desired by parents. We say "the boys" rarely failed, for in those days it was no indignity to term them such, even for some months after matriculation, but now college students are all "young men."

But with the advent of the common schools the ends designed to be accomplished were changed. There were no longer a few select schools with select pupils to be prepared for college, but there were many schools with many pupils, to a considerable extent children of the populace, of the oi noλλoi, and in some of the larger cities possibly of a multitudo egens et perdita. These desired not that their children should be prepared for college, but that they might keep the wolf from the door. They attached little value to Latin and Greek, but desired training in English branches and practical studies.

As the number of students preparing for collegiate training is always much smaller than the number soon to enter business in some form, the courses preparing for collego become less important and academic candidates are left to qualify themselves as best they can. The courses in the high schools have gradually been broadened so as to include many other useful and practical studies, which even prospective college students are unwilling to omit. Consequently the age for completion of high school courses has been elevated, and instead of preparing pupils for entrance to college they aim rather at preparation for the practical duties of life.

But at the same time the matriculation requirements of colleges have been elevated. This caused no particular hardship a few years ago when a professional course could be completed with ease in one or two years. The courses in medicine were regarded as requiring only a few months' study, and as for law, one could study three months or a year, according to his convenience.

But times have changed, and this is soon realized by young men who conclude to study medicine with the expectation that they can complete the course as rapidly and as easily as was done by some physician they have known for years. In medicine every year now marks some advance in the requirements for graduation or for a medical license. The advances are made so rapidly as to escape the observation of all except those who are particularly interested in the subject.

The courses of law schools are also being extended somewhat, although not so noticeably as in medical schools, and the standard of preliminary education is being elevated.

In consequence of this broadening and lengthening of the courses in elementary schools, and the advanced age for completion of collegiate studies, young men who take a degree before beginning professional courses frequently can not complete the same until 28 or 30 years of age.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON MEDICAL SCHOOLS.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia College, New York, which lately received from the Vanderbilt family some important additions to its already valuable property, will soon be in possession of still other extensive improvements. The group of college buildings, given by the late William H. Vanderbilt and members of his family and by William D. Sloane, esq., stood upon thirty contiguous lots of land, bounded on the south, west, and north by Fifty-ninth street, Tenth avenue, and Sixtieth street. The college building proper consisted of a southern portion measuring 140 by 40 feet, a northern portion 96 by 43 feet, and a middle portion 96 by 55 feet. Through the recent generous gift of Messrs. Cornelius, William K., Frederick W., and George W. Vanderbilt there has been rendered possible an important enlargement of the college building. The present south wing will be extended eastward for 55 feet and to a depth of 80 feet. It will be four stories high and will be devoted to the department of anatomy.

The new Vanderbilt clinic covers an area of 180 by 60 feet, and is three stories in height. The original building having proved inadequate to accommodate the large number of patients, the sons of Mr. Vanderbilt united in an additional gift of $350,000, enabling the size of the building to be doubled.

The Sloane Maternity Hospital is a lying-in hospital given by William D. Sloane, esq., whose wife, a daughter of the late William H. Vanderbilt, has endowed the institution, making all of its beds free in perpetuity. Through the further munificence of Mr. Sloane the present hospital is to be greatly enlarged. The new building will be six stories high, but will conform to the old building in general architectural style. This will furnish 72 additional beds for patients and offer greater accommodation for the house staff and nurses.

An addition to the Barnes Medical College building, of St. Louis, four stories high, and in immediate connection with the main building, was lately erected, covering an area of 40 by 50 feet. It provides a separate entrance to the clinic for diseases of women and children, and contains a microscopical laboratory 20 by 50 feet. Upon the second floor is a chemical laboratory 40 by 50 feet, and so arranged as to enable 100 students to simultaneously engage in the practical work in this

department. Upon the third floor is an elegant museum, and the fourth contains an amphitheater with a seating capacity of nearly 500. The amphitheater is lighted from the dome, and the seats are so arranged that every student can obtain a satisfactory view.

The Missouri Medical College, of St. Louis, one of the oldest medical institutions of the country, has just completed its fifty-fourth year. It now has a new edifice in process of construction which will afford increased laboratory and clinical facilities and give place for all the didactic lecture rooms under one roof.

The Omaha Medical College completed its new building in the fall of 1893. It is of pressed brick, with stone and terra-cotta trimmings, three stories and basement. The main amphitheater is on the second floor, 31 by 41 feet, and will seat 275 students. The entire building is heated by steam and lighted by electricity.

The medical department of Buffalo University now occupies its new building on High street, near Main. It is finished with terra cotta, pressed brick, iron, and hard wood. It contains three amphitheaters, a chemical laboratory in which 96 students can work at one time, and other laboratories.

