A January  ^917™' }     Higher  Education  in  Pharmacy.  25 
truth  regarding  conditions  that  obtain  in  all  of  the  states  of  the 
Union,  still  it  can  be  safely  said  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  our  pharmacy- 
laws  are  in  many  vital  respects  decidedly  out  of  date,  and  in  woeful 
need  of  revision.  Our  capacity  to  legislate  has  not  kept  pace  with 
our  business  or  professional  growth,  and  while  doctors,  dentists  and 
lawyers  have  secured  much-needed  legislation  for  themselves  we 
have  had  to  go  away  all  too  often  empty-handed.  One  very  good 
reason  for  this  is  that  we  have  not  been  sufficiently  interested  in  de- 
manding our  rights,  nor  have  we  been  able  to  bring  enough  pressure 
to  bear  to  interest  legislators  in  our  behalf.  Another  and  even  more 
potent  reason  is  that  we  have  not  enjoyed  the  respect  of  the  public 
sufficiently  to  have  created  an  adequate  opinion  in  our  behalf. 
How,  then,  can  we  set  about  to  secure  a  better  reputation  for 
pharmacy?  Let  us  begin  by  attempting  to  become  legally  on  par 
with  the  other  professions.  Let  us  ask  the  state  for  the  same  recog- 
nition that  it  now  accords  to  law,  medicine  and  dentistry.  Let  us 
substitute  for  annual  registration  a  life  permit  to  practise.  Then 
and  only  then  can  we  call  ourselves  pharmacists  in  any  real,  vital 
and  significant  sense. 
The  great  pity  is  that  some  ardent  workers  for  the  good  of  phar- 
macy persist  in  confounding  the  question  of  the  desirability  of  regis- 
tration with  the  question  of  asking  the  state  to  grant  life-long  per- 
mits to  practise  pharmacy  after  proper  examinations  have  been 
passed.  The  question  of  whether  or  not  it  is  desirable  to  have  an- 
nual registration  to  protect  and  adequately  safeguard  the  pharma- 
cists' interests  does  not  at  all  enter  into  consideration.  Let  us  regis- 
ter our  pharmacists  annually  or  semiannually  if  we  believe  such 
measures  are  necessary.  We  may  even  do  as  Illinois  and  other 
states  are  doing  with  reference  to  registration  of  physicians;  viz., 
deny  the  right  to  practise  unless  they  are  registered  with  the  county 
clerk  of  the  county  where  they  reside.  There  are  a  hundred  schemes 
that  could  be  devised  to  secure  these  ends.  We  may  even  devise 
successful  means  of  collecting  enough  fees  to  maintain  our  state 
boards  until  the  legislatures  become  convinced  that  it  is  the  duty 
and  privilege  of  the  states  to  appropriate  for  their  support.  But 
let  us  speedily  and  forever  abolish  the  present  degrading  annual 
procedure  of  granting  new  leases  of  professional  life  at  one  dollar 
and  fifty  cents  per  annum.  As  a  practical  proposition  it  does  of 
course  "  bring  in  the  money."  No  one  can  deny  that.  It  does  help 
the  secretary  to  collect  the  money  the  board  needs  and  he  does  not 
