24'6 
NEW YORK COLLEGE ON PHARMACY. 
quality of drugs and chemicals which they dispense, are 
abundantly manifest to all whose duties or necessities make 
them acquainted with the subject. Our meetings have been 
pleasant occasions for mutually extending information on 
all matters concerning our business . An increasing spirit of 
emulation has also been excited in our students, prompting 
them to obtain their degrees with something more of credit 
than mere form, and this promises well for the future. We 
regret that we have been unable to do more for them ; we 
hope they will help us to do more for their successors. 
Gentlemen, you are about to enter upon the discharge of 
duties, the importance and responsibility of which, are most 
felt by the most virtuous minds. Upon the Apothecary, of 
all men, the Golden Rule is laid with most emphasis. With 
whatever anxious care you select, with whatev er watchful 
precision you weigh, measure, and combine for yourselves 
or for any one whom you hold in more regard than your- 
selves — "you should do even so unto others." Those who 
repose their trust in you may have equally vital hopes and 
interests in jeopardy, which must not be sacrificed by the 
slightest failure in any part of your duty. Strive to emu- 
late the achievements and fame of men, who from humble 
origin have taken rank amongst the greatest benefactors of 
mankind, and have shed lustre over our profession. But 
if you do not reach their eminence — if it should not be your 
supreme good fortune to light a safety lamp, or to demon- 
strate the existence of proximate principles — " all stars can- 
not be of the first magnitude" — you may yet, if you will, 
occupy the station which is your lot with great practical 
usefulness to all around you. Let incorruptible integrity 
be your chief governing principle. Upon such a basis you 
cannot but found an honorable character, for you will be 
impelled to the best exertion of all your faculties. Let no 
prospect of gain ever tempt your manhood from a straight- 
forward honest course, down into the infamous arts of 
quackery. Your legitimate business, honestly and indus- 
