4. That the so-called commercial branches are just as worthy subjects of study as the classics, or history, or mathematics, or science, and that, in preparation for entrance to college, time spent in careful study of these subjects should entitle the student to just as much credit as the same time spent on any other of the subjects usually taught in secondary schools.

5. That the educated teacher of commercial branches is entitled to the same consideration in the matter of salary and to the same rank as a member of a school faculty as is accorded to the instructor in any other subject.

6. That the commercial department or course of a high school should not be held to be a sort of educational catch-all, in which all the lazy and incompetent pupils may find a place.

7. That pupils of other courses should be freed from the idea that they stand on a little higher plane than the pupils of the commercial course.

8. That instruction in commercial branches should be given by trained teachers, not by business-men.

9. That in every public commercial course, be it short or long, the so-called commercial branches should be taught just as thoroly as they are in the best private commercial schools.

10. That, no matter what success a young man may achieve in business, no matter how rapidly he may advance, no matter whether he develops those abilities which will eventually place him in an executive position or a place of high responsibility, he must begin as a clerk in nearly every case.

"Commercial education" is a very elastic term, and it is a really difficult matter to give proper definition to the expression. It seems to be generally understood, however, that it should include as complete a mastery as possible of the English tongue; a legible, rapid handwriting; a working knowledge of bookkeeping; an ability to perform arithmetical calculations with accuracy and dispatch; an acquaintance with commercial paper and business forms and usages; an ability to take down in shorthand a letter or other matter dictated at a moderate rate of speed, and to properly understand the use and capabilities of the typewriter. With the exception of English, this includes about all there is in the course of a good business college in which four to six months might be required by the ordinary pupil for its completion. Is it too much, then, to assume that the same work can be well done in a public high school in two years, provided the classes are properly graded and the pupils have had eight years of pre-academic work? In addition to these subjects a modern language, German or Spanish, should be taken for the full two years, as well as at least one term each in civics, the history of commerce, commercial geography, natural philosophy, and drawing, both free-hand and mechanical. A three-years' course affords increased opportunity for the study of science, gives time for the study of a second language for two years, for an additional year in practical and literary drill in English, for further drill in office practice, for some work in accounting, and for the study of history.

The two-years' course here suggested will be found to be of the greatest use in our large cities, where there is certain to be a large number of

young people who cannot defer the active work of bread-winning for more than two years, at the most, from the time of leaving the grammar school, the average age being fifteen years. The class of pupils which such a course will attract are among the most worthy of all our young people, and if just this kind of study and training is not provided for them by the public schools they will be obliged to begin their life work handicapped for want of knowledge, thru no fault of their own. This fact has been most firmly impressed upon me by my work for many years in the evening schools of a large city, where I have been in constant contact with so many deserving young men and women who could not advance from subordinate positions because they had not been provided by the public schools with the opportunity to improve themselves in the way they needed at the only period in life when they had the time. A three-years' course, while liberal in scope and of value to those who cannot take anything better, is not to be recommended. The argument of time limit which appeals so strongly to those who would take up the course of only two years' duration will hardly apply here, for those who can give up three years for high-school study can in most cases spare an additional year for the completion of the full high-school course. We who count ourselves commercial teachers should insist that the four-year commercial course should be placed on an equality with every four-year course which the high school offers, that it should be provided with as complete an equipment as possible, and that its instructors in the technical commercial studies should be the best obtainable.

As to the subjects, I would merely suggest that the course should be so planned that wherever possible the work of this course should parallel that of the liberal course, and that in a general way it should differ from it in the amount of time devoted to some subjects, slightly in the order in which some of the subjects are taken up, in the elimination of Latin and Greek and in the substitution of strictly technical subjects in their place. With some additional business practice, such a course, it seems to me, would soon become the most attractive as well as the most useful course in the high school.

