To illustrate: History has come to be a favored secondary subject, the emphasis ordinarily being upon political lines. In a commercial course, the emphasis should be shifted to economic and commercial phases. Indeed, it is my belief that this is the best thing to do in even the classical school. In modern history, for instance, such topics as the following would be given due consideration:

Security for labor from state authority;

Nation, the unit of economic organization;

Capital assumes large proportions, and enters colonial enterprises; Recasting of commercial and industrial practice;

Mercantile system;

Rival commercial empires seeking colonies, treasure, shipping. Colonial economic policy of Europe;

The industrial revolutions;

Inventions;

Unstable industrial conditions;

Factory system;

Re-adaption and reconstruction of economic life;
Cosmopolitanism superseding nationalism;

Study of commercial conditions in Europe at the present time.

All of this can be made highly interesting to the secondary student, and he can be led through a careful study of English and continental history along these lines by no means to the entire exclusion of other lines to a fairly adequate understanding of present-day industrialism and commercialism.

The immense importance of training in English cannot be too strongly emphasized. In connection with the usual work of the secondary English course there should be continuous and progressive training, directed immediately toward commercial ends. The training should include such matters as letter writing, with drill in ordinary business idioms; preparation of telegrams; writing and answering of advertisements; oral and written reports on foreign commercial news; study of biographies of successful men of affairs; preparation of a careful discussion on some particular trade or profession; treatment of topics of commercial and business interest after the manner of the newspaper editorial. Nor should training in effective oral expression be neglected. The power of concise and pointed speech is of much moment to the business man.

As to languages other than English, it need hardly be said that the modern tongues only should be given a place in the commercial curriculum; for, in addition to their disciplinary and culture value, they are of immediate importance in large commercial centers, especially in importing and exporting houses.

In a first-class commercial school, the graduate of a four-year course should be expected to speak at least one foreign language with

a fair degree of fluency. In other words, merely reading knowledge is entirely inadequate for the young man who proposes to turn his study to actual use in business. It is rather interesting to note in passing that from several persons prominent in promoting foreign trade, there has recently come a demand for the teaching of Japanese! In connection with a study of German or French or Spanish, there are excellent opportunities for giving the pupil an intimate acquaintance with the commercial activities of a foreign country. Admirable texts for the purpose have already been published, and better ones will be put forth to meet the growing demand.

In any school of modern type, science will be given a prominent place in the curriculum. To me it seems so important that I would prescribe it for at least three years of the High School Course. For there is not alone the valuable scientific training the development of powers of doing and seeing and drawing conclusions at first handbut there are also the numerous incidental applications to commercial purposes. Biology, for instance, introduces the pupil to the raw materials of commerce, their distribution, production, growth, and relative vaules. Chemistry acquaints the pupil with many processes by which crude material is transformed into the manufactured product. Physics familiarizes him with the fundamental transformations of energy involved in all mechanical oprations. Indeed, the scientific phase of its work should be a distinguishing characteristic of a school. of commerce; for the modern industrial world in which the business man finds his sphere of action touches science at every turn.

While it may not be desirable to give mathematics the prominent place in a commercial school it occupies in the ordinary secondary school, the subject should, by no means, be slighted. Algebra and geometry, with their definitely settled educational values, furnish a sort of discipline which the intending business man needs, and I cannot at all agree with the German writer who contends that commercial arithmetic furnishes the same discipline.

Drawing has a peculiar value for a commercial school. The refinement of taste which it develops is alone sufficient reason for giving it a place in the curriculum. Aesthetic form is the chief element of worth in many a commodity which finds wide sale in a civilized community. In this respect, America has much to learn from her European competitors. It requires but a casual study of present-day advertisements to see what a big field has been opened up to art in that one phase of business.

Another liberal subject hitherto studied almost exclusively in the college deserves an important place in the commercial curriculum. Economics lends itself readily to advantageous treatment in the secondary school. The laws governing the production, exchange, and distribution of wealth are within the comprehension of the high

school senior, though he may not any better than his college brother grasp all their subtleties. Economics presents for the pupil's consideration data of the most interesting character, and in its practical applications touches upon nearly all of the vital social and political questions of the day. Banking and finance, international trade, taxation, socialism, all fall within the scope of the subject. And from the purely disciplinary point of view, economics is peculiarly adapted to advanced secondary instruction. Its laws and principles are drawn from facts which must be carefully weighed and balanced. It trains. the pupil to reach conclusions based upon considerations of a complex character. The syllogism of mathematics is not the syllogism of every-day life. The man of affairs cannot proceed from absolutely fixed premises to definite and unvarying conclusions. The value of his judgment will depend upon the ability to give proper weight to a variety of elements which make up his premises. For training in this sort of practical reasoning a better subject than economics could not be selected. Closely related to economics is economic or commercial geography. The latter throws into broad relief the division of laborperhaps the most marked feature of modern industrial conditions, and the fundamental basis of trade and commerce. In a large community the study of commercial geography would naturally begin with a study of local industries, from which it would broaden in a regular, orderly way to the large aspects of trade, domestic and foreign.

