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Educational  Qualification. 
/ Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(.  September,  1904. 
from  the  promiscuous  sale  of  medicines  and  appliances,  that  are 
openly  and  willingly  recommended  and  sold  for  questionable  or  even 
criminal  purposes,  physicians  and  pharmacists  who  are  not  willing 
to  endorse  such  practices  would  not,  as  at  present,  be  suspected  of 
sanctioning  the  same  by  fraternizing  with  or  patronizing  the  pro- 
prietors of  establishments  where  the  same  are  sold. 
THE  EDUCATIONAL  QUALIFICATION.1 
By  Albert  B.  Prescott. 
The  public-school  system  is  the  heart  of  intellectual  life  at  the 
present  day.  The  school  system  cannot  be  considered  separately 
from  the  organization  of  the  commonwealth.  The  pulse  of  the 
school  beats  through  the  community,  and  beats  by  virtue  of  the  vital 
force  it  draws  from  that  community.  To  complain  of  the  schools  is 
to  be  impatient  with  the  development  of  the  people  and  with  the 
present  stage  of  civilization. 
The  people  have  entered  upon  a  new  order  of  living  whereby  city 
and  country  are  consolidated.  The  farmer,  receiving  daily  papers 
by  rural  free  delivery,  takes  two  postal  cards  that  he  may  stop  the 
one  paper  and  start  another  of  a  different  political  utterance,  with  as 
much  independence  as  he  could  exercise  were  he  a  candidate  for  the 
Governor's  chair.  He  can  call  his  family  physician  by  telephone, 
or  call  up  his  druggist  for  further  directions  in  the  relief  of  a  crop 
from  the  ravages  of  a  destroying  insect.  The  mechanic  or  the  frugal 
laborer  counts  on  the  schooling  of  his  children  as  he  counts  on  the 
roof  over  their  home,  and  watches  the  test  of  his  sons  in  the  high 
school  as  their  capabilities-  are  weighed  in  the  common  intellectual 
balance,  under  plans  for  the  business  of  life  and  for  its  several 
pursuits. 
The  people  themselves  are  adopting  by  a  township  vote  the  pro- 
vision of  centralized  schools,  having  all  high-school  grades,  with 
free  transportation  of  all  pupils  to  and  from  their  rural  homes.  The 
conveyance  of  school  children  is  guarded  by  State  contract  as 
sacredly  as  the  carriage  of  the  mails  under  contract  of  the  Federal 
1  A  paper  read  before  the  Michigan  State  Pharmaceutical  Association  at  the 
Grand  Rapids  Meeting,  August  io,  1904. 
