such  schools  would,  before  long,  be  compelled 
to  come  into  line. 