Thus far we have spoken of the typical secondary subjects, common in all good high schools with the exception of economics and commercial geography. A program of studies in a commercial school would not in a mere statement of the subjects differ very much from the program in the ordinary high school. What is insisted upon is that they should be taught as far as possible with a commercial bias.

There remains for our consideration the group of studies which are directly and immediately commercial. The business activities of today require from those who would undertake them the ability to write a good hand, to use figures with accuracy and dispatch, to keep accounts with intelligence and economy of time and effort. To these equipments may be added a familiarity with business forms and documents, the laws governing their use, and some knowledge of office economy. In many instances, a knowledge of stenography and typewriting is essential, and in any case it is a valuable addition to the young business man's equipment. The commercial course should therefore include business writing and arithmetic, bookkeeping, business correspondence, and office practice, commercial law, and stenography and typewriting. Business writing and business arithmetic should come early in the course to find their steady application in the later work of the school. Bookkeeping is by no means an easy study if properly taught. It does not seem advisable to begin it before the second year of the

course, and provision should be made for its study in the third and fourth years. Competent observers feel that bookkeeping as usually taught is not made to show its real educational value. It is certainly possible to make the instruction in accounts center about certain definite principles. It is by no means necessary for the pupil merely to follow a model in the spirit of an unthinking imitator. In commercial law, also, that instruction cannot be called successful which aims only at giving the pupil a certain body of facts. The subject lends itself to a treatment which is in no small degree scientific. It has been the fashion in four-year commercial courses to postpone the study of stenography to the late years of the course. This is hardly defensible: Pupils in the first and second years may with profit pursue the study of shorthand, and the many opportunities for its use in school makes it possible for them to secure a practical training, insuring speed and accuracy at graduation. Business correspondence and office practice come more properly after a preliminary training which has made the pupil familiar with many details of business usage. It is perhaps not unwise to place them in the fourth year of the program.

Briefly stated, it should be the aim of the commercial school to give the requisite technical equipment for business, but also to go far beyond that, and by a wise application of practically all the standard secondary subjects to commercial uses to give a depth and breadth of preparation that will insure an all-around efficiency, an easy adaptability to new and important tasks, and a degree of initiative. The graduate of the commercial high school will be by no means a finished . business man. But no law school expects its graduates to be finished lawyers, and no medical school assumes that its graduates will be finished physicians. There is much that the successful business man must know which no school can teach, just as there is much in the practice of law for which no school offers a prescription. And yet the day has gone by when law is learned by reading in a lawyer's office. The law school has become practically indispensable. And the day is fast passing, with the remarkable specialization of all commercial and industrial activities, when a desirable all-around training in business can be secured in a business house. The new recruit is assigned to some restricted task, with small outlook into other fields, and unless he has more than ordinary energies and initiative, or is possessed of influence, he is likely to have little opportunity for broader experience.

The sort of course here outlined not only amply meets the demands of the business world, assuring to those who finish it a well-rounded equipment in a necessarily elementary way for affairs, but it does. more than that. It opens the way to the higher school of commerce, the technical school or college, and thus in every way fills the definition of the modern secondary school. There is a surprisingly large number

of parents who desire for their children the business training which a commercial school gives, and at the same time are anxious that adequate preparation for college shall go with it. A well arranged commercial course may easily assure both things, and in course of time the commercial courses of the universities ought to attract goodly numbers of students who have had the preparation afforded by at commercial secondary school.

THE CORRELATION OF HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY
COURSES IN COMMERCIAL STUDIES

By PRINCIPAL J. E. ARMSTRONG, A. M.
Englewood High School, Chicago

Correlation presumes that two things exist and that between them a mutual or reciprocal relation is to be established. This I feel is almost a mistake, for there is scarcely a distinct or well defined notion among high school men of a commercial course. No such doubt exists if we speak of a classical course or a manual training course. To the average patron of the high school, a commercial course means a course in bookkeeping. This is doubtless due largely to the commercialism of the so-called business college. If we confine our discussion to this conception of commercial courses, there will certainly. be nothing to correlate. Children from the sixth and seventh grades of our public schools are learning to record imaginary business transactions or to write rapidly and spell phonetically in order to obtain a position in a business house. Whether this in any way prepares them to engage in business or to fill a place of responsibility and trust or not, is another matter. Parents are willing to toil and sacrifice to give their children this brief automatic training because of the slight advantage it will give. I suspect part of it is due to the esteem they hold for the name, "Business Education." Business men are partly at fault for this erroneous conception of business education, for, until very recently, many of them gave preference to the boy of twelve with a three months' business college course, because it was supposed he would be more teachable than the high school boy, and would do his task without question about the method. The boy with more of a mind of his own was thought to be too independent. In other words, the one who could become a machine to grind out dollars was what they desired.

Thanks to the coöperation of an increasing number of secondary schools and the operation of the child labor laws there is now a greater demand for the high school graduate. In fact many of the large business houses and corporations will not employ any boy who is not a high school graduate.