8 
Advances  in  Instruction. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      Jan  ,  1885. 
of  the  changes  and  improvements  within  the  last  24  years  up  to  the 
present  time.  The  last  important  advance  is  the  establishment  of  the- 
preliminary  junior  examinations ;  this  plan  received  the  sanction  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  in  the  early  part  of  this  year  (1884)  and  is  now  on 
trial.  It  was  entered  into  after  a  thorough  and  careful  review  of  the 
methods  employed  in  the  various  technical  and  literary  institutions  of 
learning  in  this  country.  The  mode  of  conducting  ordinary  prelimi- 
nary examinations,  as  practiced  by  many  colleges,  was  not  believed  to 
be  suited  to  the  needs  of  a  College  of  Pharmacy,  the  requisite  qualifi- 
cations of  a  good  pharmacist,  embrace  not  only  good  intellectual  acquire- 
ments and  a  sound  elementary  education,  but  a  peculiar  adaptation  for 
the  duties  of  the  profession  of  his  choice.  A  graduate  of  Yale,  Har- 
vard or  Cornell,  would  probably  make  as  good  a  practical  pharmacist 
as  a  graduate  of  a  first-class  academy,  but  he  is  hardly  likely  to  be  any 
better — whilst  an  enthusiastic  energetic  plodder  after  the  truths  of 
physical  and  chemical  science,  who  is  blessed  with  a  good  brain,  an 
observing  eye,  quick  perceptions,  a  retentive  memory  and  a  steady 
hand,  even  if  his  early  advantages  have  been  limited  to  a  good  com- 
mon school  education  has  as  good  a  chance  in  time  to  become  eminent 
in  his  profession  as  his  more  fortunate  colleague. 
The  amount  of  knowledge  possessed  by  a  student  is  not  a  measure 
of  his  practical  worth  in  the  world,  but  the  amount  of  knowledge  that  he 
can  successfully  apply,  is.  The  great  evil  of  our  present  systems  of  edu- 
cation particularly  with  many  of  the  higher  order,  is,  that  young  men 
are  not  taught  "  how  to  do  tJieir  own  thinking  lines  of  thought  are 
laid  down  for  them,  rules  and  rigid  theoretical  methods  are  to  be  com- 
mitted to  memory,  and  if  a  case  occurs  out  of  the  regular  routine  which 
calls  for  a  practical  application  of  the  very  principles  that  they  have 
been  studying  so  long,  they  are  completely  at  a  loss  and  wander  hope- 
lessly. This  unfortunate  oversight  in  education  has  been  the  means  of 
bringing  the  graduates  of  some  of  our  best  literary  colleges  into  dis- 
grace, in  the  eyes  of  practical  men  (particularly  journalists),  who  con- 
tinually and  often  unjustly  sneer  in  the  public  prints  at  the  available 
worth  of  these  sorry  victims  of  a  defective  system.  The  Faculty  of 
the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  have  always  recognized  the 
value  of  a  practical  application  of  knowledge,  and  this  writer  willingly 
bears  testimony  to  the  habit  which  is  always  exercised  by  the  examiners 
of  giving  a  candidate  a  higher  mark  for  the  answer  to  a  question  which 
is  correctly  rendered  in  the  applicant's  own  language  than  if  the  exact 
