out.

There was a free and informal exchange of views, which disclosed a harmony respecting the vital principles under discussion that was highly gratifying. At the second meeting the committee was honored by the presence of Professor Charles DeGarmo, of Cornell University, and Professor Charles Waldo Haskins, dean of the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance of the University of New York, each of whom contributed valuable suggestions.

As the members were scattered from Massachusetts to California, no further face to face conference was possible until the present week. But in the interim the work did not languish. Each member of the committee was charged with formulating his ideal course for secondary schools to be sent to the president of the department, copies thereof, prepared under his direction, to be forwarded to each of the other members for comparison and study. Each member of the committee (with the exception of Dr. Herrick, who was unable to attend the convention) has also prepared a formal paper discussing some one of the prominent questions involved, which will be read by him during the sessions. Two meetings of the committee have already been held during the present week, and considerable progress has been made. Tomorrow afternoon, beginning at 3 o'clock, there is to be held in this room an open conference meeting, thru which the committee hopes to be materially aided in its work by the suggestions of prominent educators who take a keen interest in the result of its labors. The preliminary report will be made by Chairman Springer on Friday afternoon, when it will be open for general discussion. I earnestly recommend that the Committee of Nine be continued for another year, and that the chairman be authorized to fill any vacancy that may occur in its membership.

I could not, if I would, forestall, or even foreshadow at this time, what may be the conclusions of the Committee of Nine at the end of this convention, or what may be the final result of its labors; but as this will probably be my only opportunity as a speaker during these sessions, I venture a few words in addition to what I have said in the way of history and formal statement.

I look upon the work begun this year as in some respects the most important ever undertaken by this department. The advent of business. education in the public schools as a separate and distinct course is, I believe, an epoch-making event. The rapidity with which this course has found favor thruout the country, and the steady gain in the number of students enrolled, leads me to assume that the question as to the right of existence of these courses has passed beyond the stage of argument quite as much as that older question, "Can young people learn anything of business in a school?" If this assumption be correct and these courses have come to stay, there can be no more urgent work for this department than to mark out a line of procedure that

will help to bring about the best results both for the student and the commonwealth.

In taking up this work it should be recognized at the outset that it would be absolutely futile to attempt to model the business course of the public secondary school on that of the very best "business college" that ever existed. Both kinds of schools are needed, and both are in a certain sense working toward the same end-the fitting of students to earn a livelihood in business; but the plan, the object even, is different. The private school, with no source of revenue but tuition fees, takes paying students at practically any time in life, and in any condition as to previous education, with the object of fitting them for certain clearly defined positions, by the most direct empirical methods, and in the shortest possible time. The public tax-supported secondary school takes into its course every resident applicant, rich or poor, who has the required preliminary education — the education of the grammar schools. But as the public school is first of all for the state, for the whole community, its first object and its first duty is to make good citizens and safe members of society, and, in order that they may keep themselves safe, to give them finally a reasonably certain means of support. The method by which the public school commercial course seeks to accomplish its object is to give the student a sound general education, and to add to that such knowledge of commercial law, business methods, accounting, and amanuensis work as will make it possible for him, if need be, to go directly from the school into a business house and earn his living, and also give him an opportunity, thru the use of his trained faculties, to attain to a higher and more responsible position in the world of business. It is in the last-mentioned studies that the private business school and the public business school run practically in parallel lines; and it is mainly along these lines that our Committee of Nine desires the counsel of our fellowteachers of the private schools. In this respect both classes of schools are seeking to do the same work, both are interested in the same questions, and there need be no rivalry between them, except only that generous rivalry as to which shall be most helpful to the student and to one another. Thus by united effort shall we build up the fabric of business education till it shall become an honor to this young and vigorous nation, which manifest destiny is pushing to the very forefront among the great commercial powers of the earth.

The right making of a citizen requires much more than a knowledge of the technicalities of business. Dr. Hyde, of Bowdoin, said in a recent article: "Education aims to fit for three things: To earn a living, to support the institutions of society, and to enjoy the products of art and civilization." It will be observed that the first branch of Dr. Hyde's triad has to do with man's necessities, the second with his citizenship and patriotism, and the third with his capacity for enjoyment.

Such an education must have that foundation in general culture which is the first stepping-stone to a knowledge of the accumulated experience of mankind. There must be, first and foremost, a careful study of English, that he may hold the key to all the other studies, and be able to express his thoughts clearly and forcefully. There must be a study of history, that he may know what the race has been and what it has done, its failures and accomplishments; a study of physiology and hygiene, that he may know his body and how to keep it sound as the fitting casket of a sound mind; a study of geography, that his horizon may be broadened by a knowledge of the vastness of the earth and the variety of its peoples and its products; a study of civics, that he may understand and appreciate the principles and administration of the government by which he is protected, and be able to compare it with the governments of other countries; a study of some foreign modern language, which, aside from its practical value for actual use, will add much to that mental discipline so necessary to quick and accurate thought; a study of mathematicsarithmetic, algebra, geometry-to develop the power of exact reasoning; a study of economics, that he may become acquainted with the underlying principles of trade and the foundations of national wealth; a study of the best literature, that his imagination may be cultivated and there may be opened to him the keenest enjoyment of the products of art and civilization; and, finally, a study of the sciences-physics, biology, chemistry, and kindred subjects—not alone for their practical utility, but that in the field, in the woods, and in the retirement of the laboratory he may acquaint himself with nature's laws, wrest from her her most intimate secrets, and thus be brought into closer harmony with the great Creator of the universe.