The medical department of Tulane University, of Louisiana, occupies a new site twice as large as the former one and only two squares from Charity Hospital, with 700 beds, and where over 10,000 patients are annually treated. There is a central medical building containing two large lecture rooms, one above the other, and two wings for laboratories, library, museum, and recitation rooms. The lecture rooms have a seating capacity of about 500 each and are entirely free from posts and pillars.

The medical department of Johns Hopkins University received another improvement in 1894, the Women's Fund Memorial Building. The sum of $500,000 was raised for the endowment of the medical department on condition that women would be admitted on the same terms as men. Miss Mary Elizabeth Garrett contributed $306,977 in addition to previous subscriptions. The course of instruction now covers four years of nine months each.

Baltimore Medical College has a new five-story building on Madison street and Linden, erected at a cost of $75,000. The lecture hall is 40 by 80 feet, and can seat 600 students. The anatomical room contains tables for 90 students to dissect at one time, and there is a chemical laboratory 42 by 84 feet.

DEGREE IN PHARMACY.

At a meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association in Asheville, N. C., September, 1894, a paper was read by Robert J. Snyder on the subject, "What objections can be urged against bestowing the degree of doctor of pharmacy upon graduates of pharmacy who take a post-graduate course."

The degree very generally given at completion of the regular course has been that of graduate in pharmacy (Ph. G.), but there is some disposition to adopt the former title as seeming more commensurate in dignity and importance with the more extended and elaborate courses which have been introduced of late years, a change which was advocated in the paper above mentioned.

Of 31 schools of pharmacy concerning whose degree information has been received, all but 5 give the degree of graduate in pharmacy. The two schools at Washington, D. C., viz, the National College of Pharmacy and the pharmaceutical school of Howard University, and the college of pharmacy of the University of Minnesota, bestow the degree of doctor of pharmacy, which is sometimes unfortunately abbreviated Ph. D., symbols which are generally interpreted differently.'

The University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University give the degree of pharmaceutical chemist, their courses not requiring practical work in a pharmaceutical establishment, and not claiming to prepare for full commercial work. The school of pharmacy of the University of Kansas will hereafter give the degree of pharmaceutical chemist and will not require shop experience. Vanderbilt University also gives the degree of master in pharmacy upon completion of one year's satisfactory postgraduate work in the school. The Illinois College of Pharmacy and the school of pharmacy of Purdue University give the degree of graduate in pharmacy, and for a longer course the degree of pharmaceutical chemist.

TRAINING IN DRUG STORES.

Not a great many years ago schools of pharmacy were almost unknown. Many physicians prepared their own medicines for administration, which quite frequently consisted of teas made from botanical plants, gathered by the physician himself from neighboring fields. Even after it became the general custom for prescriptions to be sent to a pharmacist, he received all of his training in the shop, and usually had one

The College of Pharmacy of Minnesota University gives the degree of doctor of pharmacy, which it abbreviates Phm. D.

or two assistants taking lessons from him, who afterwards succeeded him in the business or else established an independent shop.

After pharmaceutical schools were opened the course of instruction usually followed was years of training in a dispensing store and 2 years in a school of pharmacy. The latter would not bestow its diploma upon any student who had not received the 4 years of training in a pharmacy.

The question whether schools of pharmacy should make work in a drug store a prerequisite to graduation has received much attention from pharmacists of late. This question is of particular importance to those schools where the student is required to give his entire time to his studies, for in the schools where the students work the greater part of the day in a drug store, and attend a school of pharmacy in the evening, there is usually no occasion to insist upon practical experience. It is claimed that the school of pharmacy can have no definite assurance that a student has served any length of time in a pharmacy, or that he has had any connection with the work of dispensing drugs. He may have been employed in such a capacity that he would acquire no acquaintance with drugs whatever, for there is much work in a drug store that calls for no pharmaceutical knowledge at all. In some pharmacies the prescription department is of minor importance. Other establishments conduct mainly a wholesale business, and here it would only be necessary for the student to be able to read the labels and to weigh out the proper amounts.

On account of the difficulty, therefore, of determining whether a student has had such an actual experience in dispensing drugs, and for the proper length of time, some pharmaceutical schools relegate this question entirely to the State boards of examiners (where there are any), and content themselves with the declaration that their graduates have passed satisfactory examinations in all subjects connected with pharmacy, and that they have taken laboratory courses, giving them an intimate acquaintance with drugs. As a rule, too, these schools which require the students' full time give an extended and accurate training both by means of lectures and by abundant laboratory work with the drugs themselves.

