would do less in this way and let the universities take care of themselves, we would have better commercial high schools. The same proposition is here in the commercial line that we have in other studies in the high school, in science, history, Latin, etc., and that is a domination coming from the univeristies in which they inject university work into the high schools and expect the high school to do the work that is done by people in the university. What I mean is, that a person who teaches in a high school is expected to have attended a college or university. When he goes into the high school, he tries to do the same kind of work that he did in the university. This is one of the greatest troubles in the high schools. There is, as you know, a very small number of pupils that ever go to the university. Hence, it is not fair to let the universities dominate the work of the high schools. Mr. Armstrong called attention to the small number who ever get into the high school. A still smaller number ever reach the university. Another thing: we are dominated by the notion that thoroughness is absolutely out of any reasonable relation with the nature of the child. Now those who study the child will see that there is only a certain degree of thoroughness to be obtained. It is not reasonable to hold them back until they reach a certain standard; if you do you will waste the development, and it is not reasonable to hold them back to reach some ideal. They are growing and developing in their thinking and in their bodies. We see a little child in the primary room and we do not try to bring him down to the precise movements of the adult. We high school people, with a view to doing something for the young men and women who are going into business, should not be made mere instruments to explain analyses and all that, and keep them down. Of course we will teach them English, mathematics, history, and so on, but we should give them some broader ideas. They say it cannot be done because we cannot cover all lines. We cannot cover all lines even in technical high schools. We cannot keep the boys in order to graduate them in the Chicago high schools. because they are so greatly in demand by the business men. They realize these boys have learned some things and they want them in their establishments. Now, we are finding the same thing in the commercial work; we cannot keep the boys through the four years. PROFESSOR G. M. FISK The criticism of Superintendent Cooley regarding the conservatism of the university, while applicable to American colleges and universities in part, hardly applies to our higher institutions of learning at the present time; at least it does not apply to our state universities. Present university entrance requirements offer great latitude in the selection of preparatory studies. What the universities want are young men and young women equipped to do university work. course, there must be some general standards of entrance, but the particular subjects taught in high schools are of less concern to university authorities than the character of the preparation. Most of the universities are glad to give high school students credit for all advanced work done in the secondary school, provided its quality justifies it. This applies not only to language or mathematics, but to commercial geography or any other subject. More specifically as to business education it is not for the universities to say what commercial branches should be taught in the secondary schools. These must be selected by the latter in such a way as to meet local requirements. The universities simply say, "We will accept and give credit for all commercial branches taught in the universities and duplicated in the high schools." SUPERINTENDENT CLENDENEN: How many students in the University of Illinois are taking the business course? PROFESSOR FISK: I presume there are at least one hundred students in the University who are taking substantially all the subjects in one of the business courses. On the other hand, there are approximately a thousand students who are taking one or more subjects in these courses. SUPERINTENDENT T. C. CLENDENEN I have come to the conclusion, based on the observation of many years, that less than one-half per cent. of the whole number who enter high school ever enter the university. I believe, as Mr. Hewett says, that we must face our courses in the high school toward the school life. The number of these boys and girls who are going into a university is too small to make us face our courses toward the university. We must face our courses toward the people. Any correlation, from the standpoint of superintendents, between the work of elementary schools and the work of the high schools has no influence whatever with us. We want our boys and girls to come to the university feeling that it has a business course to offer and that they want to take it. I have a boy taking this course and I think the university will give him what he wants. He does this without any shaping of his high school course towards the university. The high school course, when it is in proper working order, will not face towards the University of Illinois or of Chicago or any other, but will face towards the lives of the people after they leave the high school. PROFESSOR D. E. BURCHEll University of Wisconsin One point has come into my mind which I would like to mention. What will be the result if the high schools emphasize today the idea. that they are simply preparing young men to leave the high school for the business world? Will it not have a tendency to lead young men to think that the high school does all that it necessary to get them into business, and so they see no advantage in going further? On the other side, the university people should realize that these are the men they want, and should try to get