DISCUSSION

C. E. STEVENS, director commercial department, South High School, Cleveland, O.- The technical studies of the commercial course in the public school should not be taken up by the pupil before he enters the high school. In the lower grades his entire time should be devoted to those studies that are recognized as being the foundation of a person's education, regardless of what special lines he may intend to follow. He has no time for special studies, nor is his mind mature enough at that age to successfully pursue them. Better, if he has to leave school when he has completed the lower grades, that he leave with a mind brought to the highest possible state of discipline than to leave with a mind imperfectly disciplined and filled with a mass of undigested facts.

A commercial course shorter than the other courses is open to four serious objections: (1) The pupils that are mentally weak will select it, voluntarily or thru the solicitation

of others, and the lazy and indifferent will pursue it as the shortest and easiest way to graduate and rid themselves of the irksomeness of study. Here we have three classes of pupils who are most in need of the discipline and culture afforded by the long courses sent out into the business world with an inferior preparation. (2) The school life of a large majority of those who enter this course must terminate with the high school. If they are given a short course their technical training will be very superficial, or they will be deprived of an opportunity to pursue those other studies that would give them a mental training and culture upon which their future success so much depends. If an attempt is made to crowd all the work of a four-years' course into two years, mental dyspepsia for the pupil will be the result, and his prospects for success jeopardized. (3) The graduates from the short courses will be looked upon by the graduates of the long courses as inferiors, and an objectional class distinction will be established. (4) Many parents, in their haste to have their children earning something, will urge the short course upon them, and deprive them of one or two years' mental growth to which they are entitled. If some are compelled to leave before completing the work of the full course, the work of the long course will develop them to a fuller degree of usefulness than an inferior short course.

If the commercial course is to vary from other courses in the length of time, let a post-graduate year be added to it for those who expect to enter business life at once, and give for the additional year advanced work and original research in the customs and mechanism of commerce, banking, finance, transportation, economics, civics, industrial and economic geography, economic science, and higher accounting, allowing the pupil, under the guidance of the teacher and the advice of the parent, to specialize in his work. The objects of the commercial course of study in the public school should be, in common with every other course, to develop the pupil mentally, train him to think clearly and accurately, bring his mind into contact with the great minds of the past and present, acquaint him with the forces that have made and are now making the world's history, and teach him the laws that govern his mental, moral, and physicial well-being. In addition to these things it should give him an opportunity to acquaint himself with business technicalities, so that he may readily comprehend the workings of the complex machinery of the commercial world and be able to take a place therein as a self-sustaining member of the community where he lives. It should also offer to those who expect to pursue a higher commercial course a preparation to enter those colleges that have arranged for such courses.

In the present formative and experimental state of American commercial education it is almost impossible to formulate a course of study that will be satisfactory and adapted to the needs of the various schools thruout the country. We cannot wholly rely upon foreign schools as our models, no matter how successful they have been or how carefully their courses of study have been planned. Our surroundings and traditions are different from theirs. In most, if not all, of the foreign countries where com mercial and trade schools are in successful operation, the place of each person in the social scale is to a greater or less extent fixed by birth, and the school courses are designed to prepare the pupil for and perfect him in the sphere of work to which he was born. This is not true of the American business men and women. Their education must be broad and liberal enough to aid them in entering any line of commercial activity they may select.

The course of study presented below is designed to give as broad and liberal an education as possible when the pupil's time and maturity of mind are taken into consideration. In addition to this, it is believed that sufficient time has been given to the technical business subjects to enable the pupil to obtain a good working knowledge of them. In the teaching of the languages, mathematics, sciences, and history, it is intended that the commercial features be emphasized wherever it is possible to do so without destroying their disciplinary or culture values. On the other hand, it is expected that the technical subjects will be presented in such a manner that they will have a distinctly educational

value to the pupil aside from the knowledge of the subject that he may acquire. Optional studies have been provided for those who enter college.

SUGGESTED HIGH SCHOOL COMMERCIAL COURSE

DISCUSSION OF TOPIC, “AT WHAT AGE SHOUld the studENT BEGIN BUSINESS SUBJECTS"1

EDWARD W. STITT, PRINCIPAL PUBLIC SCHOOL 89, BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY

The invitation of your president to discuss the paper of Professor Francis reached me at the time when I was preparing a "Business Questionnaire," for the New York State Teachers' Association. I therefore incorporated among the set of questions which our committee propounded to business-men the first question of Professor Francis, viz.: "At what age should the student begin the business subjects when expected to complete a four-year commercial course?" Leading merchants, financiers, manufacturers, members of the boards of education, and other representative business-men, to the number of over four hundred, have replied.

