Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1913.  j 
Instruction  in  Pharmacy. 
323 
of  pharmacy  as  to  fit  him  for  passing  a  creditable  examination  in 
one  year.  On  the  other  hand,  John  Smith,  slow  to  assimilate, 
incapable  of  close  application,  not  fitted  by  nature  or  disposition  to 
listen  attentively  and  absorb  during  lecture  periods,  might  find  it 
necessary  to  spend  three  years  in  a  college  of  pharmacy  before  he 
could  measure  up  to  the  required  percentage  that  would  graduate 
him.  To  my  own  way  of  thinking,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a 
fixed  minimum  course  in  pharmacy,  or  any  other  study,  for  that 
matter.  Each  individual  student  should  be  permitted  to  graduate 
when  he  or  she  has  shown  ability  to  creditably  meet  the  tests  laid 
down.  You  may  be  able  to  reach  that  point  in  one  year,  while  I 
might  find  it  necessary  to  spend  two  or  three  or  four  years  before 
being  able  to  measure  up.  Length  of  time,  therefore,  can  have 
no  place  in  the  matter  of  reaching  the  goal,  and  to  make  an  arbi- 
trary rule  that  any  certain  number  of  years  shall  constitute  a 
minimum  course  in  pharmacy  is  wrong  in  practice,  however  valuable 
it  may  be  in  theory. 
One  of  the  most  serious;  and  deservedly  so,  criticisms  attaching 
to  labor  unions  is  that  they  hold  the  best  men  in  their  membership 
back  by  making  the  standard  of  accomplishment  to  fit  the  capacity 
of  the  weakest  brother,  and  are  not  colleges  of  pharmacy  doing  the 
same  thing  in  the  fixing  of  a  minimum  course  in  the  study  of  phar- 
macy? Penalizing  the  bright  students  by  compelling  them  to  serve 
time  because  of  the  inability  of  the  duller  ones  to  meet  the  pace. 
In  the  fixing  of  an  average  there  must  of  necessity  be  recog- 
nized highest  and  lowest  points.  Now  when  so  august  a  body  as 
the  Education  Department  of  a  great  state  says  to  the  graduates 
of  what  has  been  herein  before  stated  to  be  "  by  many  considered 
the  best  college  of  pharmacy  in  the  country,"  "  The  Board  of 
Pharmacy  will  not  even  admit  you  to  its  examinations;"  while  at 
the  same  time  students  from  some  small,  obscure,  practically  un- 
known school,  located  somewhere  in  North  Dakota  are  given  the 
glad  hand  of  full  recognition  by  the  same  aforementioned  august 
body  of  educators,  what  is  there  left  for  me  to  do  other  than  to 
return  to  my  starting  point  and  again  propound  the  query,  "  What 
constitutes  an  average  college  of  pharmacy?" 
Now,  having  satisfactorily  failed  to  reach  a  conclusion  as  to 
whether  the  minimum  pharmacy  course  should  extend  over  three 
years,  I  find  myself  face  to  face  with  that  other  perplexing  prob- 
lem, "  What  degrees  should  be  conferred  on  the  completion  of  two 
