400 
Editorial. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pliarm. 
1      August,  1899. 
better,  judging  from  results,  than  many  would  have  us  believe.  There  is  a 
feeling  in  the  West,  judging  from  what  one  college  President  is  said  to  have  said, 
that  no  college  having  an  endowment  of  less  than  $ioo,ooo  should  be 
allowed  to  confer  degrees.  A  prominent  pharmacist  is  also  quoted  recently  as 
having  said  that  "what  we  need  is  fewer,  but  better  pharmacists  ;  not  more 
schools,  but  fewer  and  better  ones — schools  that  can  afford  to  refuse,  and  will 
refuse  to  accept  material  not  ripe  for  college  work. "  "  If, "  said  he,  ' '  the  United 
States  had  only  four  colleges  not  dependent  upon  political  sandbaggers,  nor 
upon  the  number  of  matriculants,  but  in  a  position  to  write  over  their  portals, 
1  no  one  enters  here  but  men  who  have  learned  to  learn,'  pharmacy  would  soon 
be  an  occupation  worth  following  and  worthy  of  the  ambition  of  any  young 
man."  It  will  not  be  possible  to  discuss  these  remarks  at  any  length.  The 
increase  in  the  number  of  colleges  is  dependent  upon  and  results  from  the  in- 
crease in  population.  It  may  be  said  that  all  legitimate  schools  are  endeavor- 
ing to  select  their  students  and  graduates  not  necessarily  only  at  the  entrance, 
but  before  their  graduation.  Bach  matriculant  and  student  is  having  his  work 
critically  examined,  and  his  record  is  based  not  so  much  on  the  number  of  correct 
answers,  but  rather  on  the  nature  and  quality  of  these  answers.  It  may  be 
further  said  that  all  legitimate  schools  are  endeavoring  to  be  so  provided  by 
endowments  that  the  most  unselfish  work  may  be  done  by  teacher  and  the  most 
rigorous  requirements  fulfilled  by  students.  The  time  is  not  yet  ripe  to  say 
that  colleges  must  have  a  certain  endowment,  or  that  only  they  who  have 
"  learned  to  learn  "  shall  be  admitted.  We  must  still  do  the  best  we  can  with- 
out liberal  endowments  and  try  to  teach  our  students  so  as  to  make  them  com- 
petent. To  put  on  the  screws  just  now  in  the  Utopian  fashion  suggested  would 
be  worse  than  a  bread  famine  or  even  the  evils  that  are  to  be  remedied. 
The  same  speaker  pleads  "  not  for  higher,  but  lower  and  broader  education." 
As  to  what  this  speaker  meant  by  lower  and  broader  education  is  not  given  in 
the  account  of  the  address  we  have  seen.  But  here  again  we  might  all  differ. 
It  is  said  of  Russell  Sage  that  he  has  always  devoted  about  a  month  of  each 
year  to  the  study  of  current  politics,  as  he  has  found  that  in  no  way  can  a  man 
gain  such  useful  knowledge  of  his  fellows  as  he  can  by  working  in  politics. 
Thomas  Edison,  the  inventor,  has  said  that  if  you  want  to  succeed  get  some 
enemies.  And  so  it  goes.  The  problems  of  education,  like  success,  are,  as  we 
have  said,  largely  individual.  One  requires  certain  traits  developed  ;  another 
develops  certain  qualities  easily,  and  some  may  never  attain  to  any  success.  It 
is  astonishing,  however,  as  to  how  we  differ  about  the  terms  higher  and  lower. 
The  speaker  advocates  putting  the  bars  so  high  up  that  only  those  who  have 
learned  to  learn  may  enter,  and  then  he  would  have  a  lower  education.  It  seems 
to  us  that  our  better  colleges  are  trying  to  do  better  than  this,  if  not  just  the 
right  thing.  The  universities  like  Columbia  and  Chicago,  referred  to  and  others, 
are  putting  their  entrance  examinations  sufficiently  high  for  the  studies  they 
teach  and  the  objects  of  these  institutions.  Their  aim  is  not  lower  but  higher  edu- 
cation. In  colleges  of  pharmacy  the  entrance  requirements  are  being  made  to 
correspond  with  the  subjects  treated.  Can  we  realize  how  broad  the  education  in 
our  colleges  of  pharmacy  is  becoming?  Mathematics,  Tvatin,  bacteriology, 
urinary  analysis,  commercial  analysis  are  being  taught,  and  even  commercial 
training  has  recently  been  instituted  in  one  college.  The  object  of  the  latter 
course  being,  as  stated  in  the  announcement  just  issued,  that  "no  matter  how 
