lawyer or physician. After his education is completed, he still must serve an apprenticeship in the office of several years duration before he is fitted to take a position of exacting responsibility. In the case of the average business man, it is doubtful if such a prolongation of the educational period is desirable. If the technical training of the college is an indispensable part of the ideal preparation for business it would in his case be better to substitute such training for the least essential subjects in the more general courses. For the exceptional man, the longer and more complete course of study combining both a broad education and a techincal one will propably prove more advantageous providing the technical education be given by competent instructors and with adequate equipment. If it shall prove feasible to give technical commercial training in the colleges so efficiently that students enjoying the same are thereby enabled to appreciably shorten their apprenticeship period such training will be desirable for both classes. To achieve such an end is the problem before the university schools of commerce to-day. Fortunately this experiment is being tried at several institutions of higher learning at the present time. The University of Wisconsin has adopted the plan-of including the technical training in the regular college business course, thus supplementing the more general courses and allowing it to take the place of an equivalent amount of college work; on the other hand, the Tuck School of Dartmouth College has added the technical training as a graduate school of commerce, the technical work thus following the more general courses of the college period. While our discussion may serve to interchange ideas and thus call attention to the probable strength and weakness of the various methods, we may await in confidence for a final answer as a result of these several experiments. Undoubtedly the result will be quite largely conditioned by the skill and ability with which the experiments are conducted.

PROFESSOR M. B. HAMMOND, Ph.D.
State University of Ohio

We may start with the assumption that new courses are to be given in schools of commerce; that a commercial education will be distinctly made up of new courses and not a regrouping of old ones under a new title of commercial education. I agree with Professor Person that a course made up in this way is not worthy to be called a course in commercial education. I think we all likewise agree with him that the incorporation of practice courses in our high schools and commercial colleges will not attain the end we want.

It is true, and fortunate for our university finances, that many courses that have been given in the past may very well be used in the courses in commerce because the modern university has such a breadth and variety of instruction, and the aim of all educational systems is

common enough to make many courses valuable for the business man as well as for those who are to enter professional careers. Some of these courses are called cultural, and we shall have to make use of any courses in history, general economics, English and foreign languages which may come under this head. These courses, when pursued by students in the first year of their course, will require little, if any, modification to suit our needs.

In addition to these, there are to be found in all well equipped universities certain courses which are essentially business in character, and we may also utilize these without change, in our commercial education, or at least make them elective for students in particular lines. We have at the Ohio State University in the agricultural college, for example, courses on Live Stock and Commerce, on Sources of Supply and Market Classification of Wools, on Farm Management, History of Agriculture and Agricultural Economics; in botany and horticulture, courses on Forestry and Forest Economics; in civil engineering, courses. on Railway Location; in industrial arts, courses on Tools and Machines, Shop Equipment and Management; in the department of mining engineering, a course on Mine Operation and Accounting, and in the law school courses on Contracts, Negotiable Instruments and Private and Municipal Corporations. Those of you from other universities can easily think of similar courses in your own institution which could be made available for this purpose. Then we may by use of the elective system, and not following any hard and fast lines, arrange it so that a man who expects to enter business may be allowed to select such courses as the above and secure some knowledge of the technical side of business. There may be some internal difficulties about credit for such work, etc., but these are questions which we need not discuss here. But these courses in combination with the general cultural courses already mentioned are not sufficient to constitute a course in commercial education. Under the elective system any student could have selected such courses as he needed for a particular business from among these courses, but we could not have called that a new departure. We need in addition courses which have distinctly in mind our purposes and will have a direct bearing upon business lines.

We are here confronted with the question, what is the purpose to be accomplished, the aim of the course? Bluntly put (although I am aware that some may take exception to this way of putting it and accuse us of pandering to low ideals), the aim of the course is to teach boys to make money. We have avoided putting it in just this way but say instead we want to teach boys to promote industry, and efficiency, etc. As long as we remember the old proverb that the "shoemaker's children go barefooted," we may console ourselves with the thought that to invite young men to study from college professors the art of money-making is not the only paradoxical situation which

the world offers. Nor need we consider that we have lowered our ideals in endeavoring to give instruction along these lines for the purpose indicated. When we consider that nine-tenths of the people give three-fourths of their time to work, the question of making money should not be considered undignified or unworthy of pursuit. And if this is capable of being taught, it should find a place in our higher educational institutions. No greater service can be done by a teacher than to train men who expect to enter industrial callings to pursue wealth by legitimate methods. In the last twelve months we have had our attention called frequently to the low standard of morality prevailing in high circles. One of the best means of meeting this difficulty, then, is to forewarn young men (for forewarned is forearmed) against those methods by teaching them what are the legitimate methods, and this knowledge ought to make it easier for men who pursue fair commercial methods to compete with those who pursue unfair tactics.