hold of them. They should say to the young men, "You are going into business; cannot you make same way to enter the university and add to what you already have a university education and be a better man therefor and get farther up with more rapid strides than you can by leaving the high school now and turning into business?" PROFESSOR M. B. HAMMOND What are the universities to do with the men who have no idea when they begin these courses that they will go on? Fifty per cent. have no idea of taking a college course at first, but after taking the course in high school they decide that they would like to go on in the university, but are not able to meet the university requirements without going back one or two years in the high school course, unless the university will accept the work offered. Should the university accept commercial subjects and put them on the elective list? The university ought to settle that question. PRINCIPAL J. E. ARMSTRONG There are several points here. We cannot think of such a thing as planning any course with the hope that it is going to last ten or twelve years. We must also leave out of consideration that we are preparing for college. We have the ninety-five per cent. to deal with before we come to the college question at all. Of course the better the course, the better for those who are going to college. Now we talk about a commercial school preparing a man to go into the iron business, for instance; but here we are referring to the trade schools. When we use the word business we are still referring to commerce and not to any particular line of manufacturing. The time is coming when we shall have these trade schools. We are becoming more and more a manufacturing nation and we shall have to give more attention to these things. We need also to give attention to commerce, transpor tation, etc., and that is the subject we are considering when we are talking about commercial schools. The University of Illinois gives credit for anything that has been well done in any high school and will examine the school. I have no sympathy with the idea that we should confine ourselves to elementary things; that we should merely do more thoroughly the elementary things. The high school teachers were complaining because the child came to them and could not spell, and that simply called attention to the fact that the high schools were at fault. The ninety-five per cent. are the ones that must be considered, and we must consider the fact that present lines do not meet the needs of these and that there are other lines of training that would. So any effort to reach this ninety-five per cent. is bound to remain in the secondary schools and we are going have the courses to do it. MR. G. W. BROWN I think it is true that the universities are conservative, and I do not see how they can be otherwise. I do not believe that the high schools are to adopt any course of study until they have the strong support of the people. Let the universities make the course that has been outlined here today. Let them make that course general and show that there is a point to it, that those that follow that course are led to important positions, and my judgment is that it will not lack persons to take it. It is not feasible to arrange a high school so as to make it preparatory. THIRD SESSION HOW SHALL WE TEACH BUSINESS PRACTICE? By PROFESSOR D. E. BURCHELL The term business practice has several meanings according to the connection in which it is used. In the business colleges for the past. fifty years it has applied to that department known as the offices. The work in the offices was pursued by the student at the end of the course, and it was here that he was taught to put in practice the theoretical work which had preceded. These offices represent wholesale houses, commission houses, insurance and real estate offices, banks, etc. The idea being to give the student practice in office routine and so far as possible accustom him to the atmosphere and habits of business practice. This practice has not extended much outside of bookkeeping processes. In the stenographic department similar practice has been given in correspondence, quite as good as that in the offices, although not given the name of business practice. In the commercial department of high schools the term business practice has come to mean the same as in the business colleges and to a large extent the same meaning applies to the courses in business practice being introduced into the colleges and universities. ever, to the business man, the term business practice has not such a limited meaning, but extends rather to all phases of daily business. activity. I shall discuss this broader meaning later. The business colleges for more than fifty years have been training young men and women for clerical positions, and they, too, have been the principal means of instructing in stenography and typewriting. Hundreds and sometimes thousands have been sent out from the business colleges annually to take positions in the offices of business houses. While many have never risen above mere clerkships, others have used this small beginning as a stepping-stone to something better. Many of the most prominent men in the country date their start in life to the day they left the business college. A couple of years ago a sign on 125th Street, New York, read something like this,-"Roosevelt knows a good thing, his private secretary, Mr. Cortelyou learned stenography in this college." I suppose if you were to pass there today the sign would read,-"We make cabinet officers, Cortelyou began his career with us." Other business colleges might make s'milar statements because, until recently, they have been the only means by which a young man or woman could get a start in the business world without beginning at the bottom. If we were to have a |