TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 88") 



2. On School Curricula with Special Reference to Commercial 



Education. 



i. By J. L. Paton, M.A. 

 1. Special Commercial Schools Undesirable. 



Whether it be medicine, law, the Church, or commerce, or even schoolmaster- 

 ing, it is hardly fair to earmark a hoy at the age of ten, or perhaps younger, for 

 this or that particular walk in life. Up till the age of fifteen every school 

 ought to be what Ruskin calls a ' discovering school,' finding out for what a boy 

 is best fitted. Specialised classes there must be, every secondary school must 

 bifurcate towards the top, but such classes should be put as late as possible, not as 

 early. 



2. Not Manual Dexterity but. Mental Discipline. 



By ' education for commercial professions ' is meant an education not only 

 unmistakably secondary, but super-secondary; that is, based on a sound general 

 education of a secondary grade. Up to the age of fifteen or sixteen— that is, up to 

 the standard which is represented, at the very lowest, by Honours in the Junior 

 Oxford and Cambridge Locals— the thing ' commercial education ' should not be 

 80 much as named. 



3. Character and Scope of Foundation Studies. 



The mode or the method is the most important thing in these earlier stages. 

 The mother tongue is not taught as well as it should be. Two things need to be 

 insisted on : (1) Clear articulation, with some differentiation of the various vowel 

 sounds,too apt to be lost in an indiscriminate er-sound; (2) The proper formation 

 and management of sentences. 



Again, in modern languages we must discard the heavy classical method of 

 grammar and exercise. Sound must come first. Speech cannot be articulated till 

 the vocal organs have learned to form the component sounds. 



We will suppose now that our boy has passed through this stagc,_ thathe has a 

 fair equipment in English, in one modern language at any rate, in arithmetic, 

 geometry, and algebra, in the history of his country, and the geography of the chief 

 countries of the world ; also some elementary and practical knowledge of drawing, 

 mensuration, physics, and, perhaps, chemistry, if Latin too, so much the better. 

 W^e pass now to" the commercial department, the specific preparatiou for commerce. 

 We assume that, ' in whatever matters it is our duty to act, those matters it is 

 also our duty to study.' How do we set about it? 



4. Specific Preparation for Commerce. 



The first subject in which specialisation is possible is Arithmetic. This must 

 begin, if it has liot begim already, with thorough drill in the metric system and 

 the monetary systems, the weights and measures of other countries with which 

 England trades. The next thing is to learn the decimalisation of English money, 

 and therewith all manner of rapid and abridged processes of calciUation. Closely 

 in touch with arithmetic, and taught by the same master, must go commercial 

 knowledge— questions of freight and navigation, insurance and tariffs, companies, 

 shares, computation of annuities, mortgage loans, the elements of banking and 

 bills of exchange ; how debts incurred in London may be extinguished in 

 Hamburg, the rate of exchange, and difference between gold and silver standards 

 of currency. Systematic instruction in these thmgs will involve the working out 

 of practical problems by arithmetic at every step, and care must be taken that 

 there is plenty of mental computation. , The terms used must be made real as 

 much as possible by reference to actual reports of commerce and current news- 

 papers, also by visits to the Docks, to the Clearing House, to the Mint, to large 

 commercial and industrial houses. Clt-arly this is not a matter of text-book 