If we agree, then, on the purpose of these courses, the next question is, what work may we offer that will best enable our graduates to attain this end? Should this instruction be made technical? If we accept the narrower meaning of the word technical, such as Huxley has in mind when he says, "Technical education is that sort which is specially adapted to the needs of men whose business in life it is to pursue some kind of handicraft," I think that our answer will have to be largely, though not entirely in the negative. I have sometimes had a feeling that the courses in commerce might more properly be organized as departments in the college of engineering rather than that of arts and sciences, since the class of men most likely to be attracted by these new courses would hitherto have been attracted to the engineering rather than to the arts college. But certainly courses in banking and insurance, for example, would seem more suited to the college of arts and sciences.

But I have no doubt that in this discussion the word technical was intended to be taken in its broader sense as referring to that method which is especially appropriate to any business or profession. Having this meaning of the word in mind, I feel that our answer should be in the affirmative. If we are to train men for a particular calling, it is our business to make the instruction as definite as possible and to furnish whatever information we can which has a direct bearing upon the particular occupation. Viewed in this light, the question is as to whether the courses we are to arrange fall within the general field of economics. My own feeling is that they do. Our study of economics in the past, so far as it has had a constructive purpose in view, has been devoted to an effort to influence public policy, mainly through legislation. With business ends in view our work must be largely within the field of descriptive economics. Hitherto the purposes which we have had in view have required emphasis upon other as

pects of economics. Our present task must be, therefore, to furnish as detailed an analysis of the present industrial structure as the materials we are able to gather will allow. In so doing we must keep in constant touch with the business classes and secure the coöperation of business men within and without the class room. In this connection let us see what the university is able to furnish in the way of instruction along a particular line, that of manufacturing.

In treating this subject we ought to be able to give useful information as to the causes which determine the localization of industries, the degree to which the success of these industries is dependent upon the physical and social environment. A discussion of the forms of industrial undertakings may well be entered upon with a view to showing how far market conditions affect the form of the enterprise. We discover a tendency toward the corporate form of organization. and we should be able to point out the nature of the modern corporation, the conditions under which charters are granted, what privileges they carry, what limitations are placed upon them. We should discuss the way in which capital is provided, the kinds of stock issued, and the variety of securities with their relative advantages. The internal organization of typical manufacturing plants may be described as well as the functions and relations of the different departments; the sources and methods of securing raw material; of marketing goods; the various methods by which labor may be secured; what is being done to promote efficiency of labor, and the relations of employers to labor organizations. Most of these subjects have been inadequately treated in the general and special works in economics, but there is a growing body of literature dealing with these subjects appearing especially in public reports and in the various technical and trade journals. This should be supplemented by direct observation on the part of the student of manufacturing plants in his own neighborhood or that of the university.

Such study as I have briefly outlined would be a technical presentation. of this subject and, properly worked out, ought to furnish as complete a guide to the man who enters the administrative department of a manufacturing plant as does the course in mechanical or electrical engineering to the man who takes charge of certain of the processes of manufacture. The technical side of a commercial course in a university may perhaps be summed up in these words. In any industry, be it banking, insurance, transportation, manufacturing or commerce, the student should be made familiar with the functions of every department of a typical business within the industry; should understand the relations of each department with every other department and to the industry as a whole; and, finally, should appreciate the relations of the entire business unit to other business units in the same industry and to other industries, institutions and markets.

SECOND SESSION

THE ESSENTIALS OF A COMMERCIAL COURSE FOR HIGH SCHOOLS

PRINCIPAL J. S. SHEPPARD

New York High School of Commerce

According to the report of the Commissioner of Education, there were, in 1894, fifteen thousand students pursuing commercial studies in the public high schools of the United States. In 1902, that number had increased to 76,000. This remarkable growth testifies eloquently to a great present-day need in secondary education, and puts upon those in authority the task of making provision for adequate school training for business. European countries, almost without exception, have done much for commercial education, but until recently our reliance has been almost wholly upon the so-called "business colleges.' These institutions have been, and still are, extremely useful; but the demand is now for a business training which involves much more intensive and extensive study than is possible with the highly specialized curriculum of the business college, and in the very brief time which such institutions demand and secure from the pupils. It very properly falls to the secondary school to undertake the work, and it is my province in this paper to point out as best I may just what program of study seems best adapted to the purpose.

At the outset, it should be made clear that a highly trained intelligence is as essential in business as in professional life. Trade has long since ceased to be simple barter. Its rules and processes can no longer be picked up by the fairly intelligent in a few weeks. In its higher phases it puts to the test the keenest mind, and in its ordinary phases it affords ample opportunity for the exercise of more than ordinary gifts. The old-line commercial course of the "business college" assumed that a certain technical facility was practically all that was necessary, and so its studies were what might be called form studies. Of content, there was little or none. The modern commercial course must be based upon the assumption of a need for broad and thorough training-broader and more thorough than can be gained by a pursuit of the familiar "business college" subjects. Indeed, it is my conviction that, with the exception of the dead languages, there is scarcely a single standard secondary subject which cannot be very profitably included in a commercial curriculum. But it should be immediately added they must be given the sort of treatment that will yield the most valuable returns for commercial purposes.