stresses the application and use of certain technical acquirements. A young man, possessing a thorough training and a well-informed mind, can use his novitiate in any mercantile branch to greater advantage and advancement. The young Latin American with lively imagination wishes to know always cause and effect in the pursuit of his studies and labors. The Institute of Commerce, further, believes the literary course and school prejudicial to a successful commercial career, and is opposed very much to receiving students from the "liceos." It prefers to take students between 10 and 11 years of age and give them the necessary general training basic to later courses of a more special commercial character which will enable them at the age of 15 or 16 to take a position as a “junior" in commerce. For those unable to take this course of training in this manner there are schools similar to the American business college. Some schools of commerce and nearly all of the private schools have night schools for this type of student.

Commercial education on the whole only occupies at present, as a branch of public instruction, a secondary place in Chile. In time, as this phase of education improves, the commercial schools will prepare through systematic and organized knowledge for a higher professional career.

THE ARGUMENTS FOR A SEPARATE OR COMBINED COURSE OF COMMERCIAL STUDY-THE CURRICULUM OF A SCHOOL OF COMMERCE.'

By ROSWELL C. MCCREA.

The organization of the curriculum of a graduate school of commerce and business administration is relatively simple. The curriculum of such a school may well be highly technical, narrowly confined to business problems, and conducted by methods of instruction which largely follow the research plan. The ideals and methods of such a school are strictly professional. The school of commerce of undergraduate type likewise has professional ends, but its ideals are less strictly vocational, and its methods more closely approximate those of a college of liberal arts. The main variation from the scheme of the college is in the content of courses. A school of commerce may so organize its four years of study as to realize most of the primary aims of college instruction in discipline and breadth of view, and at the same time lay foundations for speedy adaptation to the requirements of later business life. There should be training in the fundamentals of business science and practice. But general educational aims should ever be in the foreground. Courses other than strictly technical ones must be woven into the curriculum in such a way as to develop on the part of the student liberality of view, intellectual perspective that extends beyond and behind purely contemporary phenomena, a socially minded attitude toward public problems, and a mental discipline and grasp of scientific and philosophic methods.

To be more specific, the curriculum of a four-year student should include not only required courses dealing with broad fundamental aspects of commercial and industrial organization and activity, but as well properly devised courses in English, history, psychology, economics, politics, sociology, and biology or chemistry.

I have omitted mathematics and foreign language work from the list of required studies. From the standpoint of utility, college mathematics is ordi

1 Author's abstract.

narily not of fundamental importance in the equipment of the business man. For purposes of mental discipline there are various substitutes for mathematics. For training in analysis there is ample scope in the study of accounting, of political science and business law, where the case method is used, and of economic theory.

Foreign-language study is usually urged because of the discipline it affords, because of its utility in intercourse with foreigners, and because it opens a new avenue to an understanding of the literature and life of other people. From the disciplinary standpoint the disadvantage is that results are hardly commensurate with the time spent in study. Equivalent discipline may be secured more readily in other ways. From the standpoint of practical serviceableness the great difficulty is that not more than 1 student in 25 gets enough out of his course to put it to practical use. For the few who may have subsequent use for a language, ample provision should be made; but the many should not be forced into a meaningless routine looking toward ends that are not realized. The opening of new fields of culture is quite as vain for the usual student as the utilitarian ideal.

With reference to the order of presentation of studies, advantages preponderate on the side of a mixed scheme. In the freshman year the student should be placed in intellectual touch with his environment-physical, economic, social-and taught how to use its component parts. The second year should emphasize mental processes so that he can turn to principles developed in the first year's work and apply them more fully to practical affairs. Two such years should develop a viewpoint, often so sadly lacking in the amorphous preparatory years, and should awaken enthusiasm and help toward an interpretation of the world of affairs. The last two years should be both more general and more specialized. The business man must have breadth as well as special training, for he touches at some point the social, economic, and cultural problem of his time. It would seem unwise to exhaust the first two years of his course in elementary liberal studies, and then compress in the last two years the routine tasks that prepare for his future career.

Let a study of the fundamentals of the physical and business environment exert its influence during the first years while the boy's preparation for his career is receiving initial impetus; and do not narrow the horizon in the last two years by an intense specialization that will result in efficiency at the cost of a restricted intellectual growth.

The university school of commerce is a modern college. Its function is to stand side by side with the modernized college of arts and sciences in the effort to revivify and extend culture studies, to afford special training and to yield a clearer insight into the complicated relations of modern life, whether in business, the old professions, or in the broader field of social service.

HOW TO SECURE PROPERLY PREPARED INSTRUCTORS FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN COURSES ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMMERCE.'

By JAMES C. EGBERT.

The expression "domestic and foreign commerce may be described in general as standing for the interrelations of trade as maintained at home and

1 Author's abstract.

abroad. When, however, it is considered as a subject of instruction in our institutions of learning, it evidently has a wider significance, inasmuch as it apparently includes the study of business, a term used in its broadest sense. It will be well, therefore, to modify the title of our theme by substituting the word "business" for commerce.

We must consider first the development of commercial study in the American college and then the place it holds in such institutions. Early schools of business were developed in large cities; they were private institutions. Then followed the high schools of commerce. These prepared many young people for a business career, but served another purpose in calling attention to the need of training of a more advanced character.

Political economy was the predecessor of the various related subjects of economics now admitted into the college curriculum. Finally the graduate courses were established. Then it was realized that a more complete and independent treatment was necessary, and schools of commerce of a collegiate and university grade were begun. There are three types of these schools to-day: The school of commerce, which takes the period usually assigned to the college; then the professional school of business, built on a partial collegiate career; the third type is the graduate school, as existing now at Harvard.

