Am  jL°ner;i9oif rm' }  Correspondence.  29  5 
CORRESPONDENCE.1 
PROCTER  MEMORIAL. 
In  response  to  a  letter  from  the  Editor  of  this  Journal  concerning 
the  feasibility  of  establishing  a  Research  Laboratory  as  a  memorial 
to  the  life  and  work  of  Prof.  William  Procter,  Jr.,  by  the  American 
Pharmaceutical  Association  at  its  semi-centennial  in  1902,  the  follow- 
ing are  some  of  the  replies  which  have  been  received : 
Dear  Sir: — That  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  Prof.  Wm. 
Procter  will  be  erected  is  now  a  practically  established  fact,  judging 
from  the  letters  that  have  appeared  in  the  recent  numbers  of  the 
American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  and  the  question  remaining  is  to 
determine  what  form  this  memorial  shall  take. 
The  statue,  the  medal,  the  scholarship,  the  research  laboratory, 
each  has  its  advantages  and  its  disadvantages.  Of  the  four,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  statue  is  the  least  desirable.  In  perpetuating 
the  memory  of  such  a  man  as  Procter  we  want  a  living  monument, 
SDmething  that  will  be  ever  before  the  minds  of  the  pharmacists  of 
to-day  and  of  the  future,  something  to  stimulate  us  to  do  better 
work.  If  a  statue  be  erected  and  placed  in  Washington,  but  a 
small  percentage  of  pharmacists  will  ever  hear  of  it  again  after  its 
unveiling.  Those  who  visit  Washington  may  see  it,  but  in  that 
city  of  sights  not  more  than  one  in  a  thousand  would  be  sufficiently 
impressed  to  make  him  return  home  resolved  to  do  more  for  the 
advancement  of  pharmacy. 
The  medal,  granted  once  in  three  or  five  years  so  that  it  will  not 
become  too  common,  would  undoubtedly  stimulate  quite  a  number, 
but  it  seems  to  me  even  then  there  would  be  a  decided  restriction 
in  the  amount  of  good  accomplished. 
The  scholarship  granted  every  year  would  help  a  larger  number 
of  men ;  but  probably  most  of  them  to  whom  it  would  be  given 
would  be  recent  graduates,  frequently  young  men  not  fully  matured 
and  consequently  not  equipped  to  produce  the  best  results. 
The  research  laboratory,  if  it  can  be  properly  equipped,  manned 
and  maintained  (giving  due  weight  to  that  "if"),  would  be  the  ideal 
memorial.  It  would  be  as  lasting  as  the  statue  and  far  more  impres- 
sive. The  results  of  the  labor  done  there  would  not  appear  only  once 
in  three  or  five  years,'  but  every  year  and  several  times  a  year,  and  it 
1  For  other  information  and  correspondence  on  this  subject,  see  editorials, 
November,  1900,  and  February,  March,  April  and  May  issues  of  this  Journal. 
