Am.  Jour.  Pharm.") 
September,  1904.  j 
Educational  Qualification. 
421 
Government.  In  Michigan  the  representative  of  the  State  Grange 
unites  with  the  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction  in  a  report 
upon  the  Centralized  Schools  of  Ohio,  looking  to  it  that  our  State 
shall  not  fall  behind  in  the  march. 
Such  are  the  people  of  this  Commonwealth,  whose  sons  and 
daughters  carry  the  numbers  of  high-school  students,  and  lead  in 
the  intellectual  sentiment  of  high -school  classes.  Already  in  the 
high-school  grades  they  nourish  the  pride  of  liberal  learning,  they 
yield  to  the  ambition  for  such  a  general  training  in  the  science  and 
literature  of  the  world's  work  and  thought  of  to-day,  as  shall  give 
them  strength  in  any  pursuit  they  may  enter  upon — advantage  in 
any  station  they  may  fill. 
It  always  seems  to  me,  in  the  self-confidence  of  my  own  enthusiasm, 
that  I  could  appeal  to  high-school  seniors,  in  behalf  of  pharmacy, 
as  a  pursuit  of  interest  and  promise,  a  study  that  brings  the  potent 
materials  of  all  the  earth  to  the  foot  of  man,  an  opportunity  to  draw 
the  inventions  of  science  into  the  profits  of  a  manageable  business. 
In  the  simplicity  of  my  heart,  I  would  like  to  lay  the  actual  merits 
of  pharmacy  before  a  large  jury  of  high-school  graduates,  many  of 
whom  are  certainly  wanted  in  pharmacy.  Certainly,  I  say,  there  are 
places  waiting  for  them,  these  young  men  whom  I  seem  to  see  before 
me,  the  students  who  have  won  out  in  the  four-years'  race  of  the 
general  studies  of  the  high  school,  if  I  as  a  stranger  could  get  their 
attention  to  the  real  merits  of  pharmacy  as  a  pursuit. 
But  these  students,  whom  we  are  supposed  to  address,  look  one 
to  another,  and  fall  back  upon  what  has  happened  among  their 
former  classmates,  in  the  events  known  to  their  parents,  and  well 
known  in  the  neighborhood  at  home.  Fellows  whom  they  know 
went  before  the  State  board  after  working  in  a  drug  store,  and  were 
given  State  examination  in  this  same  pharmacy.  Fellows  who 
couldn't  pass  to  the  third  year  of  the  high  school  went  before  the 
State  board.  Tom  Jones,  poor  boy,  never  had  a  chance  to  finish 
the  eighth  grade,  but  he  has  taken  the  board  examination  in  phar- 
macy, and  the  drug-store  man  thinks  he  can  pass  it  next  time.  Yes, 
they  have  a  State  law,  and  a  standard  of  knowledge  and  so  forth, 
all  going  to  show  that  high-school  work  is  not  in  it.  If  they  want 
high-school  work  why  don't  they  stand  up  for  it  ?  I  would  rather 
go  into  a  hardware  store,  where  they  don't  set  up  for  any  studies  in 
particular,  than  to  go  in  on  the  grammar-school  grade.    This  is 
