INAUGURAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
OPENING OF LECTURES
agonal ifoUegc of f fha«iaf§;
CITY OF  WASHINGTON,
PROF. OSCAR OLDBERG.
    WASHINGTON, D. C. :
PRINTED BY JUDD & DETWEILER.
       1873.
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    " The pharmacists of Washington, D. C, are about  to start a college, but
 rather  ridiculously propose to name it the "National, College of Phar-
 macy."  In view of the small number of its members, present and prospective,
 as well as the limited number of students who are likely  to attend its instruc-
 tion, it is absurd to style it "National."  We trust the trustees will avoid the
 misnomer, and designate it as the "Washington College of Pharmacy."—Drug-
 gists' Circular, December, 1872.

    *****  » \ local society of the national capital has  no more claim to be
 considered national tban an association located in the remotest corner of the
■United States."  *****—American Journal of Pharmacy, November, 1872. 
ADDEE8
  Gentlemen :  Being a member of this college, and one of
its many godfathers, I trust that I may be  pardoned if I
indulge too lengthily in a prefatory, apparently impertinent
to my chair, for I assure you that whatever  I  shall say is
prompted by a real exultation at the birth of  the "National
College of Pharmacy."
  Thanks to the energy  that has  of late  years manifested
itself in our midst, we are now beginning to  have a capital,
of which the whole nation might well be proud.
  Washington is to our country  the natural  rendezvous of
communicative  and curious minds of all orders.   People
from all parts of the Union m^et here continually, and men
of learning, imagination, and  wealth, will  congregate  here
as fast as we are prepared to receive them.  This cosmopoli-
tan American capital of ours has  always  attracted  visitors
from the most remote corners of our country,  but the trouble
heretofore has been that they did not deem it profitable or
pleasant to remain with us.  This difficulty is now, to a great
extent, remedied, and  we are at last able to present  such
inducements as will both make  the concourse  greater  and
their stay longer.  Here is the place then to  compare notes,
and our city  will eventually  become the intellectual  and
educational, as well as the political, center  of our land.   In
fact, gentlemen, I  can see no reason yhy we should  not act
upon that proposition now.
  The step-motherly treatment that our city has received at
the  hands  of our  fellow-citizens throughout the States, is
as proverbial as it is inconsistent.   They have chided us be-
cause we did not, in  our sweat, improve the  common prop-
 
2
erty, surround the public  buildings with splendid avenues,
and prepare for them a city in which  they may take pride
and delight, until we have returned good for evil, and brought
them, to an inglorious surrender withal.
  They berated us because the capital of the nation was not
what they would have it, because it was  not worthy of the
nation, because it had no  attractions, but especially because
it had no national  institutions of  any kind save the govern-
mental departments.  They expected to find at Washington
not only such advantages as they had been accustomed to in
their respective  States, but above all  everything that they
did not have themselves.   And why ?  Because, as they have
repeatedly told us, the capital of the  nation  ought to have
such institutions.
  When Pericles,  the Greek, wras accused by his country-
men of squandering the  public money on  those noble na-
tional edifices, of which  Athens  afterwards  boasted, he of-
fered to execute them at his own  expense provided  the peo-
ple would suffer him. to  inscribe his name on them instead
of theirs.  We do not wonder that the Athenians keenly felt
the rebuke.   But what ave.we to say, who have siuglehanded
undertaken to provide for our exacting countrymen without
experiencing a sign of encouragement, ov claiming  a tittle of
the honor for ourselves! Let us tell them that we have ceased
to be  sensible to their unjust  reproaches, but that we  still
have faith in the future, and in the generous national pride
that lies at the bottom of the  American heart, well knowing
that the loudest are the least generous.
  It is, indeed, our duty (no less than our privilege) to profit
by the sneers of the uncharitable, and so  manage, that, in
the future, all our  institutions may partake of the national-
ism of the city itself.  They  must not—nay, cannot be  sec-
tional to succeed.   And to say that the people of the District
of Columbia do  not appreciate their privilege in this respect
is an accusation  much too jejune  to be made in earnest.
  Thus it is eminently proper that the National  College of 
3
Pharmacy,, situated at the National  Capital, should make
bold to compete with, its older sisters without a churlish thought
of unworthy contention.
  Then let us strive to  make our  institution worthy of its
title and its seat; and since we have planted our banner may
we  be true to it!
  Harmony in purpose and action have already been exhib-
ited in a degree  that  affords ample encouragement,  and I
trust that the students, no less than the members and the pro-
fessors, will take due pride in this our joint concern.
