66  Professor  Joseph  P.  Remington.  {A^^y^llt' 
He  inherited  a  liking  and  an  aptitude  for  scientific  study,  and 
when  but  a  small  boy  had  equipped  a  chemical  laboratory  in  which 
most  of  the  apparatus  was  of  his  own  devising  and  construction. 
In  the  collection  at  the  College  is  a  Liebig  condenser  made  by  him 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  out  of  a  tin  roll-plaster  case,  two  heavy  rubber 
washers  and  several  pieces  of  glass  tubing,  which  has  done  service  in 
lecture  counter  experiments  for  more  than  fifty  years. 
His  father  died  when  Joseph  Remington  was  but  fifteen  years 
of  age.  The  plans  which  had  been  made  for  him  to  obtain  an 
academic  college  degree  were  abandoned.  He  received  his  pre- 
liminary education  in  private  schools,  and  in  the  Philadelphia  Cen- 
tral High  School.  At  the  time  of  his  father's  death,  the  members 
of  his  family  wished  him  to  take  up  the  study  of  medicine,  but  he 
decided  that  he  preferred  to  study  pharmacy  instead.  It  was  a 
decision  purely  his  own  and  tis  wisdom  is  confirmed  by  his  subse- 
quent brilliant  career  in  the  profession  of  his  choice. 
January  I,  1863,  exactly  fifty-five  years  before  the  day  of  his 
death,  he  entered  the  establishment  of  Charles  Ellis,  Son  &  Co.,  a 
prominent  firm  of  wholesale  and  retail  druggists  of  that  time  in 
Philadelphia.  He  was  guided  in  his  choice  of  a  preceptor  by  his 
brother-in-law,  Henry  M.  Troth,  the  son  of  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy.  His  experience  at  the  Ellis 
store  covered  an  unusually  wide  range,  even  at  that  time,  for  the 
firm  was  one  that  did  a  great  deal  of  manufacturing  on  what  was 
then  considered  a  very  large  scale.  He  was  fortunate  in  the  fact, 
too,  that  Mr.  Charles  Ellis,  the  head  of  the  firm,  and  at  that  time  the 
president  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  took  a  more 
than  ordinary  interest  in  him  and  encouraged  him  to  attend  the 
lectures  at  the  college  during  the  years  of  his  apprenticeship.  The 
lectures  at  that  time  were  given  in  the  evenings  and  the  course  was 
of  two  years'  duration.  At  the  commencement  exercises  held  in 
1866,  Joseph  P.  Remington  was  graduated  from  the  institution  in 
whose  service  he  was  destined  to  spend  so  many  useful  years  and 
was  awarded  the  degree  of  Ph.G.  Curiously  enough  and  prophetic 
in  its  significance,  the  title  of  his  graduating  thesis  was  "  Our  Alma 
Mater,  Its  Rise  and  Progress." 
In  January,  1867,  Professor  Remington  left  Philadelphia  to 
enter  the  employ  of  Dr.  E.  R.  Squibb,  then  the  foremost  manu- 
facturer of  chemicals  and  pharmaceuticals  in  the  United  States. 
