AnMi?ch,i907.rm'}     Standards  in  Pharmaceutical  Education.  105 
any  of  the  preparations  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  and  National  Formu- 
lary, processes  for  which  are  given.  The  least,  then,  that  the  col- 
leges of  pharmacy  can  do  is  to  prepare  their  students  to  employ  the 
Pharmacopoeia  and  the  National  Formulary  as  working  guides. 
EXAMINATIONS  BY  BOARDS  OF  PHARMACY. 
With  the  proper  preliminary  requirements  established,  and  with- 
out entering  at  this  time  into  a  discussion  of  the  question  as  to  the 
number  of  hours  required  for  the  work  that  should  be  done,  believ- 
ing as  I  do  that  the  colleges  and  schools  belonging  to  the  Conference 
of  Teaching  Faculties  will  be  able  to  decide  this  problem,  I  may 
say  that  no  discussion  of  the  educational  problem  is  complete  at  this 
time  without  reference  to  the  nature  of  the  examinations  of  the 
Boards  of  Pharmacy.  In  years  gone  by  these  examinations  have 
been  largely  theoretical,  and  hence  were  not  so  valuable  as  they 
might  have  been  in  testing  the  fitness  of  a  candidate.  Happily, 
there  is  beginning  to  be  an  improvement  in  this  direction  and  the 
examinations  are  becoming  more  practical.  To  my  way  of  think- 
ing the  aim  of  the  boards  of  pharmacy  should  be  to  determine 
what  a  candidate  can  do.  The  theory  has  been  given  to  him 
in  college,  and  the  final  test  should  be  to  determine  whether  he  has 
a  working  knowledge  of  the  materials  which  he  handles.  Instead 
of  asking  him  what  are  the  elementary  forms  of  matter,  or  what  is 
a  water-bath,  or  to  give  the  family  name  of  a  plant  yielding  a  drug, 
it  would  be  better  to  give  him  some  drug  or  chemical  to  identify,  to 
carry  out  the  tests  for  purity  according  to  the  Pharmacopoeia  and  to 
make  a  preparation. 
The  boards  of  pharmacy  have  a  very  important  work  to  perform 
in  determining  the  fitness  of  candidates  and  in  determining  whether 
the  colleges  are  faithfully  carrying  on  their  work.  As  matters  are 
now  constituted  they  are  the  final  arbiters  and  should  be  fully  cog- 
nizant of  the  great  trust  which  they  hold.  It  should  no  longer  be 
possible  for  the  unqualified  or  incompetent  to  enter  college,  spend 
two  or  three  years  at  college  and  be  given  a  degree  and  finally  pass 
a  State  Board  as  a  registered  pharmacist. 
THE  DUTY  OF  PHARMACISTS. 
Pharmacists  themselves  also  have  a  very  important  part  to  per- 
form in  raising  pharmacy  to  the  plane  that  it  must  occupy  to  maintain 
