credits, ever increasing in technical elaborateness; of transportation, which as a single factor oftentimes makes or ruins. an industry; and, finally, of the position of labor, its methods of organization, its demands, and the experiments by which the friction between the employer and the laborer has been reduced. All of these are practical questions. Whatever theory the business man may hold as to the ideal solution of these problems and whatever he may think as to the wisdom or foolishness of economic theory, he will run up against a "condition"; and the knowledge of this condition must necessarily help to prevent loss or ultimate failure. One of the reasons why the trust formation of business in recent years is being so generally seized upon is that the individual does not have the needed wisdom and skill to meet the new conditions. He has felt the necessity of a refuge in a combination where numbers will be a supporting strength.

The second question concerns the practicability of providing, in an educational institution, a young man of college age with a knowledge of the subjects referred to. Here it is necessary to dismiss peremptorily any suggestion that a student can be made an entrepreneur by college training. No more can an engineer or an architect be made within a college or school of technology. The young man is graduated a Bachelor of Science, but the attainment of the more special title depends upon the personal equation and practical experience. The school can only prepare the student for commercial life as it prepares the student to be an engineer. The details of this commercial education must be worked out by experience; and, while no clear answer in regard to the exact character of a curriculum can be given, there need be no discouragement when it is remembered that the difficulties which faced engineering education thirty

or forty years ago in this country were very great. There was then no agreement as to what subjects should be taught; and, as for text-books, they had to be created from the slow accumulation of class-room notes. Engineering education as it is found to-day has been a matter of growth and experiment. It must be the same with commercial education; but, at the outset, without any desire to pre-determine the entire character of such a course, the following topics may be suggested :

In the first place the student should be informed in regard to certain commercial processes. Here may be

included:

(a) Accounting, including the theory of book-keeping and the reading of accounts of manufacturing, banking, railway, and municipal corporations. To this should be added exercises as to the practice of audit.

(b) Systems of weights and measures of different countries.

(c) Coinage and banking systems in the United States and in the principal countries with which the United States carries on foreign trade.

(d) The theory of domestic and foreign exchange, including arbitrage.

(e) Nature of notes, stocks, and bank securities, considered as investments or as collateral for credit transactions.

(f) Produce and stock exchanges and their operations. (g) Transportation, railway and ocean, including a consideration of the elements which determine the making of

rates.

(h) Customs regulations of different countries, including tariffs and methods of bonding.

(i) The organization of capital either under partnership or corporate form.

(j) Descriptive accounts of systems of taxation in the United States and the principal countries of the world.

(k) Commercial statistics, the scope of consular reports and the reports of boards of trade and chambers of commerce, with some information in regard to the more important trade journals.

In the second place it should be observed that, although the young man whom we are especially considering is primarily engaged in distributing goods, his interests are most intimately interlocked with the producer in the field of manufactures. It is essential that he should be able to talk intelligently with his associates who are engaged in the more distinctively productive processes in regard to problems of common interest which will inevitably arise in the successful carrying on and development of a business enterprise. To meet this need, he requires to be instructed in regard to the nature of machinery and the chemistry of the more important industrial products.

It is not to be supposed that the student will proceed far enough, in either of the lines referred to, to justify undertaking, as an expert, either engineering or chemical work. It is desirable, however, that this business man whom we are considering should be able to understand the different elements of machinery, should appreciate the relation of different parts of an engineering plant, and should be competent to read a machine drawing. This would require a course in mathematics, including a portion of the calculus, projections, and as much descriptive geometry as would be requisite for an elementary course in mechanism. A brief course descriptive of engines might also be added. On the side of physics and chemistry it is desirable that this student should have special work in industrial chemistry, which

would include the discussion of such topics as illuminants, lime, mortar, and cement, building stones, paints, varnish, oils, explosives, gas, and electro-metallurgy. It is because of these needs, as it appears to me, that this new commercial education can best be given in institutions where there is a generous provision for engineering and scientific instruction. Several colleges now undertaking so-called Commerce Departments are, I believe, making an error in placing the emphasis almost exclusively upon the economic and political studies. The commercial leaders, at least many of them, must be trained in science; and for this reason the scientific school has an obligation and responsibility which it should not shirk.

A third special department of study should include the field of commercial products and geography. Instruction should be afforded in the distribution of raw products throughout the world; and particular emphasis might to advantage be placed upon the products of the Latin-American republics and countries with which the United States. is developing an export trade. Great weight should be given to this instruction. It could well cover two years of time. It should be detailed, and might become one of the culturing studies of the course, as well as an articulated portion of a professional education. In manufactured goods there should be a course of descriptive lectures in regard to the leading manufacturing industries, iron, cotton, wool, and leather.

These topics represent some of the more distinctively technical subjects of a commercial character which may be regarded as common to all kinds of business. Nothing is here said about the advantage of a knowledge of history, international and commercial law, or modern languages. Of

these, and of studies of general culture, there should be as generous an amount as time affords. The course, however, should be specialized and professional in the same sense as courses in civil engineering, architecture, or chemistry. The methods employed should be precise and disciplinary. For some of the departments of instruction, specialists would have to be brought in from the active business world. In particular there would be required experts in banking, export trade, railway management and finance, and commercial law.

ness.

In the final curriculum offered there should obviously be an opportunity for following out special branches of busiThe commercial side of railway management, the profession of banking in the larger sense which is so intimately associated with the establishment of new companies, and the business of exporting, all present attractive fields for specialization. The varieties of business are many, and the details must be learned by actual experience. The youth, however, who has a taste for commercial affairs, and who devotes himself persistently to a curriculum which includes the studies suggested, will not only find his way made easier, his progress more rapid, but will be able to contribute a large measure of benefit to the better solution. of the troublesome problems of business organization.

DAVIS R. DEWEY.