EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY. 443 



should in some way be systematically garnered and so treasured that 

 the rising generation shall have access to them. Our universities also 

 comprise an assemblage of men of expert knowledge who would, many 

 of them, greatly profit by being brought into closer touch with the 

 world of affairs about them. The advance of the university into the 

 field of higher commercial education can only be made successful by 

 devising means of bringing the university into closer contact with the 

 industrial and commercial institutions of the country. This is de- 

 sirable not only for the sake of keeping the learning of the university 

 from becoming stagnant with antiquated knowledge and to permit the 

 rendering of the most effective service, but is necessary to prevent any 

 serious hiatus between the academic life of the student and his later 

 business career. The task of those interested in the advancement of 

 commercial education appears to be a two-fold one; to prepare the 

 necessary course of instruction, and to obtain from the business com- 

 munity the close sympathy and cooperation essential to the achieve- 

 ment of any large success. 



The course of instruction finally adopted will necessarily be framed 

 to correspond with the ideal which is formed of the business man as a 

 person of power and knowledge. In the forming of this ideal there 

 is need of much discriminating observation. All will agree upon the 

 need of honesty and dependability and a certain complement of attrac- 

 tive personal qualities, and tenacity of purpose, and fertility of resource, 

 which is closely allied to it. There is required also executive ability, 

 a most complex manifestation of the personality involving character 

 as well as rapid mental processes and the power to subordinate detail 

 and quickly choose the vital points of a matter. The business man has 

 constant need of the power to judge men, and of retentiveness of mem- 

 ory, together with that healthful working together of all the powers 

 of mind involved in good judgment or common sense. The question 

 must be answered. How in the choice of these and other characteristics 

 does the educational problem of the future business man differ from 

 the education of the man who is to get ahead in other walks of life? 

 So far as this problem of evoking the latent powers of mind and heart 

 is concerned, more undoubtedly depends upon the environment of the 

 student's life, the ideals held before him, the methods of teaching, and 

 the care taken to cultivate his powers of initiative, than upon the spe- 

 cific things studied. It may be suspicioned that courses of higher com- 

 mercial education which differ in no particular from other university 

 courses, except in the choice of studies, are half-hearted attempts at the 

 solution of a new problem the real difficulties of which are not ap- 

 preciated. 



Turning to the subject-matter composing the courses in higher com- 

 mercial education, provided by some fifteen of our larger universities, 

 we find the most prominent place among the studies designed to give 



