Columbia University College of Pharmacy - Apothekan Yearbook (New York, NY)

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The distraction of chemistry has no sooner dewitted him than com- plications set in. A rash of math shows on one side of his face; on the other appear the pustules of zoology. Deep in his innards rumbles the conflict of intestinal flora with indigestible botany. Now is English a forsaken maiden, a weeping outcast, a marooned ideal. But the cause of effective communication is not wholly lost. Gone is the smile of the English teacher, gone the suave voice, gone the chummy manner. In their place come the grim jaw, the strident pitch, the barbed question. Mr. Freshman, what is a simple subject? English, replies the student confidently. English? echoes the puzzled teacher. Sure, reaffirms the student. If you don ' t think so, you ought to teach Contemporary Civilization. The themes pour in, and the sweat of the English teacher pours out. Punctuation, my good friends, is largely functional. Observe the func- tion and you can ' t help punctuating correctly. And again: Sentences must express a complete thought, explicitly or implicitly. Mr. Freshman, what do I mean by ' implicitly ' ? Ripples of uneasiness run through the class. The barb leaps from head to head but strikes no spark. For the thirteenth time I ask you: what do I mean by ' implicitly? ' Aw nuts! comes the squelching answer from a voice just under the window. Now we ' ll take up paragraph development, says the teacher. Out of the struggle eventually emerges someth ing like results. There are a great many interesting and well-written research papers. Frequently the discussion in class is eager, intelligent, resourceful, and enlightening. Frequently the class program clicks, and time swooshes by on rocket wings. Comes the end of the school year. The teacher now sees that in spite of the competition of professional subjects, English, that bastard cul- tural subject, has not been totally neglected. The students have not been lacking in appreciation but merely in time and strength to do so many things in so short a year. They have wisely made a practical adaptation to the stresses of a rigorous professional training. Resignedly the teacher sends his freshman students off on their head- long pursuit of sophomore quantitative analysis and pharmaceutical tech- nology. Hopefully he turns to a blank page in his record book and begins to make up the class roster of the incoming group. Years later he writes reminiscences for APOTHEKAN. And as he does so, he must admit that teaching English at Pharmacy

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f Ttte Italic ? The request on the part of the Class of ' 52 for reminiscences sur- prised me no little, for I had always supposed that students once out of the clutches of an English composition teacher made certain never again to come within writing distance. But here is pleasant disillusionment. The re- quest is so amiable that I must comply with it. As I look over the names of the seventy-six students who composed Section I and Section 2 of English A I and A2 in the year 1948-49, I find very few faces rising before me in clear individuality. Is Leonard Bergman that slim chap with the heavy red whiskers or that stout young man with the soprano voice? Is Barry Dashowitz that handsome young Hercules with the flat feet or that quiet youngster with the abashed look, appealing silently not to be called on to recite? And so down the list I go, wondering and conjecturing. Still there is personality in the list. Gradually out of the succession of names emerges a composite personality — the College of Pharmacy fresh- man. Except for the returned veteran, he is surprisingly young. He is eager, brash, and metropolitan. He is confident, energetic, and not easily dismayed. He is purposeful, determined, and aggressive. He is articulate, quick to speak, slow to be silent. He is hopeful, committed to a program of preparation, almost dedicated to it. Linguistically he has all the color and all the provinciality of New York City. He is stimulating to his teach- er, but not easily bent. Plasticity is not his chief characteristic. Above all, he is alive. Like any personality, he is in progress of growth. He comes to the first English class subdued, a bit overawed, quizzically curious. For the first two weeks he is conscientious in doing his assignments, eager to learn the marvels of written English, bursting with bright thoughts about the lan- guage, especially the vernacular — really quite a promising student of his native or adopted tongue. But then the fumy vapors of chemistry begin to becloud his head and clog his tongue. He speaks in hoarse whispers, and the sounds he makes take the shape of chemical equations. Twitching movements plague his hands and feet. He traces lines on bits of paper or in the air before him, and the lines form a geometrical design closely resembling the patterns of old-fashioned linoleum. Molecular structure, he mutters in his delirium.

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is not the choicest academic assignment, but he is glad to say that it has its compensations. To him comes, instead of prettily disguised phials of HgCk a cheerful invitation to have his picture taken — FREE, for nothing — not by lethal radium rays, but by harmless actinic rays that show the dimples. Surely, classwork is short; friendship is long. To all seventy-six students of the Class of ' 52 (I take no note of casual- ties, few or many) I extend my heartiest wishes for a long, profitable, and gratifying career in pharmacy — one of the great professions. May your customers never have to say: Morituri te salutamus (underscore foreign words for italics). The Class of 1952 and I met for the first time in the Dispensing I. arena. Two years of combat at C.U.C.P. had made seasoned veterans of the survivors of the group and from the sound of the first bell on it was touch and go as to who would emerge the victor. The class was fully pre- pared to do battle and was led in each foray by General Scherman who conducted such intricate maneuvers as presenting my new-born son with a Defense Bond just as I was about to pass out the papers for the first examination. Would I ever be able to help make good pharmacists from raw material such as confronted me? In the Dispensing Laboratory, the class contributed to the melee by presenting me with students who were still preparing products for Tech. II.; who prepared ointments on the desk tops instead of a slab; who devel- oped fainting spells whenever a troche prescription appeared; who kept insisting that a pretzel shaped suppository was an acceptable form; who used the sweat from their brows as an excipient for tablet triturates; who chose incineration as the correct procedure for preparing ointments; who conformed to the rule of never leaving unlabeled prescriptions on the desk top by hiding them in the trash drawers; who thought nothing of heating liquids in graduates over a direct flame or treating a delicate prescription balance like a playground see-saw.