Those reported as "scattering" failed to indicate just what age they thought desirable. Many of them stated that the "business subjects" should begin coincident with the commencement of the high-school course. A number of others were emphatic in declaring that business education should begin with the earliest age compatible with a proper comprehension of the subjects taught. One of the leading financial authorities of New York in his reply made the positive declaration that in his opinion the pupil took nothing in his whole elementary course that was not really a "business subject."

A careful study of the above table will show that almost one-third gave the age of fourteen as the proper time for the commencement of a full four-years' commercial course; one-seventh favored the age of thirteen; one-sixth the age of fifteen. Therefore fully 60 I Professor Francis' paper, of which this is a discussion, was not furnished for publication.

per cent., or almost two-thirds, of those replying agreed that from the thirteenth to the fifteenth years is the proper age for entrance to a full commercial course.

A critical examination of the comprehensive course of study outlined by Professor Francis convinces me that the average boy of fourteen is fully able to cope with the various subjects laid down for the first high-school year, and could thereafter successfully pursue the various subdivisions of the successive semesters. In considering at what, age the boy is to begin his course, we must have proper regard to the age at which he shall be graduated. If beyond the age of eighteen or nineteen, I fear he is too old to enter upon a business career; for, no matter how well equipped in scholarship he may be, there will still remain many things that can be learned only in the school of experience.

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As to the second query, "When should the pupil begin business subjects when he is not expected to finish such a course?" we shall have trouble at the outset in determining just what we mean by "business subjects." At present the term commercial education" is so elastic that it may include such elaborate preparation as will fit a man for a position as consul, auditor, or higher business official, or it may mean the barest equipment with which every graduate of our elementary schools should be furnished before he enters upon his struggle for a livelihood.

The modern educational reformers of business education are almost a unit in standing for a "trivium" which shall include (1) the ability to write and to speak English clearly and concisely; (2) to compute with facility and accuracy ordinary arithmetical operations, including common and decimal fractions and the applications of percentage; (3) to understand the basic principles of elementary bookkeeping.

The first two of these branches, English and arithmetic, are always pursued thruout the grammar grades, and, if the curriculum is properly interpreted in the light of modern pedagogy, the study of English will develop a love for the treasures of literature, so that if successful later on in life a business-man may rejoice, not simply in the possession of a fine library of the world's masterpieces well bound and kept in elaborate bookcases, but that he may be inspired by their true literary value and have an appreciative knowledge of their real worth.

The second of the trivium, arithmetic, must include a knowledge of the best of the short methods, not the arithmetical conundrums and mathematical mysteries of the vaudeville lightning calculator, but the sensible "short-cuts" constantly used in every up-to-date concern. All work in arithmetic must also be characterized by a thoroness which shall be complete and satisfying. The limits of my time do not permit further discussion of the whole topic. Let me, in conclusion, state a few of the truisms which are demanded by commercial education of the proper sort in both elementary and high schools.

1. If the pupil is not to pursue in a high school advanced commercial training, he should at the age of ten commence his work in business preparation. Most of the elementary studies will be found helpful, and the last year before graduation he should be especially prepared for mercantile life.

2. If he is to go to the high school, fourteen years is the proper age for beginning such special business subjects as typewriting, phonography, etc.

3. The work in English must be constant and progressive, and its aims both structural and cultural.

4. The choice of a foreign language will vary in different parts of our country. For the next few years Spanish will probably be the most necessary.

5. The work in mathematics should be based on a sound foundation of practical arithmetic, and should include algebra thru quadratics, and plane geometry.

6. The class indicated as (a) will certainly require a knowledge of typewriting and phonography, but the class indicated as (b) should take the same studies as supplementary subjects.

7. Thoroness must characterize the work done in every study, as the business-man always insists upon high standards.