But although such a student can illustrate accurately by chemical formulas the changes taking place in compounding drugs and can give full description of the different drugs, their properties and uses, yet if he must then enter for the first time behind the dispensing counter and take his first lessons in the various duties of a drug clerk and receive many useful and important hints from the junior clerk of only a few months' experience, and perhaps have to call for his assistance to decipher a prescription to him illegal but to others as plain as day, he will soon recognize that he has many things yet to learn. He will be astonished, too, to find that although well acquainted with the whole line of materia medica, customers constantly come in and ask for drugs by names entirely new to him, but which they evidently think he should know at once. He will have little or no knowledge of the current prices of drugs and prescriptions, to say nothing of the large assortment of other articles so frequently kept, although not properly belonging in a pharmacy. He will probably not possess the necessary tact in dealing with customers, nor dexterity in supplying their needs, and will not have that general knowledge of conducting a pharmacy which is so essential. Consequently, he can only act as junior clerk after all his years of study and training. Even after he has served several months he will constantly find himself in a quandary from which longer experience would have saved him. The pharmaceutical schools which require no training in drug stores frankly state that no student can become a satisfactory and successful pharmacist until he has spent several months in the business. A professor in a pharmaceutical school speaks thus:

"All pharmaceutical schools unquestionably recognize the universal rule that no person can become a fully equipped and accomplished dispensing pharmacist until after years of actual practical experience in properly conducted pharmacies where a considerable amount of sufficiently varied pharmaceutical work is done."

But if the diploma of a regularly established school of pharmacy can not be accepted as evidence that the holder can successfully discharge the duties of a pharmacist, but the question must be left to State boards of pharmacy, and if the State boards regularly admit to examination young men who have spent several years in pharmacies, but who have never spent a day in a pharmaceutical school, the diploma of the latter would soon be of little value to its holder in securing him employment, but instead a demand would be made for his license from the State board. If practical experience in a pharmacy is absolutely indispensable in order that one may become fully qualified, and this seems to be universally acknowledged, is it altogether unavoidable that a school of pharmacy should omit this important requisite? Is there no way by which its diploma may not only certify with truthfulness as to the holder's theoretical knowledge, but also attest his ability to enter any pharmacy and immediately undertake the duties of a full clerk? Such a diploma would be valued

'Oscar Oldberg, in The Apothecary, April, 1894, p. 158.

far more highly, both by employers and students. Schools of law and medicine require all students to comply with certain regularly established requisites for matriculation, in order to avoid any uncertainty as to ability to enter upon the course.

It is true that such matriculation requirements have not heretofore been rigidly enforced, but they have served a useful purpose and are now being rendered more difficult and exacting. Could not pharmaceutical schools also require applicants to produce certificates as to former employment as druggists, and to avoid possibility of deception require all applicants to pass an entrance examination? Such examinations could be made so rigid as to fully test the applicant's training even without a certificate. If the question of experience must be left to State boards of examiners, then in a State which has no board of pharmacy the graduates of pharmaceutical schools requiring no training in a store have no credentials as pharmacists. Or if they should be accepted on the strength of the diploma, their wages, if not immediately, would soon be leveled to those of half-qualified clerks. It is probable also that a student who has passed two or three years of arduous study, and who has really acquired a large amount of valuable knowledge and has at last received a certificate to that effect, would be somewhat humiliated to be under the necessity of accepting a position as an incompetent clerk, even if on account of ignorance of many minor details of store work. Although some hold a different opinion, there are many who claim that the chief object of a pharmaceutical diploma should be to certify to the holder's qualifications as a well-trained and fully competent pharmacist.

If, as it has been claimed, it is not within the province of a pharmaceutical school to inquire as to the student's training in dispensing drugs, but this must be left to the State boards of pharmacy, the question might be asked, How can the State board of pharmacy determine this matter any better than the pharmaceutical schools, or even as well, since the student must spend two or three years at the school, during which time it certainly might be able to ascertain better the student's practical knowledge than could the State board in half a day? It is claimed by some that an apprentice in pharmacy should be required to notify the State board of pharmacy as soon as he enters upon the business and whenever he changes his place of work, and in this way some record might be kept of the time in which he has been employed in a pharmacy. Others claim that it is utterly impracticable for such a record to be kept and verified for three or four years of all apprentices in pharmacy. Large numbers of young men serve in the business for two or three years and then drop out entirely. Others engage in the work temporarily, as they suppose, and afterwards make it their regular calling. Again, some States have no board of pharmacy for such work, even if it could be accomplished. Moreover, in some rural regions there is a scarcity of pharmacists even under the present lax requirements.

Not only could the school of pharmacy ascertain the student's training better than the State board, but it is within its power itself to give to a large extent this practical training. The work is not so extensive or so intricate but that it can be accomplished. As some evidence of this, notice can be taken of the business colleges, or commercial schools, some of which have elaborate methods of conducting extensive business courses requiring far more intricate and technical knowledge. Much of the information necessary to a pharmacist can be obtained with less effort than that of a full commercial course. If the diploma of a pharmaceutical school signified both theoretical and practical knowledge, it would reflect greater honor upon the school, and its holder would bear a more grateful feeling to the institution which not only gave him valuable knowledge, but saved him from ignorance of many minor but important details.

