With the proper preliminary requirements established, and without
entering at this time into a discussion of the question as to the number
of hours required for the work that should be done, believing as I do
that the colleges and schools belonging to the Conference of Teaching
Faculties will be able to decide this problem, I may say that no
discussion of the educational problem is complete at this time without
reference to the nature of the examinations of the Boards of Pharmacy.
In years gone by these examinations have been largely theoretical, and
hence were not so valuable as they might have been in testing the
fitness of a candidate. Happily, there is beginning to be an improvement
in this direction and the examinations are becoming more practical. To
my way of thinking the aim of the boards of pharmacy should be to
determine what a candidate can do. The theory has been given to him in
college, and the final test should be to determine whether he has a
working knowledge of the materials which he handles. Instead of asking
him what are the elementary forms of matter, or what is a water-bath, or
to give the family name of a plant yielding a drug, it would be better
to give him some drug or chemical to identify, to carry out the tests
for purity according to the Pharmacopœia and to make a preparation.
The boards of pharmacy have a very important work to perform in
determining the fitness of candidates and in determining whether the
colleges are faithfully carrying on their work. As matters are now
constituted they are the final arbiters and should be fully cognizant of
the great trust which they hold. It should no longer be possible for the
unqualified or incompetent to enter college, spend two or three years at
college and be given a degree and finally pass a State Board as a
registered pharmacist.