If to the foregoing we add a competent knowledge of bookkeeping, commercial paper, and other business forms, as complete a study of business practice and methods as can be made in a secondary school with proper equipment, a study of commercial law, covering the subjects of contracts, agency, and bailment in their application to the affairs of ordinary business, and a study of drawing, commercial geography and history of commerce, shorthand and typewriting, and business composition, I think we shall have satisfied pretty fully the comprehensive triad of Dr. Hyde and furnished such an education as should make a self-supporting and valuable citizen.

I am not in accord with the contention that the commercial highschool course should not train students in the art of bookkeeping. This idea seems to carry with it just a faint suggestion of the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. "Let no man presume to enter upon any manner of business without a knowledge of the manner of regulating books," said the immortal Dr. Johnson. I esteem these words as a "golden text" for the business man, and it seems to me that, whatever things he

can afford to neglect in his education, a working knowledge of accounts is certainly not one of them. Without this knowledge he can never be fully master of his business affairs, but must depend on others to tell him his exact financial condition. Of course this does not imply that the merchant prince should be his own bookkeeper. What I mean is simply that he should be able to read with quick understanding the story which his books have to tell, even tho it should happen that incompetence or dishonesty had been making the entries.

Now, if you will kindly bear with me another moment, I will recite a few of the tenets of my educational creed as it stands today; but I wish it to be understood that this is without prejudice to the Committee of Nine, and, like railway time-tables, is subject to change without notice :

I believe that the great fountain of business education for the masses of the people is to be the four-year commercial course in the secondary school.

I believe that this course should, and will, possess educational content and development power equal to any course in the school in which it is given.

I believe that, as a matter of sound policy and growing necessity, the normal schools and universities must establish courses for the technical training of commercial teachers for the secondary schools.

I believe, with the Committee of Ten, that the required studies of the commercial course in the public schools should be taught in the same way and order whether the student is or is not expected to complete the

course.

I believe, with Commissioner Michael E. Sadler, of the London Board of Education, that "It would be a blunder, from the point of view of the later efficiency of the pupil, to deprive him of a liberal education in order to impart to him an early knowledge of the technicalities of business life."

I believe it would be impolitic and unjust for the public day schools to receive pupils for the sole purpose of instructing them in the technical business subjects.

I believe that the high-school commercial graduate should have such knowledge of the technical business subjects as would fit him to keep the accounts of any ordinary business or to perform the duties of an ordinary clerkship as soon as these were made known to him.

And, finally, I believe with Professor De Garmo that, "If he has equally efficient teachers and is supplied with equally good facilities, the student of the commercial course is not inferior to his brother in the arts course in the range of his education, in the quality of his discipline, in the dignity of his work, or the worthiness of his destination."

ARE BUSINESS COURSES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS INIMICAL TO EDUCATION

A. E. WINSHIP, EDITOR OF "THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION,"
BOSTON, MASS.

How many can recall the time when history, physiology, economics, and English were not credited with any appreciable disciplinary value? Even the sciences and modern languages were credited grudgingly. Those were the days in which the most severe curse that could be pronounced against any branch in school, or against any man, was the sneering use of the word "practical." It is worth something to have lived to see these subjects recognized as having some disciplinary value, and to see the word "practical" robbed of its terror.

Not content with the victory already won, the battle line has recently been advanced, and commercial and industrial geography is making a gallant charge upon the physiographists, and there are those who are brave enough to say that it is worth quite as much intellectually to a student to know the history and development of the wheat industry, the methods of its cultivation, the means of its transportation, the schemes for its sale, and the processes of milling, as it is to know the supposed geological record of the Bad Lands of the Dakotas.

Today we have the bravery to advance the battle line still farther, and we shall not blush very deeply, nor shudder overmuch, as we fix the bayonets for another charge in honor of the position that it is possible to so teach commerce, banking, and "practical" economics as to give young people as good mental power as when we teach algebra. No statement could be more hazardous than this, for algebra is on the throne when it comes to purely disciplinary effect. Nevertheless one need not flinch in the least when he stands face to face with the mathematicians and says that their word "discipline" is too vague. We say unhesitatingly that they must allow us to make the word mean vigor, poise, and alertness in mental activity.

Discipline is not some mystical intellectuality which never made a revelation as to nature's forces or laws, or as to human nature and its intricacies. There is more and better discipline in running lines into and thru the Hoosac mountain east and west, so that they meet without appreciable discrepancy, than there is in dreaming over such measurements. Back of the real work there must have been the keenest theorizing, but it is all the better discipline because it has to establish a base line that is tangible.

There was no special merit in the discipline whose boast was that it never harnessed lightning, that it never suggested antiseptic surgery, never hinted at anæsthetics, never discerned bacteriology, or anything that made