j6  Centenary  of  Pharmaceutical  Education.  {^^Try^mi"1' 
the  United  States  against  all  foreign  aggression.  What  was  even 
more  apparent  at  this  time  was  the  spirit  of  our  people;  the  deter- 
mination that  we  were  to  become  one  of  the  foremost  peoples  of 
the  world;  that  the  abundant  natural  resources  and  the  fertility 
of  our  soil  should  be  applied  to  the  end  of  developing  our  indus- 
tries and  national  strength.  Soon  after  the  close  of  this  war,  and 
as  a  logical  sequence  thereof,  arose  the  cry  for  financial  and  indus- 
trial independence  from  England,  and  this  was  the  period  of  the 
inception  of  what  has  been  referred  to  as  "The  American  Policy" 
— "The  Protective  Policy."  The  foremost  advocate  at  the  time 
was  A.  J.  Dallas,  a  Democrat  of  prominence  and  a  former  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury. 
Our  country  experienced  the  usual  aftermath  of  war,  specula- 
tion was  rife,  state  banks  were  established  everywhere  and  with 
the  usual  result  the  inordinate  bubbles  burst  and  brought  on  a  panic. 
Eighteen  hundred  and  nineteen  is  said  to  have  been  a  hard  year, 
and  farms  were  sacrificed,  factories  were  closed,  and  Philadelphia 
was  crowded  with  men  out  of  employment.  At  that  time  Phila- 
delphia was  the  chief  city  in  America,  not  only  in  numbers,  but 
likewise  in  financial,  commercial  and  educational  facilities.  This 
period  of  our  national  history  has  been  termed  as  the  Period  of 
Great  Beginnings.  The  national  ambition  was  a  powerful  incentive 
for  many  of  the  schemes  for  the  development  of  our  country,  and 
Philadelphia  was  the  center  from  which  many  of  these  can  be 
traced. 
The  chartering  of  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  in  1816,  for 
twenty  years  with  the  financial  backing  of  Stephen  Girard  and  other 
active  financiers  of  the  day,  was  an  influential  factor  in  encourag- 
ing many  of  our  industries  and  public  utilities.  The  first  two 
years  of  its  existence,  like  its  predecessor,  the  first  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  this  bank  was  domiciled  in  Carpenteis'  Hall.  Canals, 
railroads,  turnpikes  and  bridges  "were  among  the  leading  public 
projects  inaugurated,  and  the  importance  of  transportation  to  the 
development  of  our  country  was  thus  recognized  and  claimed  prime 
consideration.  One  of  the  feats  of  transportation  of  these  early 
days  was  the  bringing  of  coal  by  "arks"  down  the  Lehigh  and 
Schuylkill  Canal  to  Philadelphia. 
Eighteen  hundred  and  twenty  marks  also  a  renaissance  in 
the  sciences,  literature  and  arts.  The  old  theories,  such  as  the 
phlogistic  theory  in  chemistry,  that  had  so  long  hampered  scientific 