In our desire to secure instructors for such schools we must understand that these schools must be operated for a double purpose, the training of students for a business career and the preparation of those who will serve as teachers in the higher institutions of learning devoted to business as the subject of instruction. The preparation of a larger number of instructors in these subjects is vitally necessary. We can not expect in general to draw our teachers from business life. The teacher must be trained and must be qualified to impart knowledge. Three important facts should be recognized: First, the colleges have been preparing students for instruction in the secondary schools and not for the colleges; again, graduate students tend at present toward the theory of business. The laboratory method is almost entirely neglected. We must first establish a profession of business and receive more recognition in the colleges. The professional school of business must form the background in the education of teachers. The practical or laboratory work must not be forgotten. Business houses may cooperate with the schools of commerce and afford an apprenticeship to the students, who may there receive practical experience. Colleges of business must be carefully organized with an understanding as to the possibilities of specialization. The problem will be solved by regulating, adapting, and developing agencies now existing and emphasizing the profession as the center of interest.

If we consider our theme as concerned with the special subject of foreign and domestic commerce, we should recognize the importance of securing instructors trained in commercial geography and the colloquial use of modern language, and particularly in the institutions of the countries with which trade is desired. The cooperation of business firms will be invaluable in this particular. Finally, we must secure suitably trained instructors by requiring a general education, followed by professional training, with opportunity for specialization and for practical experience.

WHAT CAN THE SMALL COLLEGE DO IN TRAINING FOR BUSINESS?1 By GEORGE W. HOKE.

Three points are prominent in this discussion:

(1) The function of the college is to develop ability in its students to give efficient and versatile response to environment.

(2) One-sided response of the college product is due to the fact that experience in the promotion and administration of affairs has no adequate representation in the training given by the college.

(3) Certain readjustments are necessary to meet this situation: (a) The organization of a system of academic and vocational guidance; (b) the establishment of functional relations between the various departments of the college; and (c) the grouping of a series of prebusiness courses.

The chief obstacle to training for business is the conservatism of the college faculty. They do not seem to realize that such training is not an innovation, but a return to the functional responsibility of the college, made necessary by the acute maladjustment of its product to life. Three instances are selected to show the need of training for productive service:

(1) The conservation of resources is too serious a responsibility to intrust to men without adequate training and foresight.

(2) The organization of modern business demands a type of management that can be provided only by men trained in psychology and scientific methods. (3) Changes in standards of behavior, incident to our complex régime of mutual dependence, require a trained insight into problems of conduct and responsibility.

Six general qualifications are necessary for the efficient conduct of affairs: (1) Vision, i. e., the ability to see the signs of opportunity and responsibility. (2) Mastery of scientific method, i. e., ability to organize a situation with economy and efficiency.

(3) Understanding of human nature, i. e., ability to anticipate, mental reactions.

(4) Capacity for self-expression, i. e., ability to deliver an acceptable message by word or deed.

(5) Capacity for recreation, i. e., ability to take leisure after labor, and make it profitable.

(6) Capacity for productive service, i. e., ability to recognize standards of worth more fundamental than financial profits.

From the day that a boy enters college he should have sympathetic advice, and his course should be routed to meet his specific needs. The departments of the college should remember that they are conducting partial processes only and that their work should conform to the standards of quantity and quality set up for the final product. The college should insist that every student acquire, before graduation, interest and knowledge in some specific field of the world's work. Upon graduation the college should do all in its power to place the student where he will do the most good.

1 Author's abstract.

FIFTH SESSION.

The problem of commercial education, as this refers directly to elementary, secondary, and higher schools, was discussed at the fifth session, which was held Thursday afternoon, December 30, at 2.30 o'clock in the Pan American Union Building. Mr. Roger W. Babson presided.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.'

By F. G. NICHOLS.

There is at present a growing demand for an elementary school commercial course to take its place with other seventh and eighth grade vocational courses. The purposes of such a course may be stated as follows: To provide vocational education for a part of the great number of children who leave school before the high school is reached; to hold boys and girls in school a year or two longer; to interest more pupils in a complete education for business; to increase the pupil's knowledge of the opportunities that are open to him; to develop in boys and girls, by concrete instruction, business habits so essential to the largest measure of success in any field of human endeavor; and, in short, to make the seventh and eighth years count for more in the child's education.

It must be kept in mind by those who would frame such a course that it must be essentially vocational; that it not only must be Vocational, but it must be within the easy comprehension of the boys and girls of the seventh and eighth grades; it must also be suited to the occupations that are open to such boys and girls; it must be planned with regard for local requirements; it may well be differentiated for the two sexes, in view of the existing differences in occupational opportunities open to each; it may also be planned with reference to urban or rural requirements. It is also important to remember that while early choice is extremely desirable, irrevocable choice at such an early age will always produce much harm unless the paths from one course to the other are kept open as long as possible. Further, it is well to recognize the fact that secondary education can not be forced downward into the lower school without such modification of subject matter as the immaturity of the grammar-school children makes imperative. It may also be suggested in this connection that the traditional business course of the secondary school is rapidly undergoing reorganization to meet the demands of modern business. It must, therefore, be apparent that the old bookkeeping and shorthand course will not meet the needs of the grammar-school boy and girl.

In the junior high schools of this country elementary commercial courses. have been organized. Almost without exception they include commercial arithmetic, bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting, commercial geography, business writing, and English. They do not differ materially from the secondary school commercial course, notwithstanding the important fact that much of the subject matter is beyond the comprehension of grammar-school children, or the more important fact that boys and girls of grammar-school age are not wanted as bookkeepers and stenographers.

A better course of study that is in harmony with the principles set forth above is one that includes the following subjects: (1) English, with special emphasis on spelling, vocabulary building, punctuation, simple business letters,

1 Author's abstract.