Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
September,  1904.  J 
A  Prerequisite  Law. 
427 
and  pestle,  the  pill  tile  and  the  spatula,  to  determine  the  fitness  of 
an  applicant. 
In  a  good  college  of  pharmacy  the  fierce  ordeal  of  a  final  examina- 
tion could  be  dispensed  with.  A  good  corps  of  instructors,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  quiz  every  student  in  each  course  three  times  a  week, 
can  form  a  vastly  better  idea  of  the  capacity  of  a  student  than  can 
the  most  rigid  examination  at  the  end  of  the  course.  The  only  pur- 
pose that  a  final  examination  serves  at  the  present  time,  where  these 
conditions  prevail,  is  to  act  as  a  stimulant  to  continued  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  student  to  keep  up  with  his  work.  But,  above  all,  in  a 
graduated  course  of  instruction,  it  is  the  systematic  building  up  of 
an  education  that  counts.  It  is  an  interesting  spectacle  to  witness 
the  process  of  acquiring  a  pharmaceutical  education.  When  the 
student  first  comes  to  college,  fresh  from  his  home,  he  is  in  the  raw, 
green,  undeveloped  state  so  often  caricatured  in  our  newspapers  and 
magazines.  Confident  though  ignorant,  assertive  yet  deficient,  it 
takes  usually  a  year  to  destroy  his  conceit,  and  nothing  brings  him 
more  quickly  to  realize  his  deficiencies  than  the  continual  daily 
prodding  with  questions  on  the  lectures  to  which  he  has  listened. 
Any  one  who  has  had  experience  with  college  students  recognizes 
the  quick,  confident,  elastic  step  on  the  stairway,  of  the  first-year 
student  as  he  marches  into  the  examination-room  for  his  first  trial. 
How  different  is  the  step  of  the  senior  student,  as  he  comes  in  with 
a  worried  look  upon  his  face  and  a  feeling  that  he  does  not  know 
whether  he  will  just  get  through  or  fail  utterly.  The  first-year 
student  has  the  spirit  of  the  store  or  school  from  which  he  has 
come ;  he  is  confident  of  his  ability  to  answer  any  question  that  is 
put  to  him,  for  has  he  not  been  looked  up  to  with  mystery  and  awe 
by  the  other  boys  of  his  town  or  village  ? 
Cowper  has  written: 
"Knowledge  and  wisdom,  far  from  being  one, 
Have  ofttimes  no  connection." 
And  although  there  may  be  fine  material  upon  which  to  build,  the 
boy,  through  his  environment,  has  been  deceived,  for  he  soon  finds 
that  his  knowledge  is  not  of  the  vital,  substantial  kind.  A  young 
man  gains,  therefore,  by  going  to  college  through  learning  how 
little  he  knows,  for  this  is  the  first  step  toward  real  wisdom. 
In  looking  backward  for  twenty  years,  we  must  all  realize  that 
thousands  of  young  men  have  been  given  certificates  of  competency 
