Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1920. 
Frank  G.  Ryan. 
373 
given  in  many  other  schools  of  pharmacy.  To  Prof.  Frank  G.  Ryan 
belongs  the  honor  of  having  been  the  pioneer  in  this  branch  of  phar- 
maceutical education  and  despite  the  early  criticism  he  lived  to  see 
his  ideas  and  the  very  course  of  instruction  that  he  had  outlined  made 
the  basis  for  the  accepted  course  of  business  training  in  the  leading 
schools  of  pharmacy. 
At  the  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  held 
in  Richmond,  in  1900,  Prof.  Ryan  was  requested  to  address  the  mem- 
bers upon  the  subject  of  commercial  training  for  students  of  colleges 
of  pharmacy.  He  said  that  the  lack  of  business  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  the  young  men  engaging  in  the  drug  business  had  been,  dis- 
cussed in  the  pharmaceutical  journals  and  was  undoubtedly  real. 
In  his  experience  he  found  that  but  one  man  in  twenty  had  received 
any  training  in  business  principles,  although  his  students  were 
generally  high  school  graduates  and  possessed  a  rood  general  edu- 
cation. 
As  clerks  the  young  men  had  little  opportunity  to  learn  about  the 
market  conditions,  the  correct  methods  of  buying,  discounts,  bank- 
ing and  insurance,  etc.,  as  this  part  of  the  business  was  almost  uni- 
versally reserved  for  the  proprietor.  The  business  colleges  were 
prepared  to  teach  a  man  how  to  become  a  banker,  broker,  shipper, 
real  estate  dealer  but  none  of  these  taught  business  methods  as 
applied  to  the  buying  and  selling  of  drugs  specifically,  and  it  was 
essential  that  the  pharmacist  should  receive  such  before  engaging 
in  busines  on  his  own  account  and  this  should  be  imparted  as  part 
of  his  collegiate  training  and  preferably  by  those  who  had  some  ac- 
quaintances with  drugs  and  the  drug-trade  customs.  He  submitteed 
a  synopsis  of  what  he  considered  as  the  essentials  that  should  be 
included  in  this  instruction. 
In  1889,  when  the  scope  of  his  duties  in  the  Philadelphia  College 
of  Pharmacy  were  widened  and  the  instruction  in  commercial  train- 
ing added,  he  was  given  the  title  of  Instructor  in  Pharmacy  and 
Assistant  Director  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Laboratory.  At  the 
same  time,  he  held  the  position  of  lecturer  on  pharmacy  in  the 
Woman's  Medical  College  of  Philadelphia.  Always  courteous,  yet 
forceful,  he  evidenced  even  in  those  early  days  that  he  was  a  born 
leader  of  men  and  that  he  possessed  unusual  administrative  and 
executive  ability  that  enabled  him  to  command  and  to  gain  the 
respect,  confidence  and  support  of  students  and  the  development  of 
these  characteristics  at  that  time  and  under  circumstances  that  were 