EVENING INSTRUCTION.

The great defect in some schools of pharmacy is that the instruction is confined to a few hours in the evening, the student devoting his time during the day to work in a pharmacy, where, although he receives much valuable knowledge, he is chiefly interested in the wages he receives. In some instances the time required of each student is only 5 or 6 hours each week, or about 20 or 25 hours in a month. or 100 or 125 hours in a whole course. Another school possibly exacts 5 or 6 hours each day in attendance at the school, while all the remainder of the student's time is devoted to study, the student not being engaged in any business at all. There has been much discussion as to which of these methods furnishes the more valuable training. In one case a small space of time is devoted to regular and systematic training, while most of the time is spent in a pharmacy where the student is in constant contact with the drugs which form the subject of study. In the other case the student devotes all his time to a study and examination of drugs with which he had no previous acquaintance, and he is ignorant of the other thousand and one items of information which two years of service in a pharmacy would have given him. Of what special importance is it which of these methods gives more valuable information, when neither of them can be truly said to afford all that useful and practical knowledge

which the druggist always needs? The student of pharmacy must have time in which to acquire knowledge not to be obtained while in a pharmacy. It is impossible for him to spend the entire day behind the counter and then in one or two hours in the evening get any complete and accurate instruction. He must also have time for recreation and enjoyment, or else he can not make full use of the instruction offered him.

LICENSES IN WASHINGTON STATE.

In the State of Washington graduates of the department of pharmacy of the University of Washington are allowed to register as assistant druggists without examination. After two years' experience in a drug store, either before or after graduation, they can be registered in full as qualified pharmacists without examination.

EFFECT OF LEGISLATION IN MINNESOTA.

When the law regulating the practice of pharmacy in Minnesota was passed in 1885 there were 1,046 persons enrolled on the list of pharmacists, and of this number only 38 were graduates of any college of pharmacy. There was not a college of pharmacy in the State, and all young men who wished to take a systematic course of instruction in pharmacy had to go to some other State. This is not necessary at the present time. The board of examiners has examined 1,676 persons, of whom 622 were licensed as pharmacists and 225 as assistant pharmacists. It is estimated that fully one-half of the names now on the register have passed examinations, thus showing their competency as pharmacists. That the pharmaceutical board is active in the enforcement of the law may be known from the fact that 55 cases of violation of the law have been prosecuted, and in 43 cases the offenders were fined from $50 to $100 and costs.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES.

The Protestant theological schools of Germany bear an intimate relationship to the State-in fact, almost the same relationship that exists between the State and the agricultural or educational department. The theological professors in the universities, from which come the ministerial candidates, are entirely independent of the churches. They are both chosen and maintained by the State, in some instances in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of the churches. Although the church may consider one of the professors a heretic, yet he continues to be an instructor of her theological students.

Three of the theological students at the General Theological Seminary of Newark, N. J., in 1894, came direct from Germany, and the directors in their annual report mention as possibly one of the important functions of the seminary in the future that it may send back as ministers to the fatherland godly young men trained under pions influences by professors chosen for their religious and spiritual as well as intellectual qualifications. They speak of the pious men of Germany as saying, "Unconverted professors in our universities are training unconverted students for our German pulpits."

In America we are so accustomed to entire separation of church and state that we naturally reject the plan in vogue in Germany, perhaps without considering whether in some cases the churches of this country do not sustain almost similar relations to the seminaries from which come their ministerial supply. A theological seminary is established by one of the denominations of this country, a board of trustees is selected in order that property may be purchased and held by a body legally recognized; in other words, to act as agents for the denomination. Without the support and utmost confidence of that denomination their positions would be as insignificant as the trusteeship of any rural school.

So long as the institution is without endowment funds and must depend for continued existence upon the direct contributions of the members of the denomination, it is clearly recognized by the trustees and others that the institution must enjoy the absolute confidence of the denomination, and upon the least intimation that the trustees were not receiving such indorsement their resignations would be tendered

at once.

But in the course of time, from contributions often involving much self-denial and from legacies bestowed by members who possessed wealth and who were anxious that the doctrines in which they believed should be maintained, the seminary accumulates funds amounting to perhaps more than a million dollars, and grounds and buildings of nearly equal value. With such an aggregation of funds and estates, the trustees, who once would have withered before even the frown of the church from which they acquired importance and power, begin to assert their independence and set up as instructors of ministerial students men pronounced heretics by the church, and then defiantly ask, What are you going to do about it? And what can be done about it? It avails nothing to say that the church expected better things