SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E™. 421 
AFTERNOON. 
Discussion on The Means of Co-operation between Industry and Educational 
Institutions in promoting the Training of Managers. (Chairman: The 
Rt. Hon. The Viscount LEVERHULME) :— 
Dr. J. A. Bowir.—The Manchester Experiment. 
A University School of Business must cultivate and maintain the closest contact 
with the world it serves. The need for such co-operation is generally admitted, but 
achievement lags far behind. No Government report in recent years that touched 
on the question of education for industry has failed to draw emphatic attention both 
to the need for intimate co-operation and to our obvious failure to achieve it. The 
essential reason for this lies in the existence of an educational tradition which finds 
the new methods necessary very little to its taste. The resultant lack of vocational 
opportunity at all leaving stages in the educational system is widely deplored. 
Can this admitted defect be remedied? I shall not attempt in this short paper 
to deal with general questions, but merely to throw open for consideration and criticism 
the actual developments in this direction that have been made by the Department 
of Industrial Administration, Manchester. - 
First, co-operation with industry, to be effective and continuous, must be explicitly 
organised. Second, it is for the School to take the initiative, and to invite and organise 
its contacts, preferably by setting up definite machinery for this purpose. The forms 
of co-operation may consist of (a) study-visits to industrial establishments ; (b) inves- 
tigation work in actual businesses ; (c) periods spent in actual employment ; (d) lec- 
tures by business men on special problems ; (e) placement of students ; (f) research 
work in conjunction with committees of business men ; (g) contacts through advisory 
committees of business men, and (h) teaching methods. 
An account was given of how these contacts had been developed in Manchester, 
and a comparison made with the practice of some of the more important University 
Schools of Business in America. 
M. Prerre Jotty.—The Paris Experiment. 
Economic evolution has raised business administration to a degree of complexity 
in which success demands a perfectly qualified higher staff. This can only be provided 
by intimate collaboration between the school, the shop, the factory and the bank. 
Unlike British and American Chambers of Commerce, French Chambers hold 
themselves responsible for providing facilities for industrial education. Although 
already controlling twenty-two technical educational establishments, serving 6,000 
students, there was still a felt need for a school for heads or “ staff officers,’’ which 
was launched, after careful preparation, in 1930. 
This consists of two parts, the Business Preparation Centre, which is a French 
counterpart of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, instructing 
by means of the ‘ case system,’ using the ‘ deductive ’ method. 
Variants of the ‘ case system.’ ; 
Case material provided by the second section of the organisation, 7.e. the Bureau 
of Industrial and Commercial Research. 
Description of methods of obtaining material and of overcoming resistances. 
The importance of careful selection of teaching staff. Those at the Business 
Preparation Centre have practical business experience in addition to University degrees. 
It is important that such schools should be administered by business men. The 
Paris School is under the direction of a board including only members of the Paris 
Chamber of Commerce. 
Prof. M. P. McNair.—The Harvard Experiment. 
Prof. P. Sarcant Frorence.—The Birmingham Plan. 
The value of university teaching, experience and selection in providing managers 
for rationalised business. Commerce as a university subject can be made to combine 
