Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
October,  1904.  J 
Editorial. 
501 
duty  of  assistants  to  suggest  and  superintend  the  working  out  of 
problems  set  to  students  ;  in  this  way,  he  is  apprenticed  to  his  trade. 
As  the  number  of  assistants  must  necessarily  be  greater  than  that 
of  professors,  and  as  assistants  should,  as  a  rule,  be  birds  of  passage, 
it  follows  that  some  should  be  drafted  off  into  industry.  As  in 
Germany,  so  our  manufacturers  would  find  it  to  their  advantage  to 
induce  assistants  from  University  laboratories  to  enter  their  works. 
It  is  not  possible  for  any  man  to  supervise  the  work  of  more  than 
forty  or  fifty  men,  even  if  he  is  well  provided  with  assistance.  The 
reason  why  the  laboratories  of  Liebig,  Wbhler  and  Bunsen  were 
regarded  with  such  loving  memory  by  their  old  students  is  that  the 
total  number  of  students  was  small,  and  each  came  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  great  teacher.  Too  much  time,  also,  should  not  be 
spent  by  the  professor  in  the  duties  of  organization.  If  too  many 
students  flock  to  any  one  laboratory,  let  a  new  one  be  built,  and  a 
new  chair  be  created. 
Professor  Ramsay  next  considered  the  question  of  remuneration, 
and  pointed  out  that  if  first-rate  men  are  to  be  tempted  to  choose  a 
university  career,  the  prizes  to  the  most  successful  should  bear  com- 
parison to  those  gained  by  the  successful  physician,  lawyer  or 
manufacturing  chemist.  It  is  not  necessary  that  all  should  be  paid 
at  such  rates ;  but  if  some  are  not,  the  teaching  profession  will  fail 
to  attract,  and  second-rate  men  will  fill  university  chairs. 
The  subject  of  examinations  was  next  touched  on ;  and  stress  was 
laid  on  the  danger  of  an  examination  being  so  contrived  as  to  elicit 
what  a  man  knows  rather  than  what  he  can  do.  The  danger  of 
scholarships  reaching  the  wrong  men,  and  their  award  fostering 
wrong  aims,  was  also  alluded  to. 
A  question  sometimes  debated  is  whether  the  professor  should 
lecture  to  junior  or  to  senior  students.  The  object  of  a  course  of 
lectures  is  to  open  out  a  subject,  and  to  direct  a  student  how  to  read, 
rather  than  to  give  definite  information.  Students  are  generally 
much  overlectured ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  lectures  should  be 
continued  in  a  formal  manner  for  longer  than  the  first  two  years  of 
the  student's  career.  But,  as  some  learn  best  through  the  eye,  and 
some  best  through  the  ear,  it  is  advisable  to  make  use  of  both  chan- 
nels of  approach  to  the  brain,  at  all  events  in  beginning  each  division 
of  chemistry.  Lectures  on  technical  subjects  appeared  to  the 
speaker  to  be  futile. 