  To the students I would first point out the nature of our
profession, and  the stumbling  blocks in  the  practice of
Pharmacy and its study.
  The honor and responsibility of ushering you into the ball
of ^Eseulapius,  whose vestibule  perhaps  all  of you  have
already entered, has, by the voice of the  honorable gentle-
men who compose the Board of Trustees  of the National
College of Pharmacy, fallen upon your speaker. This honor,
it is my belief, might  with  greater justice  have been con-
ferred  upon  one more  deserving, for there  is among us a
very considerable  number of excellent pharmacists,  whose
wider experience and older  years and reputation  far out-
weigh mine.   But these, gentlemen, will render the College
valuable service in other ways not less effectual and  neces-
sary.
  In accepting the honor, I fully appreciate the responsibility
of the charge, for  upon the  character of our studies  will
your future  success and  reputation in the practice of your
profession in a great measure depend.
  Ours  is a  calling, the weight of which increases with a
better knowledge of it, and the intelligent aud conscientious
pharmacist grows more and more apprehensive of the dan-
gers that surround him with each year spent behind the dis-
pensing counter.  After twelve years of active experience iu
the practice, I have found myself far less easy of mind in the
performance of its serious duties than  when a senior appren- 
4
tice of but two years' qualification.  How important, then,
to prepare ourselves well for our duties, and to arrauge and
prosecute our studies in  such a manner that they may after-
wards  be conducible to practical  service as a  safe-guard
against pharmaceutical, or, rather, anti-pharmaceutical, man-
slaughter.
   Without inclination to discourage you, I caunot too deeply
impress  upon your mind the gravity of the step yoa have
taken when you chose to follow this business.  It behooves
your teacher, therefore, to advise you, at the very entrance,
of the difficulties to  be surmounted in the practice of  that
profession which you propose to make your future concern.
It would ill befit  me to conceal from your heed  the often
calamitous consequences of putting aside, even in apparently
trifling operations, the watchful care and  presence of mind
which  should attend your vocation above any other.  And I
wjuld  admonish you to  practice, in your studies—and, in-
deed, in all your habits—that reflectiveness and care, without
which  none of you need expect either proficiency or its inhe-
rent reward.
   Mark well!   Those among you who will exhibit the great-
est attentiveness and earnest in  their studies, they may  also
reckon upon the largest share of success in business;  for,
while it  rarely  happens  that  habitual carelessness  at  col-
lege is subsequently metamorphosed into a judicious solici-
tude, the reverse is still  more exceptional.   And  besides the
waste of time and loss of opportunities that  result  from a
wanton disregard for the necessity of early application  and
ambition, the culpable recklessness of entering upon a func-
tion  where the health and happiness—aye, the very  lives of
our fellow-men  are concerned, with the  expectation of an
easy and comfortable access to a careless, if not an  ample
livelihood, is fraught with the  direst peril, and almost inev-
itably followed by a miserable disappointment.  Let us hope
that among  our number there is none who takes his  respon-
sibility lightly. 
5
  The opinion, entertained  by many young practitioners,
that  book-knowledge  will  suffice to save them from the
danger of being wrecked on  the sunken rocks, is a precarious
hypothesis.  To the skillful navigator, courage, caution, pre-
sence of mind, and experience in the practical details of sea-
manship,  are as indispensable as the knowledge of the com-
pass.
  It is well that you  should  consider the  nature and extent
of your obligations, and prepare yourselves for a troublesome
journey before you will have entered upon the macadamized
road of experience.  A blunder made by a  medical practi-
tioner may be checked and corrected by an intelligent phar-
macist,  but pharmaceutical  blunders are seldom detected
until too late.
  But with  all its responsibility, the practice of  pharmacy
does not lack its rewards.
  Every  occupation in life has its dark shadings,  and no one
will seem tolerable if we incline toward discontentedness.
But if we take ever so little pains to  examine into the  na-
ture of our every day duties, we will find ample opportuni-
ties of improvement, and that is the secret of advancement,
and never fails to preserve that elasticity of body and mind
which reconciles us to ourselves, and makes our duties pleas-
urable.
  The consciousness of mastership is  no  mean comfort.
Then, let  us ever aim at excellency in  whatever we under-
take, and persevere till we arrive at it;  and while  we  are
striving to be useful  members of the  community, by doing
our  part  well, we will assuredly find much  of  our prosy
drudgery changed into welcome divertisements.
