Introductory sessional address delivered at the commencement of the 42nd session of the School of Pharmacy, October 6, 1883 / by Michael Foster.
- Foster, M. (Michael), Sir, 1836-1907.
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Introductory sessional address delivered at the commencement of the 42nd session of the School of Pharmacy, October 6, 1883 / by Michael Foster. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![October6,1883.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. INTRODUCTORY SESSIONAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE COMMENCEMENT OP THE FORTY- SECOND SESSION OF THE SCHOOL OF PHARMACY, October 6,1883. By MICHAEL FOSTER, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. Mr. President, when you asked me to say a few words on this occasion, I at once said, “ Yes.” My ex- perience is that when you ask anybody anything they always do say “yesbut having said “yes,” I next began to wonder why you had asked me, and I came to the conclusion that it must be because you wished to have an address from an outsider. But, sir, I am not altogether an outsider as regards pharmacy, for in times past I have rolled pills, I have folded powders, and I have written in a legible, if not in a bold, hand the directions how they were to be taken. Besides that, I have the honour to be, not a real member, but an honorary member of your Society. Still I fancy I am so far outside you that my external character will give an adventitious value to anything which I may have to say. Now, having said “yes,” my next duty was to find out what I was to talk about, and knowing there would be a distribution of prizes, my mind kept running on examinations, and I <fear the few words which I shall have to speak to you to- night will deal a good deal with examinations. I fear that I may appear in this respect like a ghost at a banquet; but I may appeal to those who have received your prizes this evening, that they may be gratified that I am taking them as the topic of my discourse, and I may also appeal to those who have been unsuccessful, that they may possibly find some consolation in what I have to say. Now we use examinations, as far as I can under- stand, for two purposes. In the first place, we use examinations that we may take the result of those examinations as a stamp, as a mark, as a certificate. But a stamp, a certificate, a mark of what 1 I wish to look at the matter somewhat carefully, and I think, perhaps, I have some little right to speak on this subject, because as a young man, although examina- tions were not, if I may use the phrase, so “ rife ” in those days as they are now, I was a good deal examined. Indeed I look back to certain years of my life as being a kind of hurdle race in examinations. It seemed to me that I had no sooner cleared one examina- tion than there was another ahead of me. Then when I grew a little older, for as we know Time brings about a whirligig, I got as it were my revenge, and instead of being an examinee I became an examiner, and there was a time, from which I have happily escapedj when my friends told me that I was the most ex- amining man in England. So that I think I have some right to speak on this point, and yet I feel com- pelled to say—and in this I recognize on this occa- sion my ghostly character—that the real thing of Third Sbribs, No. 693. which the result of the examinations is the stamp and the certificate, is ability and skill in passing an examination. I do not think we can go surely far- ther than that. Nevertheless, we may use the examination safely in an indirect way. The stupid man and the idle man will never acquire skill and ability in passing an ex- amination ; the industrious and the clever will easily show skill in passing an examination ; and we may use an examination indirectly very safely as a pass PTa.mina.tinn to separate the industrious and the clever from the idle and the stupid. But we may even then make mistakes, and those mistakes become much more probable when we use the examination as a means of sorting out people from each other ; when we pass from the pass examination to the competi- tive examination. We have no doubt that A. is. cleverer in passing an examination than B., and in all probability A. will in future life be a better man, and prove a more real man than B. But that is not always the case ; the examinations often fail us in that respect. Again and again I have known men whom I have been obliged to speak of as good exami- nation men, who did not prove of great value in after life ; again and again I have known men who have not done well in the examination room, who have been of enormous value in after years. And then modern refinements have increased our difficul- ties. I do not know, sir, whether you are acquainted with the poems of that vigorous old dissenter, the illustrious author of ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Daniel Defoe; but he begins one of them with these remarkable lines— “ Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there, x And ’twill be found upon examination The latter has the larger congregation.” Now, sir, whenever an examination is instituted in order to select the fit persons for this or that there always arise a certain number of people who undertake to put a lad through that examination whether he be fit or not. There are certain names given to these persons; they are sometimes called “coaches,” they are sometimes called “crammers,” but the name of “coach” seems to me very significant1 We have an idea that the prize in an examination is given because in the race the lad arrives at the goal by the exercise of his own limbs, and that his speedy arrival at the goal is a test of the soundness of his mind and the strength of his limbs. But a “ coach” takes him on his back, and lands him there ; it is at his expense he is carried there, and his arrival there is a token not so much of the lad’s ability, but of the “ coach’s” skill. I speak this advisedly, because I have had some experience of “coaches.” I quite admit there are some “coaches” who gain their end byreal teaching; but they have deserted their clan, they are no longer “ coaches,” but teachers. But all are not so, and in my experience as an examiner, I have been brought to the conclusion that coaching has now-a-days achieved the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28268726_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
