Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ") 
Sept.,  1882.  J 
Reviews y  etc. 
477 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAHHICAL  NOTICES. 
A  Pamphlet  on  the  relation  to  each  other  of  Education  and  Examination,, 
especially  with  regard  to  Pharmacy  in  Great  Britain.  By  ProfesHor  Att- 
field,  F.R.B.,  etc.  London,  1882.  8vo,  pp.  97. 
The  education  of  the  ]3harmacist  should  be  two-fold  :  technical,  which  is 
acquired  in  the  store  and  laboratory,  from  the  handling  of  and  manipula- 
tion with  the  numerous  medicinal  articles,  -aw^  general  or  scientific,  such  as 
is  obtained  through  systematic  study,  theoretical  as  well  as  practical.  There 
is  no  "  short  cut "  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  ;  the  student  must  learn 
to  see  and  to  investigate,  mentally  as  well  as  practically,  and  to  acquire  this 
habit  and  turn  it  to  useful  account  requires  methodical  training  of  the 
mind,  which  alone  can  aftbrd  the  requisite  clearness  of  perception  and 
soundness  of  judgment.  AVhen  these  have  been  reached  the  student  will 
be  able  to  help  himself  along  and  he  will  not  rest  satisfied  with  what  he 
reads  and  hears,  but  by  proper  inquiry  will  convince  himself  of  the  correct- 
ness of  statements,  and  in  this  manner  will  become  master  of  the  subject. 
Examinations  are  intended  to  test  the  soundness  and  extent  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  candidate,  and,  judiciously  conducted,  will  succeed  in  this^pur- 
pose  to  a  certain  extent.  But  they  should  be  regarded  merely  as  a  rough 
test  of  attainment ;  for  at  the  very  threshold  of  this  test  we  are  met  with 
the  system  of  "  preparing  for  examination,"  which  unfortunately  prevails 
to  a  very  large  extent  in  the  elementary  schools,  and  is  more  or  less  uncon- 
sciously carried  into  collegiate  and  academical  institutions.  The  temporary 
"  cramming  "  of  the  students'  mind  with  facts  may  and  often  does  succeed 
in  carrying  him  safely  through  the  examinations,  and  may  be,  ahead  of  his 
competitors,  where  competitive  examinations  exist ;  yet  the  knowledge 
upon  which  the  result  has  been  attained  is  only  delusive,  because  transient, 
and  sooner  or  later  forgotten,  wliile  that  acquired  by  the  patient  student 
lasts  and  accumulates,  even  though  the  retentive  powers  of  his  memory  be 
less  brilliant. 
8uch  teaching  which  merely  aims  to  fit  the  student  for  passing  the  ordeal 
before  the  examiners  is  what  Professor  Attfield  very  ajDtly  terms  adapting 
the  system  of  education  to  the  system  of  examination.  He  shows  the 
unsoundness  of  such  an  adaptation,  and  that  thereby  neither  the  public 
nor  the  students  derive  any  lasting  benetit.  To  attain  this  latter  end  he 
earnestly  pleads  for  the  reversed  condition,  the  adaptation  of  examination 
to  education,  that  is  to  way,  to  make  the  former  dependent  upon  the  latter; 
and  in  this  view  we  lieartily  concur. 
We  cannot  close  this  brief  review  of  Professor  Atttield's  excellent 
pamphlet,  in  which  American  pharmacits  willtind  much  that  is  of  valuable 
application  for  the  present  and  more  particularly  for  the  future,— without 
quoting  a  sentence  or  two  from  tho  author's  remarks  on  certain  points 
raised  by  his  correspondents  : 
"A  principle  which  should  be  commonly  accepted  is  that  while  teclini- 
cal  and  general  education  and  examination  should  be  carried  on  by  differ- 
ent men  or  different  bodies  of  men,  l>otli  the  nu^n  or  bodies  of  men  should 