  To the ignorant and slovenly there are no charms in any
employment, but it does not require any  degree of perspica-
city to discover that  Pharmacy is brimful of novelties to the
intelligent observer.   It is truly a business that  one might
well take pride in who understands  it.  Look back upon the
whole history of human inquiry into the  laws of relation be- 
6
 tween matter and matter, and you may readily learn that, in
 the gradual development of the grand science of Chemistry
 the most numerous contributions and the most valuable  dis-
 coveries were made in the laboratories of our predecessors.
 And  as the Science of Chemistry was born of  Pharmaceu-
 tical  experimentation, so have  many of the most famous
 chemists of the past century sprung from the ranks of the
 inquisitive apothecaries.  Berzelius, Scheele, Liebig, Mohr,
 Hoffman, Soubeiran, and a host  of others distinguished in
 that field of limitless research were  all initiated into the art
 and mysteries of Pharmacy, and received their  earliest pre-
 cepts* in Chemistry  from practising  pharmacists.  An  art
 which is thus capable of stimulating a bent for  rational in-
 quiry cannot fail to be intensely interesting to all who really
 desire to acquaint themselves well with its nice points and
 conditions of success.  And let no one suppose that our busi-
 ness depends merely upon the art of buying and selling.
  The time has come when we will be able to assert our title
 to respectful recognition from the public. The number of
 American colleges of Pharmacy is on the increase, and it is
 well worth noticing that  they are all supported by the exer-
 tions  and contributions of older practitioners rather than by
 the number of  their students.  I am not aware that any of
 these institutions, with the  exception, perhaps, of one,  are
 self-sustaining,  but they flourish nevertheless.   The province
 of these colleges is to establish a  comprehensive  standard of
 education in our corps.   And if we earnestly labor for the
 maintenance of our cause, the people will not fail to appre-
 ciate our endeavors; and when we  shall  have succeeded in
 creating that just appreciation, the legitimate culmination
 of which is a demand for  that standard, then, gentlemen, will
 our legislators  grant us  such  protection as will fortify our
 position and, henceforth, render  systematic education com-
pulsory to  pharmacists  as well  as  to  physicians.  It lies
wholly with ourselves to  make our  profession as respected
as it is respectable. 
I
  With regard to the  steady advancement of our art itself,
it is very gratifying to us, that  our Pharmacopoeia is every-
where acknowledged to be at least equal to any other.  The
Pharmacopoeias of Great Britain, France, Prussia, together
with our own, are unquestionably among the best works of
the kind extant.   And the free competition which we enjoy
under our democratic  institutions, is  a guarantee that we
will not want opportunity to improve.  Let us only have a
legal  standard of qualification,  and let every one so qualified
practise if be will, and it is  not difficult to predict gratifying
results   But let us avoid the extremes.
  The National College of Pharmacy will accomplish much
if its students assist by a laudable ambition.  Let us earnestly
co-operate with each other in  our studies.   Never hesitate
to ask your professor or each  other when in  doubt; and if
any of you discover anything  new or  useful, or have a sug-
gestion to  make, let  us have the  benefit of it, and we will
then soon judge of its  merit.
  It has been well said, " You are not  the  right man for
your  place if you are not too large for  it."  This is an excel-
lent motto worthy of your adoption.   Make  your standard
high.  Be not content with a bare competency enabling you
to do again what others have  done before you a thousand
times over, but  aim at  improvement.   If you  cannot better
your profession, you are not fit for it.
  The first article of the Code of Ethics of this  College is
presented to  you as an introductory to our creed.  It reads
as follows: " We consider Pharmacy as an important scien-
tific profession, of which we strive to  be worthy  members."
  Proprietors and employers  should  cheerfully  submit  to
giving their  employees who desire to avail themselves, of the
lectures, ample time  to  study as  well  as to visit  the lecture
room at the  appointed hours, and I see no reason  w?hy clerks
and apprentices should  not be free from their shop duties
three evenings each week, so that there may be  no inclina- 
8
tion on the part of students to employ the lecture hours in
taking necessary recreation.
  And as the lectures, by the  provisions of the constitution
of the college,  are at all times free to its  members, we hope
always to have an audience,  large  and critical, which will
reflect credit on the institution no less than on its faculty;
and I would for my part gladly be one of the listeners myself
were it not my duty to respond to the call of the college, and
as far as my ability and earnest intentions permit, in obedi-
ence to  their  desire, do  the  piloting and assist my fellow
students, occasionally giving advice or taking it, as the case
might  be.