Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  > 
December,  1905.  f 
Chairman 's  Address  on  Education. 
577 
on  the  part  of  colleges  with  easy  consciences  to  gain  representation 
on  the  boards  and  to  dispose  of  things  in  their  own  selfish  interests. 
Of  the  three  States  of  the  Union  proper  which  now  demand 
graduation  in  pharmacy,  two  of  them,  New  York  and  Wisconsin, 
have  established  a  preliminary  requirement  equivalent  to  one  year 
of  high-school  work,  and  they  have  likewise  established  certain  cur- 
riculum standards  also.  So  far  only  Pennsylvania  has  ignored  this 
vital  necessity,  and  perhaps  no  particular  harm  will  have  been  done 
if  the  same  mistake  is  avoided  with  the  several  prerequisite  laws 
which  are  quite  sure  to  be  enacted  within  the  next  few  years.  But 
I  can  only  regard  it  as  ominous  that  from  certain  quarters  during 
the  year  has  come  the  declaration  that  future  prerequisite  laws, 
unlike  the  New  York  amendment  and  the  Wisconsin  resolutions, 
should  stop  with  making  the  college  course  compulsory,  and  should 
have  nothing  whatever  to  say  about  preliminary  requirements.  I 
believe  this  to  be  dangerous  gospel  and  I  think  we  cannot  correct  it 
any  too  soon  or  any  too  vigorously. 
And  what,  forsooth,  are  the  reasons  advanced  why  we  should 
establish  no  preliminary  standards  in  our  prerequisite  legislation  ? 
There  are  only  two  of  any  consequence,  and  both  are  equally  un- 
sound, One  is  that  it  would  not  be  fair  to  future  candidates  to  keep 
them  in  the  public  schools  a  year  or  two  longer,  and  the  other  is 
that  if  we  increase  the  standard  of  general  education  we  shall  cause 
a  stringency  in  the  clerk  market. 
The  first  reason  seems  to  me  almost  childish.  We  cannot  abort 
the  whole  prerequisite  movement  out  of  sympathy  for  a  few  clerks 
who  are  anxious  to  get  their  certificates  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment  regardless  of  competency.  If  we  must  coddle  and  nurse 
them  along,  why  do  them  the  cruel  unkindness  of  asking  them  to 
go  to  the  college  of  pharmacy,  or  even  to  pass  through  four  years 
of  "apprenticeship"  at  low  wages  ?  It  is  absurd  !  And  yet,  from 
this  very  viewpoint  of  sentiment  and  sympathy  for  the  clerk,  are  we 
not  after  all  doing  him  a  great  kindness  instead  of  an  injury  by  com- 
pelling him  to  undergo  that  degree  of  preparation  for  his  calling 
which  will  vastly  increase  his  chances  for  success  and  at  the  same 
time  exempt  him  from  a  certain  class  of  cheap  competition  ? 
The  argument  that  an  elevation  of  preliminary  standards  would 
lessen  the  supply  of  clerks  seems  to  me  equally  specious.  The  strin- 
gency of  the  clerk  market  which  has  already  been  with  us  two  or  three 
